Justice S.K. Kaul expressed concerns about the “increasing trend of people bringing every minor issue to the Supreme Court, asking if the court should be scrutinising every aspect of films, books, and artworks”.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday, July 21, dismissed a petition seeking the cancellation of the censor certificate granted to Adipurush, observing that the court cannot interfere with film certifications based on the “sensitivities of each individual”.
The film – based on the Ramayana – has received a cold reception from critics and fans alike, with many protesting against its dialogues and for deviating from the mythology. Petitions have been filed against it in several high courts, with the Allahabad high court slamming the makers of the movie “testing the tolerance” of Hindus.
The Supreme Court bench of Justices S.K. Kaul and Sudhanshu Dhulia on Friday dismissed the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate Mamta Rani, saying that Adipurush‘s portrayal of Hindu deities “violated the statutory provisions outlined in Section 5B of the Cinematograph Act, 1952”.
According to LiveLaw, Justice Kaul expressed concerns about the “increasing trend of people bringing every minor issue to the Supreme Court, asking if the court should be scrutinising every aspect of films, books, and artworks”. The judge – who delivered landmark verdicts in the past, upholding the rights of artists M.F. Husain and author Perumal Murugan – said there should be a certain level of tolerance towards creative representations. He said:
“Why should we entertain this under [Article] 32 [which gives citizens the right to seek constitutional remedy from the Supreme Court]? The Cinematography Act provides for the method to get [a] certificate. Everybody now is touchy about everything. Every time they will come before the Supreme Court for it. Is everything to be scrutinised by us? The level of tolerance for films, books, paintings keeps on getting down. Now people are hurt maybe sometimes genuinely, maybe sometimes not. But we will not under Article 32 start entertaining them.”
While the petitioner argued that the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) did not adhere to the required guidelines before granting the clearance, the bench was reluctant to entertain the PIL, according to LiveLaw.
In the order, Justice Kaul said that cinematographic representations “may not be an exact replica of religious texts and that artistic freedom must be balanced with limits”. He said:
“We may say this at the inception itself that cinematographic representations may not be the exact replica of text. There has to be a certain play. However, so that the play does not go beyond a certain limit, a body has been constituted to look into these aspects. In the present case, the certificate was issued by that body and there has been certain modifications made after that too.”
If the Supreme Court interferes based on the sensitivities of each person, it would not “become some kind of an appellate authority for the censor board.”
In a separate matter, the top court also granted interim relief to the makers of Adipurush. It stayed the proceedings against the film in various high courts and issued notice on a transfer petition and a special leave petition filed by the producer, according to LiveLaw.
A petition filed before the Allahabad HC sought a ban on the movie for “hurting the sentiments of Hindus” by “destroying their fundamental values and characters” and modifying the “basic structure” of Valmiki Ramayana.
The court sought the personal presence of the movie’s director (Om Raut), producer (Bhushan Kumar) and dialogue writer (Manoj Muntashir) for an “explanation” and posted the matter to July 27.
Other petitions have been filed in the Rajasthan, Punjab & Haryana and Allahabad high courts seeking to ban the movie and quash the CBFC certification granted to it.
Over the last few years, Telugu film producers have been specifically asking filmmakers to come up with scripts that would work well in north Indian states, where the BJP’s Hindu nationalist politics resonates deeply with the public.
The overt right-wing slide of Telugu cinema became a topic of political debate when Telangana minister K.T. Rama Rao said that Prabhas’s Adipurush, a retelling of Ramayana, was one of many films being made to peddle the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)’s propaganda.
“The BJP has come up with a strategy to combine nationalism and communalism … They won’t directly fund those movies. Many times we don’t even understand those movies. Uri, The Kashmir Files, Adipurush, etc. How come their timing is so convenient? It’s because BJP is working in a multi-faceted way to make this happen,” KTR had said in April, in an interview to a TV channel.
Speculation about their funding aside, there has indeed been a clear shift towards hyper-nationalistic and jingoistic narratives in the films churned out by the Telugu industry lately. One reason for this is pure economics. The huge profits earned by films such as The Kashmir Files and The Kerala Story despite being made on a shoestring budget indicate that there is a market for such films, which Telugu filmmakers are also looking to exploit.
Telugu filmmakers whom TNM spoke to said that a few producers have been specifically asking them to make films with elements that would work well in north Indian states too, where the BJP’s Hindu nationalist politics resonates deeply with the public.
Saffronising Tollywood
Along with actors like Prabhas, Allu Arjun, Ram Charan, and Jr NTR who have earned the tag of ‘pan-Indian’ stars, there has been the curious case of another actor in Telugu cinema – Nikhil Siddhartha – who has managed to build an impressive fanbase in the Hindi belt. Nikhil is way less popular than stars like Prabhas, with barely five or six hit films in his career (all mid-budget ones). Yet, he has managed to bag the title of a ‘pan-Indian’ star, mainly by capitalising on Hindutva sentiments.
Following the success of Karthikeya 2 (2022), Nikhil and the film’s producers have doubled down on making more films that could strike a chord with the core Hindutva constituency of the BJP, such as Spy (2023) and the upcoming The India House. Karthikeya 2, which was dubbed in Hindi too, had a bullish run at the box office and was listed among the more profitable films along with the brazenly propagandist The Kashmir Files in 2022. The Kashmir Files was accused by many of perpetuating a skewed narrative around Kashmir, by dwelling on the suffering of Kashmiri Pandits alone while delegitimising the pain of Kashmiri Muslims and vilifying them.
Karthikeya 2 released the same week as Bollywood star Aamir Khan’s Laal Singh Chaddha. But Aamir’s star power was no match for Nikhil’s film, which had all the elements to lure the Hindutva crowd. Meanwhile, Laal Singh Chaddha faced threats of boycotts from right-wing groups for allegedly ‘hurting Hindu sentiments’ and ‘disrespecting the Indian Army’.
Directed by Chandoo Mondeti, Karthikeya 2 portrays the birth of the Hindu god Krishna as actual history and not mythology. The film was made at a time when the controversy around the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi gained fresh life in 2021, after a Varanasi court allowed a video survey of the mosque based on a plea by Hindu devotees seeking permission to offer prayers inside the mosque complex, claiming that it housed Hindu deities. Incidentally, minister KTR had said that he expected the release of Adipurush to coincide with the opening of the Ram Temple at Ayodhya. While this did not happen, the teaser of the film was launched in Ayodhya.
Through its narrative, Karthikeya 2 portrays the Hindu deity Krishna as a doctor, climatologist, kinetic engineer, psychologist, and musician among other things, aping the views expressed by people like Garikapati Narasimha Rao. Garikapati Narasimha Rao is a popular figure among the Telugu privileged castes who offers Hindu discourses, and in his quest to appeal to young people, he often presents Hinduism as ‘science’.
Nikhil, who has since become the face of Telugu right-wing films, recently released another film titled Spy, directed by Garry BH. The film was marketed by promising to reveal ‘hidden secrets’ around Indian nationalist Subhash Chandra Bose’s mysterious death, a conspiracy theory expected to pique the curiosity of the right wing. Nikhil is now making a film called The India House, named after the base of Veer Savarkar’s activities in London. The film is co-produced by Abhishek Agarwal Arts, the production house behind The Kashmir Files and Karthikeya 2, and Ram Charan’s newly launched production house V Mega Pictures. Ram Charan’s RRR, which achieved global success, was also criticised by many for endorsing Hindutva majoritarian politics through symbolism from Hindu mythology and other narrative aspects.
Market forces, political powers
“It is the market and capital which determines what kind of films should be made. At present, across the country there is a nationalistic, jingoistic, and communal fervour, which the Telugu filmmakers want to exploit,” says senior Telugu film critic and journalist Bharadwaja Rangavajhala.
While Nikhil has become the overt face of right-wing films with ‘pan-Indian’ success, there have been other films such as Jawaan (2017), RRR (2022), Major (2022), Acharya (2022), and others which have also milked the prevailing popular sentiment.
“Rajamouli’s RRR was an outright Hindutva film. The freedom fighters Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem were turned into Hindu gods Rama and Hanuman so that the film would work well across India. Rajamouli realised that there was a market for such films and encashed it,” says Bharadwaja.
In RRR’s ‘Etthara Jenda’ song, a tribute to Indian freedom fighters, the absence of Gandhi and Nehru was conspicuous. Rajamouli’s father Vijayendra Prasad, who was the writer of the film, said that it was a deliberate decision. Speaking about Gandhi advocating for Nehru over Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel to be made India’s first prime minister, Vijayendra Prasad said, “If Patel was [made PM], Kashmir would not have been burning like a ‘Ravana kashtam’ (Ravana’s funeral pyre).”
This narrative aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s views on the issue as expressed in the parliament back in 2018. However, recorded history indicates that Patel’s views on Kashmir were not as straightforward, and there is no definitive record of how he planned to handle the issue.
The BJP meeting Telugu film stars as part of their political outreach efforts is also a testimony to the proximity and the interests shared between the two. Vijayendra Prasad, who is now also a Rajya Sabha MP nominated by the President, has announced that he will be writing a film and web series glorifying the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological parent of the BJP. Showering praise on the RSS while speaking at a book launch event of RSS National Executive Member Ram Madhav, Vijayendra Prasad said that he was roped in to write a film about three to four years earlier (after the Baahubali films had become hugely successful).
“I would like to confess something in front of you all. Until three or four years ago, I didn’t know much about the RSS. Like many others, I believed that they killed Gandhi. But four years ago, they asked me to write a film on RSS. As I was being paid for it, I went to Nagpur and met [RSS chief] Mohan Bhagwat. I stayed there for a day and understood for the first time what RSS is. I felt a lot of remorse, that I wasn’t aware of such a great organisation for so long.” He went on to say, “If RSS wasn’t there, there would be no Kashmir, it would’ve merged with Pakistan. Lakhs of Hindus would have died due to Pakistan.”
S.S. Rajamouli (left) and Vijayendra Prasad (right). Photos: Rajamouli (Wikimedia Commons), Prasad (Screengrab via YouTube video/Open Hear with RK).
Rajamouli praised his father’s script of the RSS film in an interview with The New Yorker, saying it made him cry as it was very emotional. However, he said he was unsure about the political implications of such a film.
Vijayendra Prasad has been called on to write films not just by RSS but even by BJP leaders. Since The Kashmir Files was released, former president of BJP’s Telangana unit Bandi Sanjay Kumar has talked about a film titled The Razakar Files in the making, which would depict the atrocities of Razakars – a private militia that committed several atrocities and defended the Nizam rule. Bandi Sanjay has also reportedly approached Vijayendra Prasad to write this film.
The (un)changing course of Telugu cinema
In the 1930s, Telugu cinema mirrored the social reform politics that defined Indian nationalism before independence. Gudavalli Ramabrahmam, who is credited as a pioneer in Telugu cinema, made two classic films – Mala Pilla (A Girl from the Mala Scheduled Caste) in 1938, and Raithu Bidda (Farmer of Common Origins) in 1939.
Mala Pilla was a film that addressed caste discrimination, and Raithu Bidda was a critique of zamindars’ exploitation. Both these films were reformist in nature with influences from Gandhian nationalism, writes S.V. Srinivas, Professor of Film and Cultural Studies at Azim Premji University, in his book Politics as Performance: A Social History of Telugu Cinema. How did a film industry which once produced anti-caste films, and propagated Gandhian and communist ideologies, turn towards the right wing?
“The Telugu film industry has always been capitalistic in nature. It appropriated whatever sentiment was working for it. They even made communist films [particularly in the 1990s] because the masses enjoyed such films and songs. They simply moved away when the Left movement saw a decline. Now the film industry inclining towards the right wing is not unsurprising. They have found a market and are using it,” says Swamy* (name changed), an upcoming filmmaker.
Srinivas Kondra, a Ph.D. scholar at the English and Foreign Languages University in Hyderabad, says that the lack of a large, influential social movement like the Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu is also among the reasons for the current crisis in Telugu cinema. “There is some resistance in Tamil Nadu, where many people view Hindu propaganda films critically. Because of caste consciousness, they are able to look at the Hindu religion critically, and question [such propaganda]. In Andhra Pradesh, there were movements around class, but not effective ones against caste,” he notes.
A Telugu director speaking on the condition of anonymity said, “There are producers who are specifically asking directors to come up with stories or elements which would click with audiences in other parts of the country too. They want films which would capture the prevailing right-wing sentiment.”
Prabhas’s Adipurush, based on the Hindu epic Ramayana, was one such project which tried to exploit this market. The film, which was released in five languages (Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam and Kannada) failed at impressing the audience because of poor storytelling, appalling visual effects and terrible dialogues.
Despite leaning towards the Hindu right-wing, so far, the Telugu film industry has not produced any film which has vilified Muslims the way that The Kashmir Files or The Kerala Story does (at least not yet). This is not to say that Muslims were not projected negatively in Telugu films before the BJP was elected to power in 2014.
Krishna Vamsi’s Khadgam (2002) was possibly one of the first Telugu films made in the aftermath of the terror attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001, which employed the good Muslim-bad Muslim binary. In the film, Prakash Raj plays Amjad, an auto driver who is a nationalist. In contrast, his brother Azhar joins a terror outfit and plans a terror attack in Hyderabad. Srikanth plays a police officer who views Muslims with suspicion. Other films released in subsequent years such as Vedam (2010) and Naa Peru Surya, Naa Illu India (2018), which portray radicalised Muslim characters, also had similar narrative elements of including a ‘good Muslim’ and ‘bad Muslim’ in the same family.
“There is not much scope for vilifying Muslims in Telugu cinema through such propaganda films, as the Muslim population in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh is much lower compared to places like Kashmir or Kerala. So, that agenda is unlikely to work,” observes Swamy.
This article first appeared onThe News Minute. Read the original piece here.
The bench of Justices Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Shree Prakash Singh said that the CBFC certifying the movie “was a blunder” and that the film has hurt the sentiments of the people.
New Delhi: After suggesting on Tuesday that Hindus react gently to films with alleged objectionable portrayals of religious figures, the Allahabad high court on Wednesday, June 28, told the makers of Adipurush that if a short documentary on the Quran depicts “wrong things”, “then you will see what will happen”.
The high court is hearing two public interest litigations (PILs) pleas filed against the movie, which is based on the Ramayana. The film has come under fire for its dialogues and for departing from the mythology of Ramayana.
On Tuesday, the court said, “The one who is gentle should be suppressed? Is it so? It is good that [the film] is about a religion, the believers of which did not create any public order problem. We should be thankful. We should be thankful. We saw in the news that some people had gone to cinema halls (where the movie was being shown) and they only forced them to close the hall, they could have done something else as well.”
On Wednesday, the bench of Justices Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Shree Prakash Singh continued to hear the petitions. In oral observations, one of the judges said, according to LiveLaw:
“If we will shut our mouths today then you know what will happen? These incidents are increasing day by day. I saw a movie wherein Lord Shankar was shown running with his Trishul in a very funny manner. Now, these things will be showcased?…The filmmakers earn money as films do business.
Suppose if you make even a short documentary on the Quran, depicting wrong things, then you will see what will happen…However, I may once again clarify that it is not about any one religion. It is by chance that this issue is concerned with Ramayana, otherwise Court belongs to all religions.”
The court directed the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) to submit their personal affidavits, adding that “certifying this movie was a blunder and that it has hurt the sentiments of the people”, according to LiveLaw.
According to the report, the bench questioned the “psyche” of the makers of Adipurush. They said:
“You should not touch Quran, Bible and other sacred texts. We may make it clear that it is not about any one religion. But you should not depict any religion in a bad light. The court has no religion of its own. Our only concern is that the law and order situation should be maintained.”
‘It is good that it (the film ‘Adipurush’) is about a religion, the believers of which did not create any public order problem. We should be thankful.’
New Delhi: The Allahabad high court in Uttar Pradesh has asked the makers of the film Adipurush why they are ‘putting to test the tolerance’ levels of adherents of a particular religion, indicating Hindus.
A bench of Justice Rajesh Singh Chauhan and Justice Shree Prakash Singh also said that Hinduism was a religion “the believers of which did not create any public order problem.”
LiveLaw has reported that the court took a dim view of the film, while hearing a public interest litigation against its dialogues and representation of mythological characters and deities.
The bench appeared to indicate that those irked by the film “could have done something” in addition to the current methods of protest they have adopted.
“The one who is gentle should be suppressed? Is it so? It is good that it is about a religion, the believers of which did not create any public order problem. We should be thankful. We saw in the news that some people had gone to cinema halls (where the movie was being shown) and they only forced them to close the hall, they could have done something else as well,” the bench said.
“If we close our eyes on this issue as well, because it is said that the people of this religion are very tolerant, will you put this [tolerance] to test,” the bench further asked.
The bench also said people were sensitive to religious scriptures, and that they should not be touched or encroached upon. The bench also claimed that the petition was not “propaganda” and that they concerned a genuine issue.
“People recite Ramcharitmanas before leaving their homes,” the bench also said. During the course of the hearing, the bench further noted as to how the deities Hanuman, Ram, Laxman and Sita were depicted “as if they were nothing.”
The bench also refused to acknowledge the role of a disclaimer.
“Do the people who put the disclaimer consider the countrymen, and youth to be brainless? You show Lord Rama, Lord Laxman, Lord Hanuman, Ravana, Lanka and then say it is not Ramayana?” it asked.
The counsel for one of the petitioners, Ranjana Agnihotri, cited that films like PK, Mohalla Assi, and Haider had also hurt sentiments.
The court also allowed the application seeking to implead the dialogue writer of the film Manoj Muntashir Shukla as party respondent in the PIL plea and asked for a notice to be issued to him.
The dialogue writer, being part of the new mobilisation of cultural glory, misunderstood not just the nature of expectation of his audience, but the audience itself.
“Myths turn back into concepts: that is decadence.”
~ E.M. Cioran, A Short History of Decay
The backlash against the newly released popular Hindi film, Adipurush is bristling with ironies. The man facing a mob attack on social media for writing the dialogue of the film was regarded till yesterday an able votary of traditionalist sentiments by those who shared them.
Political logic simmers beneath this irony.
The man has gone too far in the eyes of the same people for tampering with linguistic codes proper to the characters of the epic. Any tampering with epic codes will have an epic backlash, the latter being the new epic of cultural nationalism.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s famous description of the nation as “some ancient palimpsest” has a poetic and philosophical quality to it, where the history of culture and thought is visualised in terms of erasure, and a synthetic quality that retains a measure of multiplicity. It is envisaged that the modern history of the nation is enriched by this layered texture of artistic and intellectual culture.
There is however an element of persistence that can’t be ignored within the meaning of this metaphor. It is the persistence of decadence, of that excess in thought and culture whose time and legitimacy has long disappeared, but which refuses to exit.
The decadence of culture has a painfully new dimension today.
In The Decline of the West, Oswald Spengler contrasted the classical – which he said “died unknowing” – with the modern, where “we know our history” (my italics). Our decadence is marked by our knowledge of the persistence of the dead remnants of culture. Since culture today thrives on daily doses of visibility, we can see and hear the sounds and images that emit the proofs of decadence.
The appeal of the dialogue writer of Adipurush who swears by his cultural heritage that people must accept informal and interpretative versions of the epic is falling on deaf ears because he reduced informal language to street-slang. It was a brash error of judgement to think a populist version of an epic can indulge in crass profanity.
An epic that is part of Hindu mythology can be recreated through western technology, but symbols can’t be fiddled with by infusing western cultural codes.
For instance: replacing the Pushpak Viman with a bat, transforming Ravana (respected as a powerful devotee of Shiva, but despised for abducting Sita) into a bearded devil, and the gold-studded Lanka into a dark dungeon of evil, cross the line of cultural permissibility. To contemporise by depicting the demons in one’s own head into a story whose temporal distance is part of its sacredness is a crude error.
This is precisely what Cioran understood as decadence: when myth is taken out of its context and put into the service of an ideological programme, to serve the purpose of a politically-driven historical project where the self and the enemy are represented as actors in a mythical battle for power. When myth no longer remains myth, losing its meaning, even history no longer remains history but becomes farce.
Any recreation of a Ramayana must make nostalgia acute, and yet consumable. It must exhibit the grand paradox where an epic is both accessible and inaccessible. To make changes in the codes of language, attire and behaviour is to trespass cultural limits.
The conservative audience received a rude shock: since the codes were made too close to everyday life in the present, the sacred became profane.
The cultural sentimentalist erred gravely in his ambition to manipulate the audience by smuggling in a historical image of the idea of evil. The audience, alas, turned out to be more puritan than experimental. This is the crucial space where populist marketing gimmicks must face the test of reception. The writer, being part of the new mobilisation of cultural glory, misunderstood not just the nature of expectation of his audience, but the audience itself.
These are not safe times to play with culture. Those who decry or critique it are as vulnerable to mob attacks as overzealous enthusiasts. When the train of culture enters a complex field dominated by the combination of vanguard, vainglory and vindictiveness, we are no longer talking of culture. It is a communally charged state of culture, a sign of not merely cultural, but political decadence.
Culture has a vigilant, mobile army today. The slightest spark in the inflammable skin of culture can spread all over the body politic and raise a fire alarm. The use of violence in such a scenario (verbal or physical) is exemplary: it is a violence of decadence, a proof against itself, delivered publicly.
The idea of culture in such instances is held to ransom by an organised mob that is both spontaneous and rigidly stable. The mob ensures there cannot be any idea or act of culture that it does not understand. There is a fossilised dictum at play: culture shall interpret you, you can’t interpret culture.
The dialogue writer has naïvely shown his bewilderment on how people he imagined were on his side, his own people, could go against him. All cultural revivalists wrongly imagine a community of shared affectations. Culture is safest in the revivalist industry when it is not allowed to move, or move backwards, towards a nonexistent past. All revivalists suffer another paradox of decadence: they glorify culture by preventing it.
The association with culture is like that of an exotic and sentimental object of possession. Culture dies when it remains exactly the same. The strength of old epics and legends is not one sided. It does not lie only in what they tell us about their time, but how they make us re/imagine ours. Culture is a (critical) conversation. It dies (and stops growing) when it stops speaking to time.
If human imagination can’t tamper with tradition, culture is merely reusable material.
Cioran offers a difficult counsel: “The mistake of those who apprehend decadence is to try to oppose it whereas it must be encouraged: by developing it exhausts itself and permits the advent of other forms.” For now, all that remains as a permanent condition in these times is the groundless fantasy and fear of interpreting culture, the fear of culture itself, fostered by a culture of fear.
Not only did word get out that it is a poorly made film, it also annoyed all manner of people.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
In every theatre showing Adipurush, said to be based on the Ramayana, one seat has been kept reserved for Hanuman. No news yet whether he has flown down and made an appearance at any of these cinemas, but the general audience certainly stayed away. By all accounts, the film, meant to be a grand spectacle, has flopped.
Adipurush is just one more of those films that aim to fit in with the Hindutva narrative. Saffron flags, invocation of ‘enemies of the nation’ and so on are common themes in such productions. Whether they tell contemporary stories (The Kashmir Files) or historical ones (Samrat Prithviraj, Tanhaji), some features are common — twisting the facts to victimise or valorise Hindus and show all Muslims as villainous. Some mangling of history is part of the mix. The Kerala Story shamelessly used a fictitious figure, stating that 32,000 women from the state were brainwashed into joining Islamic State, till the filmmaker was challenged, upon which he quietly reduced the number to three! The same tendency to be economical with the truth applies to the so-called ‘historical’ stories, where the vanquished become the victors, no matter what the history books say. They either do this out of conviction or, more likely, are exploiting what they see as a market trend.
While the film industry always likes to cash in on a trend, it really recognises only one metric to measure if a film works or not — box office results. Many of these Hindutva-oriented films have raked it in, which no doubt has prompted other filmmakers to jump in. But for every The Kashmir Files that scored big time, there are many more that just collapsed, leaving the public underwhelmed. Samrat Prithviraj was a complete disaster, adding to the string of flops delivered by Akshay Kumar, who has been trying to showcase his nationalistic chops.
And now, Adipurush, which should have been a hit in a country where everyone is familiar with the Ramayana, has proved to be a flop. Taran Adarsh, a box office analyst, tweeted that it was an “an EPIC DISAPPOINTMENT”. Turns out that while Indians know the epic and while the ruling dispensation has done its best to turn Rama into an all-India deity, filmgoers do not want to see tacky special effects, cheap dialogues and a story told badly.
Not only did word get out that it is a poorly made film, it also annoyed all manner of people. Nepal was angry that Sita was called a daughter of India, while they claim she hails from Nepal, and the film was banned in the country. The chief priest of Ayodhya demanded that it be banned because it did not represent Ram and others correctly. And audiences in general have found the dialogues cheesy. Barely one week into the film’s release, the writer Manoj Muntashir Shukla said he would change some lines. Clearly, far from pleasing Hindutva loyalists, it has annoyed not just viewers but also Hindu priests. It takes a special skill to put off exactly the target group you want to please.
Ironies apart, what this shows that joining the herd does not work for everyone. At some stage, the law of diminishing returns sets in. At the end of it all, audiences want an entertainer and they rush to see their favourite stars on the screen, whatever their religion. Shah Rukh Khan’s film Pathaan was subjected to all kinds of propaganda, subtle and blatant. Dipika Padukone’s saffron outfit, which she wore for sexy and provocative dances, was criticised for being an affront to Hindu tradition. The filmmakers stood their ground and the film went on to become the biggest commercial hit ever. Samrat Prithviraj was advertised as a saga of the last Hindu Samrat. What could be more in-your-face? It crashed and burned.
Adipurush is crude and tacky and its villain, Lankesh, a version of Ravan, happens to be played by a Muslim, Saif Ali Khan. And yet, the viewers haven’t bothered to see this crass symbolism and rejected it. Hindutva signalling has not saved the film, and nor has Hanuman.
Heavy on special effects and with ideas lifted from American shows and films, this version of Ramayana has nothing new to offer.
That Om Raut’s Adipurush is yet another addition to Hindi cinema’s canon of films championing exclusionary politics – especially in sacred spaces like a movie theatre – is a non-issue. At this point, we’ve seen too many of them in the last few years to muster fresh anger each time. All the talk about Dharm and Adharm, carefully chosen colour temperatures to visually demarcate ‘good’ from ‘evil’, a not-so-subtle invoking of the bhagwa dhwaj (a saffron flag), surrogate characters slyly hinting at the ‘enemies’ of the nation. It’s become normal for a commercial Hindi film. Even if one were to somehow shut one’s senses to the film’s intent, Raut’s adaptation of the Hindu mythological epic, Ramayan, is one of the most tacky, perplexing and derivative attempts.
I kept spotting the most inane things in Raut’s film that were realised using VFX. Like the wound on Surpanakha’s (Tejaswini Pandit) nose – a red blob of pixels looking distractingly false – a net used to take someone captive, or ‘underwater’ sequences in the climax. For something billed as one of the most expensive films ever, I kept wondering how such shoddy work was allowed to pass, and how many of these effects could be achieved practically for a fraction of the cost.
Raut’s earlier film, Tanhaji (2020), was also almost entirely shot on a soundstage using green screens – but that one at least seemed tethered to some form of (heightened) reality, which never seems to be the case with Adipurush. Especially given how inconsistent time and speed feel, where characters like Raghav (Prabhas) and Shesh (Sunny Singh) move as per the contrivances of the screenwriter. Sometimes they’re scampering and keeping up with a deer, and sometimes they’re moving around like other mortals. Especially with Prabhas on screen, it’s mostly happening in slow-motion, so it becomes hard to tell.
It’s understandable Raut wants to take us on a fantastical, VFX-heavy odyssey, so as to visually distinguish his film from the half a dozen adaptations earlier, including Ramanand Sagar’s popular TV show from 1987. However, what remains disconcerting is how much of this latest “interpretation” seems lazily borrowed from Western IPs. Lankesh or Raavan (Saif Ali Khan) resembles the Khal of the Dothraki clan in Game of Thrones; he rides a giant bat seemingly like the dragons of the Targaryens; his army comprises Orcs (probably from Middle Earth) and bloodless zombies (resembling White Walkers). The reference point for Janaki or Sita (Kriti Sanon) seems to be the 1991 version of the Ramayan created by Japanese animators. Key characters like Angad and Sugriva and his vaanar sena are built like in the Planet of the Apes.
The scene in which Lankesh descends in Lanka after abducting Janaki looks like a futuristic garrison in the Dune or Andor universe. Vibhishan (Siddhant Karnick) and Indrajit (Vatsal Seth) are dressed in overcoats like in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Indrajit, especially with his braids and superpower of running incredibly fast, seems inspired from DC’s The Flash (co-incidentally released on the same day as Adipurush) and Marvel’s Quicksilver. In a runtime of nearly 180 minutes, not a single flourish in the film’s (frankly) overwhelming VFX or action scenes feel like it has not been lifted from an American show/film.
Saif Ali Khan as Lankesh. Photo: Screengrab from Adipurush trailer/YouTube.
One would assume a retelling of the Ramayan in 2023 would at least have a fresh point of view. If it borrows its vision so heavily to tell the same old good-vs-evil story most kids know by heart, then does it necessitate being remade at all?
While watching the actors go through the motions, I kept thinking what made them sign the film. Prabhas – who practically concocted the ‘pan-India star’ phenomenon with the Baahubali films – hasn’t seen any success since. If he’s going to play another superhuman role along the lines of Amarendra/Mahendra Bahubali – who better than Lord Ram? To Prabhas’s credit, he brings a physicality to Raghav, especially in tastefully designed action sequences, like when he’s sliding and shooting arrows at thousands of bats descending on him. On the flip side, he often drawls in his speech. At best, Prabhas seems like an actor who thrives on one-word prompts before a scene: “laugh”, “cry”, “smoulder” etc; the effect is, he comes across as unintentionally comical in a few scenes.
Kriti Sanon, who has played a balancing act between commercial films (Dilwale, Housefull 4) and performance-oriented roles (Bareilly Ki Barfi, Mimi), probably saw this as a good career move. The film doesn’t need her to do much, except look worried, shed a tear or two, and mouth unimaginative dialogue (by writer Manoj Muntashir) along the lines of “Your shadow may leave you, but I won’t”. It makes sense for Sanon to participate in a film that doesn’t demand a lot from her ability, but also probably guarantees an upside. Singh, who made a name for himself in Luv Ranjan’s films, carries the expression of bewilderment (probably wondering why he’s being made to react to a tennis ball for the motion-capture sequences) through most of the runtime. Possibly looking to take his next leap, Adipurush is unlikely to do any favours to Singh’s career.
Saif Ali Khan, as Lankesh, is the only one having fun. Khan did something similar in Tanhaji, as Udaybhan, where he chewed the scenery like it was no one’s business. There’s a scene here when Lankesh tries to convince Janaki to forget Raghav – and Khan plays him like someone with dissociative identity disorder (like James McAvoy in Split) and one begins to see the glimmer of potential that Khan probably saw while signing up. Of course, apart from having a film that is widely watched, earns money, and propels Khan’s career for a few more years.
The buck probably stops with director Om Raut, who looks out of his depth handling an epic fantasy of this magnitude. Apart from the lack of good taste in VFX, Raut also makes some staggeringly simplistic choices showcasing ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in binaries. An example: the portions featuring Raghav, Janaki and Shesh seem overly cautious and reverential, while everything about Lanka portions are edgy. Whether it’s Lankesh getting massaged by serpents or women flaunting their curls and cleavage [short-hand for the women in Lanka being promiscuous?].
There’s a moment towards the end when Mandodari (Sonal Chauhan) greets her husband Lankesh in a white saree, right before he steps out to fight Raghav, foreshadowing his doom. It’s a rare commercial Hindi cinema moment that pops, however, it appears in the final stretch when most of us are numbed by the unsophisticated storytelling. It might be fair game to make communal films these days, but politics is the least of Adipurush’s concerns. Raut forgets that for a film to be an effective vessel for propaganda, it needs to keep its audience awake till the end.
The Nepal mayor had earlier demanded that the filmmakers remove a line from the movie where Sita had been referred to as the ‘daughter of India’.
New Delhi: Kathmandu mayor Balendra Shah on Sunday (June 18) said that all movie theatres in Nepal’s capital city must stop screening Bollywood movies. Three days before that, Shah had demanded that the makers of Adipurush remove a line from the movie where Sita had been referred to as the ‘daughter of India’, The Hindu reported.
“Indian film Adipurush had a dialogue claiming Janaki was India’s daughter which is objectionable and we had given three days’ ultimatum to correct it. There is no doubt that it is the first duty of every government, government agency, non-governmental sector and Nepali citizen to protect the national interest by keeping Nepal’s freedom, independence and self-respect intact,” the Kathmandu mayor stated in the Facebook post.
“Three days ago we had called upon the makers of Adipurush to remove the objectionable section that shows Janaki as an Indian woman. Defence of Nepal’s sovereignty, independence, and self-respect is the first duty of all Nepalese governments, non-governmental organisations and Nepalese citizens. No Indian film will be allowed to be screened in the Kathmandu municipality area till the time this objectionable part is removed from the film,” Shah said.
Soon after the ban was announced, Adipurush‘s production company T-Series wrote to the Kathmandu mayor, saying it was “never intentional or deliberate to cause any disharmony for anyone”. “We request you to view the film in its artistic form and support the intention of reaching out to a larger audience to create interest in our history,” the letter signed by Radhika Das from the Super Cassette Industries Private Ltd also known as T-Series states.
Adipurush, released on Friday, contains the dialogue “Janaki is a daughter of India”.
Across the nation, theatres have now said they will not show the movie, Kathmandu Post reported. “Until Monday morning, only Kathmandu and Pokhara had decided to bar screening of the film. Soon other cities–Dharan, Itahari, Janakpur, Dhangadhi, Chitwan–followed suit,” said Manoj Rathi, a film distributor associated with Shree Venkatesh Films, the official distributor of ‘Adipurush’ in Nepal.
The Nepal Motion Picture Association, the organisation of cinema hall owners, is preparing to seek legal action, the report states. “We are confused as to who holds the authority to stop screening of movies that have been passed by the censor board. Are we allowed to run the movies, cleared by the federal government, or not?” said Bhaskar Dhungana, the president of the organisation. “We are preparing to take legal actions to find a proper solution to this issue.”
