KGF: Beyond the Movie
What the franchise means to Kannada Cinema ?
Let’s talk about movies. Not the artsy kind; nothing to do with Kubrik’s camera work, Kurasowa’s subtleties, Wes Anderson’s colour schemes or even Guy Ritchie’s flamboyance. Let’s talk about a movie that would make self-proclaimed cinephiles roll their eyes and scream blasphemy. Let’s talk about KGF.
As I am writing this, the movie has smashed all box office records and is currently second only to Bahubali in numbers. One can infer the genre of a movie when reviews from critics in South Bombay and Delhi are in stark contrast with the collections. Interestingly, respected critics like Bharadwaj Rangan (BR) and Kairam Vashi, who understood the significance of KGF and what it meant to people, downplayed the weak points of the movie.
The movie is what can be described as a perfect amalgamation of two distinct genres - Mass and Masala. Yes, those two are quite different and often confused in popular parlance. The Mass genre typically involves hero-worship, with personalised dialogues and callbacks to the hero's famous acts, where the story and other characters take a backseat. Infamous examples of this genre include the careers of Thalapathy Vijay, Kiccha Sudeep and almost all Marvel movies. Masala, on the other hand, has an eclectic mix of genres, where the story and other characters play an important role and are memorable. Take Sholay for example. The focus is not as much on Amitabh or Dharmender, but on the underlying theme of friendship, mixed with generous servings of romance, action sequences, songs and memorable villains. In KGF, the director has achieved this, balancing Yash's mass appeal (through dialogues and antics), with a mythical, "epic" story. Before getting into the nitty-gritty of what made it click, it is important to understand the context and state of Kannada cinema leading up to the movie.
Kannada film industry a.k.a Sandalwood has always been in a precarious condition. With the State of Karnataka being formed via the unification of parts which belonged to other states, there exists a significant bi-lingual or even tri-lingual population in many districts of the state, with different cultural backgrounds. Many veteran politicians like Devraj Urs and Deve Gowda from the erstwhile Mysore region initially opposed the unification. But that's a different story. From a film producer's point of view, this was catastrophic as her movie did not have any exclusive linguistic advantage over movies from neighbouring states. This would translate to lower returns in case of a clash at the box office, which would ensure a gradual decline in the financing of subsequent movies. It didn't help that the heart of Sandalwood - Gandhinagar is located in the cosmopolitan city of migrants - Bangalore.
Sandalwood's erstwhile superstars like Dr Rajkumar, Vishnuvardhan, ShankarNag and even star directors like Puttana Kanagal bucked this trend and were successful in drawing crowds to cinema halls. Even then, an NTR movie from Andhra would still run to packed theatres in Bellary, Raichur and Kolar, while a similar reception awaited a Kollywood flick from Balachander or Rajini in Bangalore. Adding to this, movies from other states started dubbing their movies into Kannada, taking an even larger share of the pie. Essentially, Kannada cinema survived at the mercy of neighbouring film industries. For example, look at the trend of “festival releases”. A Pongal or Sankranthi big release is a tradition in Tamil Nadu with all the top stars aiming for that coveted date. The same holds for Telugu during Ugadi and Eid/Diwali for Bollywood. Sandalwood on the other hand has not been able to capitalise on a single festival.
It was at this juncture (late 60's) when the veterans of Sandalwood sought refuge in protectionist turf and decided to impose a blanket ban on dubbing from other languages. The reasoning was to protect the jobs of “local” technicians and artists. This "closing down" of Kannada cinema had dire consequences. Maybe it was a sign of the times they lived in - a country chasing a socialist utopia had instilled fear and distrust for markets in the common man. This ban was dubious for many reasons. It was simply unconstitutional as no private organisation has a right to "ban" other movie releases. The ban was put in place because of the producer's old boys club and their Vidhana Soudha lobbying trips. The more ridiculous part about it was that Kannada movies were still being dubbed into other languages! Industry hits like Babruvahana and Mayura enjoyed great runs in Telugu and Malayalam, post dubbing.
The effects of the ban were not immediate. Kannada cinema was more or less thriving in the '60s and early '70s. Immense stardom of veteran Dr Rajkumar, musical genius of Rajan-Nagendra, GK Venkatesh continued to draw patrons to cinema halls. Another factor that contributed to this rise was the fact that many hit movies were direct adaptations of novels from reputed Kannada authors like Bhyrappa, Triveni and Ta Ra Su. But the problem was this "growth" had an upper limit. The lack of competition made producers comfortable with the safe returns in the limited market of Karnataka, leading to intellectual stagnation. The impact of this stagnation was visible in the 80s through technical aspects in its movies sticking to safe, formulaic plots surrounding social issues of dowry, alcoholism, family disputes and the general didacticism of "upholding Indian culture".
By the mid-'80s though, it seemed like things were about to change. A certain dynamism was visible in the dormant streets of Gandhinagar. The young turk Shankar Nag had taken upon himself the task of restoring Sandalwood. The national success of "Malgudi Days", his directorial venture on Doordarshan, shot with a 100% Kannada cast, gave a sense of confidence to filmmakers. It is surprising that Kannada industry didn't even have its own music studio and was dependent on available slots in Madras, leading him to establish Sanket Studios. All these efforts paid off. But just as things were starting to look bright, with Kannada movies registering upticks in both content and technical finesse, the blitzkrieg came to a tragic end, when the star passed away in an accident. If only the filmmakers of the day had idolised Shankar Nag like the AutoRickshaw drivers of Bangalore, we might have had better cinema.
With the star gone, the supposed new wave fizzled out quickly in the 90s and the minds in Gandhinagar became dormant again. This resulted in unholy incest of "remake movies", which started in the late 90s and continued till around late 2015. I must confess that I am personally not against remaking movies, provided the new director can add her style and cultural context of the target audience to the movie. A great example would be Drishyam, where each remake has its subtleties, as beautifully explained by BR here. But the remake epidemic of Kannada cinema was nowhere close. It was intellectual dishonesty at best and outright fraud at worst. Aspiring directors would meet a real estate baron turned wannabe movie producer, scrounge the movie release dates in neighbouring states, catch the Brindavan express or the morning Kachiguda to watch the movie, sign the dubbing rights and quietly return, having committed the perfect crime. The intellectual paucity was appalling and brought a deep sense of shame to Kannada cinema lovers. Adding to this was the assault on our eyes in the form of Ravichandran. His lewd filmography deserves an essay of its own.
One might ask if there were any other choices for the average movie-goer apart from the remakes? Well, it turns out the state of Kannada cinema in that dark era (Late 90's and Oughties) was so bad, that the other alternative was this self-made genre of "Machhu-Longu" (roughly translating to Machetes and swords). The genre was created by Upendra, a widely read director, well versed in international cinema, with his now cult classic gangster movie OM. The movie was well made, with creative use of hitherto unused cinematic devices in Kannada cinema like non-linear flashbacks and creative use of camera filters. The surprise ensured that people (the mass crowd and families alike) accepted the movie due to its direction and labelled Upendra as a "different" director. Unfortunately, this movie opened a can of worms, with the remake types jumping in on the craze to create a slew of third grade, cheap imitations and glorification of the "Underworld" (gangster's world). What puzzles me about this genre is the hero insisting on using the macchu (machete) to fend off rivals. I guess no one thought about bringing a gun to the macchu fight.
With the film industry forming a cartel and stifling the free market of cinema, the consumers were left with no choice, but to endure them. Things began to change around the late 2000s, with the advent of broadband internet. In those early days (early from a mass adoption standpoint), Indians mostly used the internet for two things - torrenting movies or for watching "matter movies" (Google "Mysore Mallige" in incognito). For a frustrated Kannada movie lover, this was enlightenment. The entire world cinema was at our disposal and one could watch the Tamil/Telugu movie in original before the unscrupulous vultures of Gandhinagar remade it in Kannada. I still remember the time when all my friends had the sub-folders: "Tamil", "Telugu", and "Hindi" in the movies folder of their external hard drives. We had a certain sense of inferiority complex. The southern voice is anyways stifled in the national narrative and to be the most unheard amongst them, made it worse.
Thankfully by this time, the Machhu-Longu market had given way to romance, especially the “love failure” genre, heralded by Yograj Bhatt. Even though these movies failed to take Kannada cinema to new levels, at least they gave the industry a fresh breath of talent and most importantly, melodious songs. Then in 2013, came Lucia, a crowd-funded film by a debutante director Pawan Kumar, with a non-star actor which gained international accolades and offered a glimmer of hope to Kannada cinema. This was followed by Rangitaranga, which certainly raised eyebrows and made us think the time has come for Sandalwood. Their emphasis on story over everything else drew people to movie halls. But the momentum did not last long, as this approach was not adopted by mainstream stars of the day, who despite warning signs like dropping success rates and lower footfalls, continued to pander to their cliques of worshipping fan base, dishing out remade Telugu vomits. The failure of the 2010s can be blamed on the leading stars - the buck stops with Darshan, Puneeth and Sudeep, for failing to take any risks that would push them out of their comfort zone. Kannada cinema was in a weird place - with neighbouring Andhra revelling in the success of its original masala movies (Magadheera, Dookudu) Kerala concentrated solely on small budget, content-oriented cinema (22 Female Kottayam, Drishyam) and Tamil Nadu delicately balancing the two (Jigarthanda, Vikram Vedha), Sandalwood was without an identity of its own. To add to this, the so-called dubbing ban was lifted with the competition commission saying it was illegal in the first place. This sounded the death knell. The remake industry had accentuated the culture of unoriginal thinking, leading to a dearth of motivated screenwriters. And now, they are faced with the prospects of competing with a Vijay flick or a Mahesh Babu entertainer releasing in Kannada.
This crisis created an opportunity for new age studios and “outsiders” ( read non Nepotism ) with the Shetty clan (Rakshit Shetty et al) and Simple Suni, started making a foray into the industry with small budget, high-value films. The thing about content-oriented cinema is that it can raise the status of a film industry only if it is produced consistently, in good numbers like in Malayalam. So a brilliant Kirik Party or Ulidavaru Kandante could never carry the industry from the depths it had fallen to.
It was during this inflexion point, entered the young director Prashanth Neel (earlier well-received for his directorial debut Ugramm) with his oddly named KGF. The lead for the movie - Yash was only a few films old and had given decent performances in Kirataka and Drama. His rise to stardom raised eyebrows amongst the old boys club and fans of "senior stars", especially after the self-glorification through his horrendous Mass movie - "Masterpiece". So when Prashanth Neel announced a new movie with Yash, people assumed it was one of those regurgitated “Hero Chalisa” tales. After all, directors and producers making tall claims about their movies, especially at a pre-production level is customary in Gandhinagar. But news soon emerged about the scale of the sets and their purported costs. It was touted as the costliest Kannada movie ever.
A few months before its release, it was announced that it would be a multilingual film with a pan India release. This set tongues wagging across Gandhinagar, with many "senior" people already expressing scepticism and how Yash was punching above his weight. Such was the inferiority complex embedded in Gandhinagar that even the idea of a pan-India movie from Karnataka drew ridicule. To be fair, they did have a point regarding the reach of the actor outside the state. Yash neither had the Bollywood experience of Sudeep nor the film years of Shivrajkumar and was a virtual nobody outside Karnataka. It is here that the production house Hombale films employed their previous experience from election campaigns for the BJP to promote the movies. When it came to being known that KGF Chapter 1 would be clashing with none other than Shah Rukh Khan's Zero, Bollywood analysts wrote it off. How could an "outsider" challenge the Badshah of Bollywood?
But what happened on Dec 20, 2018, was completely off-script. SRK's movie was no match to a masala thriller featuring an “angry young man”. For the first time, a Kannada movie had made national headlines for its successful run at the box office and had somehow managed to blow away a movie with Bollywood A-listers in it. Box office aside, what impressed most viewers was the technical quality of the movie. There was no precedence for such grandeur in terms of the film sets, cast and camera work in Sandalwood. Director Prashant Neel had a great eye for detail, with each object in the frame scrutinised and selected with care to ensure no anachronistic lapses. He had done a great job in recreating the 1970s to the viewer. Neel knew that a high production budget and mass elements alone will have a limited reach. He had managed to create a cinematic universe, a “chosen one arc” for the hero (Anti-Hero) and thriller elements throughout the movie. Ravi Basrur had pulled off a career-defining soundtrack. Added to all these, part-1 ended in a cliffhanger, much like Bahubali, which helped in raising expectations for the second instalment. When KGF-2 came out in April 2022, there were no major Box office clashes (Beast is irrelevant). Shahid Kapoor's Jersey would be put off for 3 weeks, in the wake of this "pan-Indian" movie. The movie had even managed to introduce a term into cinema parlance - Elevation or the "building up" of the lead character. The "elevation" of Yash in KGF-2 was matched with the way the director handled an apt climax, befitting an Anti-hero. Typical of a movie of this genre, there are some problems with the role of the female lead or the lack of it. But that can be forgotten, much like her performance.
One might still ask, what made the movie click in every part of the country. It is baffling when you think that a moviegoer from Kerala or rural Bihar could equally connect with the movie. The answer lies in the clever use of universal themes like "mother-son sentiment", a pan India setup involving the Prime Minister (Raveena Tandon). The fact that such themes have disappeared in mainstream Hindi cinema, despite the significant appetite for them, also contributed to KGF's success. This is not an aberration when you consider how the dubbed versions of Pushpa and RRR had managed to annihilate Bollywood films at the Box office. Bollywood seems to be in a dire state with no answer to the southern onslaught. Years of nepotism and a general disconnect with the audience outside South Bombay has led to rot in the industry. Whether Bollywood can recover its shine is to be seen.
The one group of people who today hold their heads high, along with Kannada movie lovers, are the technicians from the state. For more than four decades, they did not get a platform to showcase their talents. There simply was no producer willing to fund a project of this scale and no actor even thinking of making a pan-India flick. They were stuck taking the same shots, copied from other movies or forced to create something that they knew would be sub-standard. It must be hard watching their peers from neighbouring states rise to national and international acclaim, knowing they had the same potential. In a way, this is a tribute to Shankar Nag, who always wanted to take a film produced by our technicians to a global audience.
For a state with a rich literary heritage, with 8 Jnanpith awardees, and no dearth of master world builders and storytellers, the film industry was a damp squib. Decades of incompetence, and inferiority had made Kannadigas accept defeat, with no hope for the industry. I am not saying that KGF is a panacea to all the problems ailing sandalwood. But the optimist in me believes that this is just the start of good things to come. Hopefully, the future generations of the state won't be ashamed of their movies and maybe even people elsewhere will have a "Kannada" folder in their hard drives. A whole generation of aspiring filmmakers from the state will now grow up with the possibility that they too can succeed big. This is the real achievement of the KGF franchise and this is what auteur-lovers of cinema will never get.