Read the full article on Film Companion, here: http://www.filmcompanion.in/rajinikanth-black-panther-kaala-pa-ranjith-baradwaj-rangan/
In which I try to figure out the irony of a filmmaker who wants say very specific things and yet yields to the generic demands of a star vehicle.
I kept thinking about Black Panther as I watched the teaser for Kaala, the new Pa Ranjith movie starring Rajinikanth. If the former attempts to co-opt a black narrative into the arc of the superhero blockbuster, the latter seems a thematic extension of Kabali, an attempt to co-opt a Dalit narrative into the arc of the Super Star blockbuster. In other words, both films use a “commercial” language to address – or least, glance at – issues that mainstream filmmakers typically do not touch with a bargepole. Both films rest somewhere in the continuum between “it’s high time someone did this” and “is this enough?” (When I speak of Kaala henceforth, it’s not about this particular film, but about the Kabali tradition of filmmaking.)
And the “messages” in both films are compromised by the need to work across a broad cross-section of audiences. US viewers will bring to Black Panther some of the tensions about race that simmer in their backyards. But the viewer in Taiwan or India is just going to turn up for a fun film. Given the budget, the director has to make sure that Black Panther caters to both constituencies. Likewise, those attuned to Pa Ranjith’s politics view his films as sugar-coated bitter pills. More general audiences (like me) may sigh that it’s difficult to make a movie that’s at once sharply political and a general entertainer that won’t ruffle too many feathers. Anthony Lane, the New Yorker’s very white film critic, had this to say in his review of Black Panther: “I wonder what weight of political responsibility can, or should, be laid upon anything that is accompanied by buttered popcorn.”
I bring up Anthony Lane’s whiteness for a reason. The writer/podcaster Carvell Wallace, who is black, reacted very differently. In a New York Times essay titled Why ‘Black Panther’ Is a Defining Moment for Black America, he quotes Jamie Broadnax, the founder of a pop-culture site named Black Girl Nerds. Broadnax observes, quite rightly, that the characters in Black Panther “are rulers of a kingdom, inventors and creators of advanced technology. We’re not dealing with black pain, and black suffering, and black poverty,” which are the topics usually addressed in acclaimed films about the black experience. Similarly, Pa Ranjith’s Dalit characters aren’t the victims we usually get. The most famous line in Kabali (see teaser below) had Rajinikanth proclaiming that he wasn’t the subservient “Kabali character” from earlier Tamil cinema, but a Kabali for a new generation.
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2018 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
MANK
March 8, 2018
That was quite a post based purely on a film’s trailer. Kaala looks more like Rajni’s political ad. i dont think there is going to be too much of Pa Ranjith’s touches here
The films that were vehicles for Dravidian ideology were passionate, rhetoric-filled dramas, not punch line-filled star vehicles
What about MGR films then ?. Or is it that they are very different from Rajni’s films
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sanjana
March 8, 2018
Interesting views. Sugar coated pills or placebos. At the end of it, it will be another rajni film with fans doing their duty to support the film.
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sanjana
March 8, 2018
The difference is that MGR was very fair or looked so in his films and yet his films were lapped up and had more influence on the politics and people. Followed by another fair one, Jayalalitha. In between a Karunanidhi.
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sanjana
March 8, 2018
What I was trying to say is that one need not be dark or flaunt one’s darkness to get the point to the masses in Tamil Nadu. They are flexible and forgiving about these things.
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bart
March 8, 2018
There is no point in making a “Black Friday” that doesn’t find a release. Also the click-stream audience and the spread is very miniscule compared to mainstream cinema amongst the Tamil speaking audience.
a) I would consider these hidden-message driven movies having a “slow poisoning” (or slow elixiring, if you may) effect. They slowly seep-in to the minds of the audience (Just like how Stalking or Aruva-wielding or Smoking, having a positive correlation to societal behaviours). Hence Pa.Ra probably is doing alright here.
b) Making a pure purpose-driven movie is not everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe making a proper masala-mixed-purpose movie is a challenge that few of these directors perhaps relish. So, Pa. Ra might have been going down this path willingly rather than out of circumstances. Maybe this can be looked as an evolution or refinement from Shankar’s, Murugadoss’s ways of sugar coating to the Manikandan’s or Pa.Ranjith’s ways of healthy-sugar coating (say white refined sugar to raw brown sugar).
Even in the Hollywood, a Malcolm X has a very limited reach than a Black Panther. The lighter the message, faster it travels (3*10^8 m/s)..
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Enigma
March 9, 2018
I feel that the celebration of the hero’s blackness or dark complexion stems from deep seated inferiority complex that Tamils have. An interesting contradiction is that on the one hand we have this celebration of blackness but there is also the mocking of people’s dark complexion- think Sivaji, vadivelu, Gowndamani, Senthil comedy, numerous movies where dark girls are made fun off. The fact is that Tamil Nadu is a deeply racist society, the Tamils feel bad about the fact that they are dark – they try to hide that by celebrating blackness, constant references to colour and complexion etc.
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Vivek narain
March 9, 2018
“So what if i’m black, i’ve got a beating heart. I’m your your your admirer”.
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Satyam
March 9, 2018
Extremely insightful piece. Specifically on the Rajini coding in Kabali, and to follow up on your point, I’d argue that the ‘mass superstar’ advances any such politics only upto a point. Eventually the signature of such a star stunts, perhaps even cancels out this more specific charge. I’d even go further — to remain true to such a politics a star can never really become something as universal as a ‘superstar’. Put differently there are actors who become stars with certain kinds of politically charged roles. But then they become superstars by diluting this very foundational moment. To become acceptable to the largest audience, to develop a signature that can transcend the usual audience divisions the (super)star must mean a bit of everything to everyone. In other words the megastar, if you will, is a kind of bourgeois production. In every industry of the world. Even for the ‘mass star’ a certain compact has to be maintained with a bourgeois audience, not least as an economic matter. This is again why the signature has to be diluted. In a way the subliminal message always is — ‘don’t take this too seriously, my heart is in the right place but don’t worry, I won’t rob you of your privileges either, you can keep watching me in the multiplexes’!
But I think there is an even more important reason why the ‘mass superstar’ introduces a blockage of sorts in such an economy (of political signification). The superstar signature is always minimally utopian. It looks ahead to a world where such a division has always already been overcome. That is the normative given of the superstar signature. Even if the star always engages with the specific set of conditions he finds himself in he at the same time operates with the premise that these are ‘accidental’ ones. If he then takes one side or the other he does so in the same provisional sense. There is a ‘knowingness’ attached to this structure. Whoever or whatever causes a disturbance in the moral balance of the world must be confronted. But this is very far from the Marxist paradigm where the world is already arranged in such a way that it makes such ‘redress’ impossible, at least in any permanent sense, without there being a complete overturning of the entire existing order (defined economically, politically, socially, historically and so on). No superstar ever seeks to do this. There is always this promise with some of the imagery or through the dialog but it hardly ever goes beyond this. The ‘mass superstar’ is willing to destroy anything in the world that impedes his notions of ‘fair play’ but the true-blue Marxist wishes to destroy the world itself and remake it anew. Of course I’m not here taking one side or the other, just offering what I think is the actual difference between the two positions. And in this sense too the superstar is like a ‘god’ who exists above it all, who intervenes when he has to, and who then withdraws. The avatar will have been an emergency service for accidents! Of course one could complicate this a bit by examining all kinds of gods.
In any case this is why, at least as I see it, the audience is never too bothered by the political coding in films like Kabali. For those who are invested in Dalit politics the message might be enough. The superstar is giving this group the nod as well (where earlier he might have done the same for all kinds of other disenfranchised identities). For the other side that might not be as sympathetic it’s simply one more universalist high five! There’s no danger that the star is actually turning Dalit (following the same example). And so once again the ‘mass superstar’ isn’t the best vehicle to advance such politics. What does happen however is that such a signature normalizes many of those other underrepresented or at least less valorized identities and makes them a permanent part of the social space. But the parameters of the latter are still bourgeois ones. The compromise is hence a decidedly un-Marxist one. Differently still the superstar might make all the right revolutionary noises but ultimately all he’s really arguing for is a healthier democracy! One could be tempted to say that at least this democracy might be more left-oriented but as the MGR example reveals even this cannot be taken for granted. There are those brands of right-orientation that find it easy to co-opt the Left. In the same Marxist genealogy Zizek suggests that the true idea is one that divides. The superstar possibly enables himself this way in the early stages of his career but then moves very quickly in the direction of institutionalization and hence that greater universality that ‘unites’… at a great cost.
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Ko
March 9, 2018
Interestingly, I was watching the climax of “Django Unchained” in Star Movies today morning.
One of the few rare films, where the filmmaker was able to put the message across convincingly in a highly entertaining film that puts the so called “mass masala moments” of our tamil films to shame.
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Jeyashree
March 9, 2018
“Maybe he’s using Rajinikanth’s appeal to get the clout to make the movies he really wants to make?”
Three cheers for him attempting to do that… I mean I have heard of heroes with an agenda…here is a director with an agenda too…
May be rajini is also using pa.ranjith’s skills in making a certain kind of a movie to advertise for his political entry…I mean two films with and about the downtrodden (recently…not that there weren’t earlier ones) come at a timing when he announces his entry into politics..
As long as the output is worth watching (sincerely hoping kaala is darker and bolder than kabali with fewer star vehicle compromises), this symbiotic relationship between these two people trying to push their own motives sounds fun… atleast pa.ranjith is not the one to write empty headed dialogues like “eppo varuven, epdi varuven” types..
I only hope all this context was not lost in translation when they explained the plot and got nana patekar to sign in… No forgiveness if they beat him to pulp ( figuratively) to pump up the star’s image…
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Uncouth Village Youth
March 9, 2018
Pa.Ranjith’s portrayal of Kabali, was very much an overt expression of Dalit pride. All the plain-hidden cues, were picked up by most, in my friends circle. But then, we are more into politics and movies than the others. Pa.Ranjith is still raw, untamed – in the sense that he wants to push boundaries, on the only holy cow in TN today. He will remain that way, at least till the allure of money cools him down.
We have to accept, that in TFI, caste conflict is/has to be always dressed up and presented as class conflict.Here’s the deal, when portraying castes in TFI – the dalit/lower caste hero can fight a rich guy/corporate/politician, as long as the villain’s caste is not mentioned. If even for a moment, it’s revealed as any one of the dominant castes in TN, the movie will not see the light of the day. I will provide another analogy from the world of politics – had the person who wanted to break EVR’s statues(or for that matter anyone), made the same wish about a prominent nationalist Tamil’s statues(hint: which was gifted a golden armor by the golden lady herself), he would have been expelled by the party and become a political untouchable. Caste is the tinderbox that is waiting to be lit in TN. Lets hope it isn’t, in our lifetimes.Tamil nationalism, Periyarism, Dravidam and a host of other isms can only paper over the cracks so much.
@Bart: You might want to rethink your idea of addressing Pa.Ranjith as Pa.Ra, because Pa.Ra and its variations are used as a code word in Southern TN, to refer certain castes. I don’t get triggered nor am I a PC prude, but I wouldn’t be comfortable using that in the real world, especially when referring to Ranjith..
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brangan
March 9, 2018
Uncouth Village Youth: Pa.Ranjith’s portrayal of Kabali, was very much an overt expression of Dalit pride. All the plain-hidden cues, were picked up by most…
The very fact that these are “hidden cues” means it is not “overt.”
I do not doubt that you picked up on these, but I was talking about a film like Black Panther where everything is laid out for EVERYONE to see — and not just the clued-in ones.
That was the comparison I was making — preaching to the converted (you and your friends) versus talking to everyone, like a Sairat does. The latter film explicitly says that its protagonist is Dalit — i.e. in addition to class issues (rich girl/poor boy), the film is also (explicitly) about caste.
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Pavan
March 9, 2018
A highly personal experience.
When I saw the posters of Kabali, I badly wanted to buy a blazer. Not that no other actor encouraged to do so till then (many of my friends liked blazers after watching Prabhas in his non baahubali avatar) but I was particularly attracted towards them when I watched Rajini in Kabali. I requested my father, he said to wait for the next offer at Brand Factory. I did, and did, and did.
The moment I knew that the whole suit thing was Ranjith’s tribute to B R Ambedkar, I felt purely cheated. I lost my entire interest on owning a blazer or a suit. I said to my father, “No need for a blazer dad. I live in the humid Hyderabad, and I am not a lunatic.” Even today, I find it tough to digest.
Now the question. Judge me however you want to, but answer me. In which way is the director a real culprit? For cutting a teaser that said the story of an arrogant, stylish aged don? Or stressing too much on the dalit context which almost affected the film’s plot fatally? Just think, the “Neruppu Da” song and a crazy fight, and equating Rajinikanth’s throne with the towers behind. Neither honest about the subtext, nor frank about being manipulative. Unforgivable!
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Uncouth Village Youth
March 9, 2018
Fair enough. We can, of course argue about how open/hidden the clues were. Is the Jiva poonool scene open enough? In different words, did the viewers get it instantaneously like some of us did or were they led to the truth by others.
While I picked up almost all the Easter eggs in Madras in my first viewing, I missed a couple from the song “Yenga ooru Madras”(hat tip to Kabilan), which I discovered while I was listening to FM.
கால் பந்து குத்து சண்ட
கேரம் போர்டு கபடி எல்லாம்
எங்களோட வீரம் சொல்லும் விளையாட்டு தான் – look how Chess & Cricket, two typically upper “classte” Chennai pursuits have been replaced by Kaal Panthu(not Football) and Carrom, in spite of Chess & Cricket having authentic Chennai payyans @ the international level. Once I realized this, images of colony kids playing carrom, in the fading sunlight filled in the scene for me. I was left wondering how on earth did I miss this one. So you do have a point there.
I have seen more than a few tweets by pro-caste handles, tag Ranjith and ask him not to turn Kaala into another one of his Dalit pride vehicles. So I take it that, the payload had indeed hit the intended target.
As far as Black Panther is concerned, my very honest opinion(conspiracy theory) is this. Marvel had to do something woke, ever since WW was bank rolled by WB out of it’s CSR budget. So they dusted BP from the shelves, launched it and cashed in on the prevailing anti-Trump mood. The, “Look, I watched BP, I have done my bit to oppose Trump” crowd lapped it up, without any critical reasoning. So the reason for the very existence of BP, are the black moments of the film. A Kabaali/Kaala cannot be directly compared to BP.
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Arun Pradeep
March 9, 2018
Ranjith has been clear of late that his films will always be political, and will always talk politics. He runs the risk of being branded a Dalit filmmaker whose films are only for Dalits — but it’s unfair when you consider that for the longest time, we have had movies, especially those set in rural areas, that hero worship the dominant upper castes. Films like those or filmmakers who made such films weren’t shunned or branded then, it’s only now that films like Muthaiah’s Kodiveeran and Marudhu pick up a lot of rap in the media for their casteist content.
But I think Ranjit has made his peace with the fact that he’ll be branded a Dalit filmmaker if he makes the movies he wants to make.
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harish ram
March 9, 2018
@UncouthVillageYouth : I understand where you’re going with the CSR and capitalising the anti-Trump & Pro-Black momentum. Yet, I take it that BR in his post and the comment here was comparing the movie BP to that of Kabali and not the intentions of Marvel to that of Rajini, the wannabe politician. The milieu does factor in, but the material that the director mounts at that opportune moment surmounts.
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brangan
March 9, 2018
harish ram: Absolutely. One cannot discern intentions with surety. Only the makers really know.
All we can can see is the product itself, and I feel BP is eminently comparable with a Kabali — for what the films try to do and the type of films they are and so forth.
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Vivek narain
March 9, 2018
Whatever, i, for one, am looking forward to seeing out my days in a subterranean hovel making voodoo dolls for both BPP and KKK, in lieu of actually being able to retire and leer at the nurses in a nursing home. At least everyone else will be as miserable and deranged as me!
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Vanya
March 10, 2018
I wish Black Panther had its own post because there was so much to love about the movie — tight writing, an array of interesting characters and almost all of whom were black, flawless performances (Danai Gurira — I was smitten 2 lines in!), multiple non-interchangeable female characters, rich visuals, Göransson and Lamar’s music, etc. I watched it twice in one week, and I’m not the kind of person who watches movies multiple times in the theater. No other Marvel film has appealed to me as much, and I have dutifully watched almost all of them, and it’s because BP strayed so far from the MCU formulae. The only times you were reminded that it was a Marvel film was when the main characters stepped outside Wakanda — when the women become disposable and nameless again (the museum curator, Killmonger’s girlfriend and his mother who’s not even shown). I’d love to go on about the contrast between Killmonger’s world and Wakanda, but it would be way off-topic.
Not that I want to ascribe any noble motives to Marvel, but I don’t get the connection to WW (another movie that enhanced appeal by stepping outside its cinematic universe’s boundaries). Both BP and WW have been in the works for decades, and the resulting movies went on the floors around the same time (2015-ish). Coates began writing for the comics around that time too, which preceded WW’s release and the Trump era. Not sure we need any conspiracy theories here; some movies/comics are enjoyable simply because we finally get a different and well-thought out perspective.
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Aadhy
March 10, 2018
What’s interesting in Ranjith’s movies is that he isn’t really after an ‘us vs them’ sermon like most of the nalla karuthu movies that come out in Tamil cinema. He is more after correcting a misrepresentation of the marginalized community that we’ve been witnessing decade after decade. His stories are about these lives seen through a very sensitive, lived-in pair of eyes. He fills his characters with these lives, so much that his heroes, heroines, sidekicks and even antagonists are all Dalits or people who’ve been disenfranchised in some way. These echoes are closely resonated in Black Panther, where the story is totally about just them , and not really them vs their oppressors, although that thread exists as a sub-layer, as the root cause. But in the movie, we see only these lives and people, as technological forerunners, humans, superheroes, and also powerful antagonists. The only important white character is almost just a sidekick.
Now trying to do this in Tamil cinema is quite tricky because these against-the-established-norm portrayals are easily pushed into art or parallel cinema category, which is the last thing Ranjith would want. He chooses star vehicles for the appeal and reach it carries, and to his luck Tamil audiences have always been fond of the man-taking-on-the-establishment narrative. He tries to merge these two seamlessly, and also with a lot of integrity, which is the thing that sets his movies apart from all the other half-baked hypocritical garbage like Mersal or Velaikaran. I’m not a big fan of any message movie in general, but I find the way Ranjith integrates his politics into his existing mainstream narratives to be fresh and distinct. I’m eagerly hoping you would explore all these more in an interview with him, BR.
Over anything else, I’m becoming a big fan of the way he is making Rajni look, kicking ass with the grey beard, black shirt and veshti. 2.0 can wait, bring on Kaala now! starts headbanging to those electric guitar riffs
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anon
March 10, 2018
“The moment I knew that the whole suit thing was Ranjith’s tribute to B R Ambedkar, I felt purely cheated. I lost my entire interest on owning a blazer or a suit. I said to my father, “No need for a blazer dad. I live in the humid Hyderabad, and I am not a lunatic.” Even today, I find it tough to digest.
Now the question. Judge me however you want to, but answer me. In which way is the director a real culprit? For cutting a teaser that said the story of an arrogant, stylish aged don? Or stressing too much on the dalit context which almost affected the film’s plot fatally? Just think, the “Neruppu Da” song and a crazy fight, and equating Rajinikanth’s throne with the towers behind. Neither honest about the subtext, nor frank about being manipulative. Unforgivable!”
Pavan, am I to understand that you no longer found suits cool because Rajni may have been a dalit in the movie? The director is a culprit because he didn’t explain in a movie trailer exactly what each character is? Tamil films are now honest about being manipulative? Are only Dalit subtext films required to display a disclaimer in scenes saying it might be manipulative? Or does this apply to all? For example, if Mersal claimed that one rate of GST of 28% was applied on all items, would you have liked a disclaimer stating that that was a lie and the scene is meant to manipulate?
Does your anger stem from the fact that dalits are not worth emulating and you got conned into buying a suit (because you are susceptible to stars and what they sell) or something else?
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Pavan
March 10, 2018
anon: Pavan, am I to understand that you no longer found suits cool because Rajni may have been a dalit in the movie?
No. Not really. Even if he had played a upper caste guy in Kabali, the same thing would have happened. My frustration is not about the caste subtext. It is about the marketing. And I am not talking about any other Tamil film made. It is just Kabali, Kabali, Kabali and just Kabali. All my views below are purely restricted to Kabali only.
I found suits cool because of Rajinikanth in Kabali. That is because the teaser, the posters and stills hinted at an unabashed new age gangster epic. But when the real film came out, I found the dalit undertones criminally under explored. The promotional material didn’t hint about anything about that, not even once. If you wanted to show a different Rajinikanth, make a film that’s honest. Make a film that shows him realistic (this is noticeable in the India portions, where there is an undercurrent fear about Kabali’s safety. That he too is a human prone to loss). But the film keeps jumping. Let him do his tricks or let him lose everything and just be an actor. Desire for both at the same time just ruined it for me, me and just me.
See Rajinikanth’s earlier films with political or Dali undertones. They were very clear that the system is being targeted only because our superstar needs a proper villain to face. A larger than life evil to tackle with a larger than life superstar. Like a devil vs deity. But what Kabali did? It wants to be honest about the issues, and it is not. It wants to go the superstar way, and it does not.
Let’s talk about the climax. We get a scene where Kabali is talking to the villain. Shoot out starts and Kabali starts firing. It is Rajinikanth moments out there. It does not feel like Kabali is trying to defend himself in a serious gang war. It seemed like an insurance cover, where Rajinikanth should pop up and do his job. Then the petronaus tower (did I spell it right?) scene comes where Rajini sits in style on a couch which is equated on par with the towers behind. It was very artistic. No doubt a very daring idea to speak of. Then, with such courage, why go for an insurance cover minutes ago?
Finally speaking, if you really want to voice something frankly like this and want a superstar for better reach, be bold if you want the product to be different. I may not be a filmmaker. But I am worthy enough to think, amen’t I? Dalit or not, superstar or not, system bashing or not, action or not, nothing else should be given greater preference than the film making and story telling. Definitely not for a masala film. And Kabali was terribly, terribly, terribly, terribly and…….. terribly disappointing in this case. My brain wanted to name it manipulative and you are free to label it whatever you want to.
Having said that, thank you so much. It is gratifying when someone cares to understand and reply to a comment of a stranger to this place. And even today, not because of Dalits or Rajinikanth, I hate suits because of Kabali the film. That’s why I called it very personal.
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KayKay
March 11, 2018
Good post, Pavan! Totally with you here. Removing myself from discussions on the political agenda and subtext of Ranjith films (of which I confess to having little to no knowledge of, being a born and brought up Malaysian), my first thoughts on seeing the Kaala trailer was:
So, are we in for yet another cosmically (mis) marketed film where all the cool bits are already in a trailer which promises a kick-ass mass appeal Rajini flick but is instead a sombre, reflective and languidly paced drama with a rambling screenplay that doesn’t really know what it wants to be?
Sacrificing entertainment value on the altar of a political or social agenda rarely makes for edifying viewing, neither is forging a weird hybrid of the 2. There may be directors with the film-making savvy to do it, but Ranjith isn’t one of them. And neither is Rajini, for all his clout, able to sell it (Exhibit A: His pet themes of spiritualism shoe-horned into Baba made it borderline unwatchable).
If you aren’t sufficiently awed by “Rajini acting his age” (About damn time, if you ask me!) or interested in mining for subtext in whatever social commentary Ranjith interleaves into the narrative, Kabali is a seat-squirming experience. The tale of an Aging Don seeking redemption for a life of violence by reconnecting with his missing wife may have worked better in Hindi with an Amitabh who’s long since hung up his Superstar Mantle for character driven roles but is an ill-fit for Rajini who is still burdened by the need to be….well, Rajini!
Aadhy, loved your post, but have to respectfully part company with you on “but I find the way Ranjith integrates his politics into his existing mainstream narratives to be fresh and distinct”
In Kabali, specifically, I found it to be haphazardly stitched together with the seams showing.
And as a Malaysian, I found it a trifle annoying that he’d co-opt the plight of the economically disadvantaged minority Indian population here (brought in by the British as the labor class to work the rubber and palm oil plantations and segregated in the estates far from the economic boom of the urban areas and post-Independence, pounded by 50 years of govt policies of preferential treatment to the ethnically majority Malay population) into the narrative and then does fuck-all with it.
Kabali was a case where neither Director nor Star did the other any favors.
I’ll skip the Kaala Express and keep my buttered popcorn warm for 2.0, a movie that will succeed or fail purely on it’s ability to keep me entertained for 2.5 hours….in other words, a RAJINIKANTH FILM.
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brangan
March 11, 2018
KayKay: It’s also about the content vs form debate that has happened so many times in this space.
For me, I don’t care how many “messages” you thrust into your film with signifiers/hidden clues etc., the FORM has to work — i.e. the screenplay has to work, the characters have to work, the storytelling has to work, and then the technical aspects of form (cinematography, editing, staging) have to work.
So I was shocked seeing Kabali — because there was so much all-round slipshod-ness. Especially coming from the man who made Attakathi (easily Ranjith’s best film as a director; he imbues each frame with such a distinct vibe) and Madras (the staging of the pre-interval set piece, the staging of the funeral).
But there are others to whom this doesn’t matter — they only care about WHAT Ranjith is trying to say, not HOW he says it. And you cannot fault them, for they prioritise communication over cinema.
I think it’s good/useful to see comments from both points of view.
From my review…
Ranjith’s filmmaking is different too, and not in a good way. Kabali does have some of his trademarks – the way he introduces characters and their circumstances in a prologue-y rush at the beginning, or the way he uses little flashbacks to fill us in on what really happened. But the life that infused his earlier films is missing. The directorial confidence is no longer visible. You sense uncertainty, cautiousness. Kabali doesn’t have the lovely rhythms of Attakathi or Madras, where Ranjith gave us a sense of life being lived with micro-shots of people just… being. Here everything is a full-fledged scene. There are no moments. This isn’t to say Ranjith is coasting. He’s still trying to stage scenes. A scene where someone tries to assassinate Kabali could have just been about the assassination but the way Ranjith stages it carries an element of surrealism. But yet again, it works better on paper than on screen. The film doesn’t look very good either
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KayKay
March 11, 2018
I heartily share your enthusiasm for Black Panther, Vanya! I too caught it twice in a week.
And I too think this whole idea of BP’s success attributed to anti-Trump sentiments is a whole lot of hogwash (it just grossed 1bn worldwide, and I seriously doubt if it’s that big a deal for the cine-going public in Europe and Asia that an illiterate moron sits in the White House). Not to mention that the blueprint for Phase1,2 and 3 of the MCU was planned years in advance. T’Challa was introduced in Cap America 3 2 years ago and Ulysses Klaue a year before that in Avengers Age of Ultron.
Black Panther’s success in my humble opinion is due to it capturing the precise mood of the zeitgeist at this particular moment in time. Arriving after a year of #BlackLivesMatter, #OscarsSoWhite, and right after #MeeToo and #TimesUp, Black Panther is seemingly Marvel’s long-delayed apology for relegating it’s current 2 black Avengers as the Best Friend and Sidekick to Iron man and Captain America respectively, for STILL not giving Black Widow a stand-alone movie (especially in the wake of much-maligned rivals DC having stolen the march by giving the world a billion grossing superhero movie starring and directed by a woman who Marvel incidentally fired from Thor: The Dark World) and for the white-washing of a character that’s actually a Tibetan monk in Dr. Strange.
Black Panther revels in it’s ….blackness. It practically explodes with vibrant colors, is steeped in African folklore and the soundtrack pulses to tribal chants and drum beats. It looks, sounds and feels refreshingly different from the usual crop of MCU flicks that look like they have the same technical crew working on all of them. It’s largely black cast is up front and centre with the White Bilbo and Gollum being relegated to Sidekick and Devious 2nd Baddie (a refreshing reversal of a standard Hollywood trope). And let’s not discount Michael B. Jordan (reuniting with his Creed director Ryan Coogler) finally giving the MCU it’s most fleshed out, menacing and intriguing villain Killmonger.
Arriving at any other time, Black Panther would still be a terrific addition to the MCU. Arriving as it does, NOW, makes it a cinematic cultural touchstone. and we’ll all the richer for it.
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KayKay
March 11, 2018
“For me, I don’t care how many “messages” you thrust into your film with signifiers/hidden clues etc., the FORM has to work — i.e. the screenplay has to work, the characters have to work, the storytelling has to work, and then the technical aspects of form (cinematography, editing, staging) have to work”
Absolutely agree, B.
On that front, wouldn’t you agree that Black Panther did a bang up job? There were many overtly political strains in the dialogue, but it never lost sight of the fact that it needed to, first and foremost be a kick-ass CINEMATIC experience and not the director’s manifesto.
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anon
March 11, 2018
Pavan: haha you feinted. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place!
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Pavan
March 11, 2018
anon: Feinted is a too big word for what you intend to express about my words, though I agree with you that I did it. I definitely didn’t have confidence in what I wrote the minute the comment was approved. That’s because I was writing, not saying. Believe me, not just now, countless times what is in my head never translates properly in writing. I somehow commit glaring mistakes. Professional help might give me some respite I guess. Moreover, India is embracing mental health awareness, and it should not be a sin to accept my shortcomings.
But, one thing I assure you, that I wanted Kabali to be either a superstar vehicle or a gangster epic that stays true to its roots. And because that did not happen, I felt cheated and started hating suits. Kabali, if failed, was due to misleading marketing. If the Suits and blazers are part of the marketing, then I definitely am its victim. No caste colour there. And that was the final nail in the coffin for me. If you do find my views objectionable, that’s perfectly fine.
Kabali is incomparable to any other Indian film, because it is one starring Rajinikanth. And that factor is unique enough not to compare them with other masala films. Because, there was no superstar film in the recent past which vowed to show its lead differently and gained some real interest for the same.
KayKay: Thanks man! I too am planning to skip Kaala, and shall wait for some reviews, including that of BR. I’ll have to see if Kabali-Kaala would turn out to be another Muthu-Padayappa. 🙂
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Aadhy
March 11, 2018
BR :
“they only care about WHAT Ranjith is trying to say, not HOW he says it. “ Erm, I don’t think it’s a HOW versus WHAT debate. As I said before, I really don’t care for messages in a film. It’s about what constitutes your HOW and my HOW. If you are talking about visual storytelling, I agree that Kabali is not a particularly well-crafted film. But my HOW also includes writing, staying true to your story and characters you’ve written. If your story is about a person fighting for the oppressed, believing in a certain ideology, there’s a realm of what this person would do/speak and what this person wouldn’t. The basic thing I would expect out of such a character is stay true to its core self, unless there’s an emotional arc plotting this person’s changes, which would adequately explain the jumps in the character. In mainstream Tamil cinema, where your star decides his/her dos and don’ts, throwing the character out of the window, it takes a lot of integrity to stick to your story and still make it accessible to fans and entertainment seekers. It’s not even about Ranjith’s politics, rather making his politics form the crux and developing masala stories out of this crux without it getting completely buried under a star’s demands.
To explain lack of integrity with an example, let’s take the first fight scene in Velaikaran where Arivu gives running commentary around the unfolding set of events. You liked the writing there because of the number of threads this scene conveyed, all packed in a single action stretch. But I couldn’t even get beyond the start of this scene, where he mocks a set of thugs, apparently as part of ‘comedy’, as karuppa bayangarama irukkanga . This is just after sermonizing people about Karuthavanlaam galeejam ? in a whole 4 minute song, after establishing Arivu is someone who didn’t like these people being called thugs, or his kuppam being called kolakarakuppam. Who is Arivu then? So you would make your characters do/talk anything just to pander to the comedy-seeking crowd. This for me isn’t good craft.
KayKay :
Fair points. Kabali did seem like a confused movie, in the sense that Ranjith didn’t know how far he can keep Rajni confined within his story and where to let him go, where he can be the Superstar that the masses come to see. I hope Kaala will make more use of Rajni’s flamboyance, as Rajni seems a bit more unhinged here (this is what I got from the teaser).
I know we have our biases regarding Shankar (which was apparent from a previous Kabali thread), but honestly tell me this 🙂 Just from an entertainment perspective, do you really have high hopes on 2.0? What did you think of the songs? Do you think all the high-end VFX that the team is apparently working on for years now will be complimented/necessitated by a solid story? And how long is Shankar gonna make Rajni look younger by making the poor superstar wear some 7 layers of make up?
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Sabarinath
March 11, 2018
BR, regarding the Kaaka Muttai reference, he’s a clip where he explicitly states he didn’t like the movie, and outlines the reasons for it. I’m not sure he wants to go the Manikandan way.
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Madan
March 12, 2018
I always thought of Endhiran as the triumph of Sujatha’s far reaching vision (which too Shankar managed to dilute). Without Sujatha, I have less faith in Shankar. His films have always been unwieldy and overly moralistic and their novelty value has long since passed. I am curious whether even the conclusion of Endhiran was really Sujatha’s or was it Shankar doing what Shankar does.
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Naveen
March 13, 2018
Shankar is just a KS Ravikumar gift wrapped in a SS Rajamouli wrapper
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MANK
March 13, 2018
The problem with Shankar is that he stopped evolving. he may be going for bigger and bigger technical effects in his films , but his story telling and tastes are still stuck in a rut. Rajamouli wasn’t much of a director when he started out, but he has grown over the course of his career.I don’t expect much from 2.0 and if reports are to be believed, shankar himself isn’t very confident , what with VFX turned in by the company not been up to the standards.
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