Not many know or remember this but Shaktian Space (such a silly name) was started in 2007 for two main purposes: posting utterly bad poems and brutally honest movie reviews. Over the years, as my writing evolved, I pressed the brake on (forgettable) poetry and geared up on journalistic writing, with a significant dose of existentialism. However, my obsession with cinema festered. I continued to post my thoughts on movie scenes, the deeper meanings of a given dialogue, philosophies behind character’s unsaid dilemma, and so on. I used to be so clued in that until the pandemic, not a week went by I didn’t tweet a movie recco. In fact, there was a reader base for the same. If I didn’t share a recco, my DMs used to get anxious.
Things changed a bit during and after the pandemic, I suppose.
I pretty much stopped cine-tweeting and almost gave up on writing movie reviews. For one, reviews are a profound exercise in vanity. At the end of the day, none of the reviewers can make a good enough movie themselves. They are—just like I was, during my journalism days—only sharing what they feel about a movie. It’s just a personal parade of sentiments. Yes, it’s a standard practice and an admirable profession but when everybody is a reviewer—thanks to the thick tentacles of social media—it’s worth pondering why should the opinions of a few select few matter, and that too, on a subject as trivial as cinema.
That said, the last movie review on this blog was exactly an year ago for a beloved small-budget Mangalorean film called Kantara. It struck a chord because it featured the tribal belief system of my ancestors; not to mention, its unmatched climax. The last 15 minutes was soaked in violence but still, it didn’t bother anyone. Perhaps the story—India must be one of the few places where ‘story’ can apply equally to a movie, a book and our sorry lives—can led the way ahead. Which brings us to Animal.
This Ranbir Kapoor-starrer is making BO waves, despite all the commotion on social media. Anybody who has watched the movie can tell you that the protagonist, Ranvijay, is deeply problematic. He has unresolved issues and that’s well-established within the first few minutes itself. His love and commitment to his family, particularly his father, seems mythological in nature. We are so used to seeing the very opposite on screen that his behaviour looks rather strange: imagine a Succession (2018-23) where the siblings genuinely love each other and aren’t prepared to throw each other under the bus.
In this context, Ranvijay’s singular dedication is quite outdated: his character doesn’t seem to be interested in power but at the same time, he would go to any length to ensure that his family is safe. His machismo outlook is quite interesting: he spouts the most absurdly sexist comments at his wife, only to get slapped by her repeatedly. On one hand, he wants to stay in touch with the middle class while leading a madly luxurious (but risky) life himself. So many contradictions, one character.
The whole movie is, as expected from its director, over-the-top and not rooted in reality. It’s an imaginary world where you can use heavy armaments freely without any chargesheet against you. To make things more intriguing, during those moments, you’d be thoroughly thrilled by the visuals as well as the excellent work on BGM. And then some drama shall take place and you’d want the screen to go back to senseless bloodbath. Of course, those with a nice taste of Korean cinema, would appreciate the bloody mess. Rest are bound to gawk with WTF printed on their eyeballs.
Anyway, the best way to watch this movie is to think of it as a bellicose attempt at humour. The way we look at Fight Club (1999) as a comedy.
Personally, my takeaway from Animal was, it reminded me that I used to be a boy who was madly in love with his father. I genuinely believed, for the longest time, that my pappa was the perfect human being. Somebody who worked 13-14 hours a day, provided for his family and sent money to his extended family in village, never took a sick leave despite high fever, stayed quiet for the most part, was kind to animals, looked beautiful and did his best. Of course, I later realized that he was flawed. Much later, I also learned that our flaws have a lot to do with our circumstances.
People who are fortunate don’t (seem to) understand that they are fortunate. Most are unfortunate, leaving their flaws unfairly exposed. Since I won’t have any children of my own, there won’t be a continuance of this filial pattern. Regardless, it’s necessary to remember people, especially your parents, for who they once were and not sentence them to what they have become in their older years.
Coming back to Ranvijay, he didn’t have to wait for his father to grow old to notice the flaws in him. He figured it out as a boy and yet, his love for his dad remains unshakeable. Animal is an apt title for a movie where the spirit of hunter-gatherers is unabashedly evoked but Prodigal Son too could have fit the bill. But then, it wouldn’t have created unsavoury noise—translating to moolah in ticket collections—on the internet.
The undercurrent was majestic. A splendid read.