Noise or Music?
‘KGF’ is a problematic film. I watched the first part in TV with not so much concentration and the film’s trajectory swings here and there like mood swings of an irritable person. I couldn’t completely enjoy it like a guilty pleasure as well as couldn’t completely set it aside as a not-my-type-of film. It was here and there and that was the biggest problem. I saw myself applauding for few scenes and hating some. Both were in fact okay but together it didn’t piece together and ends up as a film too long trying to express what it was trying to express. That’s my I waited and watched the first part again before watching the second part to come to a conclusion…
We’re in good days that each film industry has given a big blockbuster extravaganza. It’s not by luck it has become so but it was written so and marketed that way as well. So comparisons were bound to happen with ‘Bahubali’ 1 and 2. That’s where the problem lies, ‘KGF’ couldn’t cope up with it, but the director Prashanth Neel would have written the film before the release of Bahubali or may be in parallel with it. So even though it has similar sentiments like being a people’s champion, mother sentiment, respecting women etc. ‘KGF’ progresses in its own way.
The film was an out and out Rocky (Yash) show and other characters, both positive and negative were just commentators enhancing his macho image. The confusing thing here was, watching it dubbed in Tamil, it was working for large extent, and I was constantly confused how and why it was working. Of course, many dialogues by now have taken a comic template or in memes but it’s more so because it impacted for that sentiment in the movie. Wish I could have just enjoyed and not be confused or just hated it. The confusion part was confusing me, just like the screenplay of the movie.
The film was told through Anand Ingalagi (Anant Nag) in part one and son of him, Vijayendra Ingalagi (Prakash Raj) in part two. Both, film’s narrative wise as well as narrators’ wise, Part 2 was much better as it was clear. In Part one, scenes appear out of blue, that was contributed to Anand’s old age. Wish those scenes has a clearer explanation in part two but that wasn’t to happen. Wonder whether it should be appreciated as director’s cleverness or a cheap trick. Ther was no dearth of built up so to infuse scenes which didn’t fit to the screenplay was not really necessary. Anand overdoes in the first part. It was as if Prashanth had shot those scenes and didn’t find the right tool to place it in the film, so he fitted it somehow.
The films biggest problem and the most irritating character was Reena Desai (Srinidhi Shetty) who was given western dress in part one and traditional dress in part two and that was it. There was nothing interesting about her characterization otherwise. It was a movie which had caricatures as characters, so why not resort to make it an entirely guy movie. Rocky was having a hard time in song sequences; he was too macho even for an item number where he was not expected to express any love emotion. So, needless to say, the love track was just debacle. Reena not only looks confused about her emotion but makes us confused too as to what her character was trying to prove.
The mother sentiment, in short, works but again it comes out at needless times and spoils the flow of the film and changes the mood of the film suddenly. It was like two different films yet works for some weird reason. Wish it had been a complete guilty pleasure like an ‘Expendables’ or a ‘Death Race’ with men and machismo but it tries to do a sentiment film in the midst of that and tries to infuse values sometime and leaves our audience dazed and confused.
Even with respect to the titular character, ‘Rocky’ it was not clear whether why he was getting so much love. He was the same man who lets a couple of slaves being killed Garuda (Ramachandra Raju) which I found no logic to, apart from giving a cinematic high for climax. He who doesn’t feel bad initially about slaves being killed suddenly gets angry for a blind man about to be killed. The reason? Not sure. So, his love towards him and people’s love towards him were both problematic and confusing. I guess it’s a film which couldn’t be analyzed. Like how no one can say why they like certain people, how certain actors become famous, ‘KGF’ should be left alone.
constantscribbles 