Drishyam (2013) and Drishyam 2 (2022)

Last year, a colleague kept recommending ‘Drishyam 2’ to me and said the Malayalam original is even better. Still recovering from the barely-watched ‘Tanhaji’ in 2020, I didn’t want to watch the Ajay Devgn starrer anytime soon and forgot all about it.

This year, I got reminded of the movie and started watching it one night on Amazon Prime. The movie gripped me, and even as I was piecing the story together over multiple weekends, I kept wondering why Shriya Saran was cast as the wife and Ishita Dutta as the elder daughter – in real life, they have an 8-year age gap and they didn’t come across as mother-daughter at all.

That’s the only grouse I have against the movie. The rest of the movie is well-paced, well-written and I was happy to see the crucial role played by the manuscript of a book. The interplay of everyday settings, law, law enforcement and trauma portrayal delighted me, and I felt sad for both Ajay Devgn and Tabu’s characters. Tabu resigns from her powerful job in addition to dealing with personal loss.

PTSD and neurological impact of trauma is strongly associated with men from Defense Services, and I was happy to see how well it was woven into the story and portrayed by the civilian elder daughter. There is far more awareness required regarding PTSD in women, particularly related to voyeurism and self-defence.

I then decided to watch ‘Drishyam’ in Malayalam – I am familiar with both Mohanlal and Meena, and I read that Asha Sharath had done a good job. My first attempt flopped. I found a version on YouTube and the subtitles couldn’t be turned on. I watched for a bit, understood a bit, but knew that I couldn’t continue doing both. I then took a mobile subscription to Disney Hotstar.

I kept thinking how old Mohanlal is, but surprisingly he and Meena didn’t look mismatched and the child stars were excellent. I liked how casually sex talk was woven into the script – as one example, the lines around villagers being normal as they watched adult movies on cable TV made me smile. I didn’t smile at the sexist references related to kitchens, vessels and shopping.

One can be right and have no evidence to prove it - Asha Sharath’s character showcases this unhappy situation well. One can be ethical, make grave mistakes and have family support – the elder daughter showcases this well.  

The male protagonist played by Mohanlal / Ajay Devgn is hugely inspired by movies, and it is sad to see that ‘Drishyam’ has inspired more than one murder in the country. I am not sure what ‘Drishyam 3’ has in store, but I am more likely to watch it in Malayalam as I liked Meena way more than Shriya Saran.

Kantara (2022)

In search of stories different from the ones I have been exposed to, I landed on ‘Kantara’. I had read that it featured the ‘Kambala’ – an annual buffalo race held in Tulu Nadu, Karnataka – and that the movie was high grossing. I was eager to know more about the buffalo race, and decided to watch the original Kannada version with English subtitles – I am happy when I can understand some words from other languages, and the music seems more relatable too.

The movie offered much more. I got to know about ‘Buta Kola’, the ritualistic dance performance similar to ‘Theyyam’ of Kerala, the Varaha Avathar (Panjurli Daiva) and Guliga Daiva, how young boys are initiated into the dance performance, and the role it plays in mediating disputes in villages. I first read about ‘Theyyam’ in ‘Nine Lives’ by William Dalrymple, and know about the role of caste in these dance performances. The movie touched upon casteism – the landlord asks for the house to be ‘purified’ after the Kambala athlete touches him.

I loved how the story focused on an upright forest officer who is tasked with converting villagers’ land into a forest reserve, and how the villagers react to this. Morals and loyalty are questioned more than once, and the story’s love angle is the one between the Kambala athlete and a lady forest guard who hails from the same community. The love angle is set in 1990s – more than 30 years from today – and the intersectionality of patriarchy and casteism can be seen. The long-suffering wife of the landlord could have been given some more dialogues.

After seeing the depiction of widespread consumption of alcohol among male characters, I read that the earlier Karnataka government (2023 elections are done!) considered lowering the legal age of alcohol consumption from 21 to 18. I will look up alcohol consumption patterns sometime.

A sequel is expected, and I hope to watch that too.