REVIEW 488: BAAHUBALI – THE CONCLUSION

Release date:	April 28, 2017
Director:	S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: Language:	Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishna, Sathyaraj, Nassar, a few seconds of Tamannaah Bhatia Telugu

(Note: This is a review of the Hindi dubbed version of the Telugu film Baahubali: The Conclusion.)

Fans of the Baahubali franchise have been discussing the hashtag #WKKB on the social media for a while now. If you have not guessed yet, that stands for “Why Kattappa Killed Baahubali”, a reference to the teaser in the closing scene of Baahubali: The Beginning in 2015. You will not find spoilers on the #WKKB front in this review. Hold on to your seats though for the answer to a far more pressing question: #DRTOHS.

In the first film, the tribal boy Shivudu (Prabhas) discovered that he is, in fact, Mahendra Baahubali, son of the late great Amarendra Baahubali (also Prabhas) who was robbed of the throne of Mahishmati kingdom by the machinations of his cruel cousin Bhallaladeva (Rana Daggubati) and uncle Bijjaladeva (Nassar). In Baahubali: The Conclusion, Mahendra hears the story of why and how that happened before setting off to avenge the deaths of his father and foster grandmother Sivagami (Ramya Krishna) and to free his mother Devasena (Anushka Shetty) from imprisonment in Mahishmati.

As with the opening film, this one too is an Amar Chitra Katha-style blend of mythological references and palace intrigue laid out on a vast canvas of visual grandeur. The proportion of the ingredients has been changed though, with myth and socially regressive themes being scaled down, family politics being scaled up, and the decibel levels being raised by several notches.

The novelty of seeing an Indian film so laden with heavy special effects at such a scale from start to finish has worn off in the two years since Baahubali 1 was released, and it is hard now to forgive this one for Mahishmati’s plastic façade and those painfully obvious CGI beasts. Somehow, nothing here seems to match up to that waterfall in Part 1. Still, when the going is good, director S.S. Rajamouli’s Baahubali: The Conclusion is pleasing to the eye, in particular with its costumes, lavish interiors and innovative stunts.

A film of this nature obviously requires a suspension of disbelief in that last department. And frankly, if we are willing to swallow the invincibility of the likes of Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis and the various Bonds down the decades, then there is no reason why we should not buy that scene in which Amarendra mounts an elephant by walking up its trunk with the animal’s assistance and – my favourite of the lot – that war-time gimmick involving palm trees, shields and Newtonian physics towards the end.

Those stunts, M.M. Kreem’s background score and the use of his songs to up the tempo of the narrative are what keep Baahubali: The Conclusion watchable even when the ridiculous over-acting becomes hard to take and the lack of freshness in the storyline sinks in. Daggubati and Shetty – both gorgeous, both equally charismatic – keep themselves relatively in check, which is admirable considering that over-statement seems to be the demand of Rajamouli’s storytelling in this cinematic diptych (“relatively” being a key word here). Prabhas’ pretty face somewhat compensates for all that self-indulgent posing about he does, most notably while Devasena sings a song about Lord Krishna in a scene that unwittingly betrays her man’s Oedipus complex.

The rest of the cast is laughable, with each rivalling the other for the year’s Worst Acting Awards. There is the usually wonderful Nassar who hams here to such an extent that he makes Sohrab Modi seem under-stated in comparison. The extras in every single scene – soldiers, courtiers and subjects – seem to be competing with the memorably howlarious bit-part players of the black-and-white era. And Subba Raju playing Devasena’s beau Kumara Varma is so bad, he should be declared a threat to society.

The queen of the film’s hamsters though (if such a word does not exist in the acting lexicon, then it should) is Krishna whose eyes remain fixed in a bulbous stare through the nearly three hours of this film’s running time.

For all its seeming innocuousness, Baahubali: The Beginning was a horribly narrow-minded film that rolled out a range of stereotypes couched in its good-looking frames. The black-denotes-evil cliché was exacerbated by its white-is-glamorous conviction. Disability coincidentally found its way only on to evil people. And Sivagami’s power paled into insignificance in the face of Shivudu’s sexual violation and ultimate subjugation of the warrior Avanthika played by Tamannaah Bhatia.

In that respect, Baahubali: The Conclusion is a step up. Devasena remains strong and active from start to finish, and is at no point reduced to being Shivudu or Amarendra’s sidekick. She is a partner, not a prop. Still, the marginalisation of Avanthika in this film is almost tragic. In Part 1 she was a feisty woman whose mission was taken over by Shivudu once he ‘makes’ her fall in love with him and discover her inner femininity. In Part 2, she is an absolute nobody with nothing to say and just a few seconds of screen time in mass scenes. In that context, giving Bhatia fourth billing in the closing credits (after the two leading men and Shetty, but before Krishna) comes across as condescension, not an acknowledgement of her star status.

There is so much else that is troubling in Rajamouli’s worldview: for one, the undisputed right of the Kshatriya to rule. If there is a question here, it is only: which Kshatriya – the good guy or the bad guy? And either way, it has to be one of the guys. All the spectacle in the world, the Durga-esque positioning of Sivagami and Devasena, and the emphasis on Mahendra/Amarendra’s virtues cannot camouflage Baahubali’s disturbing romanticisation of social status-quoism.

This then is the conclusion of this review: Baahubali: The Conclusion is a cocktail of fun stunts, attractive stars, grand settings, terrible acting, conflicted attitudes and closeted conservatism. (Aside: The Hindi dubbing is impressive. A bow here to the choice of voices and to Manoj Muntashir, dialogue writer and lyricist for this version.)

As is always the case, each viewer’s response to the film depends on her/his priorities. My priority, I admit, is not #WKKB but #DRTOHS: does Rana take off his shirt (in the film, as he has for the posters)? Answer: yes he does. For good measure, so does Prabhas. Both men rip off their upperwear in an extended scene of hand-to-hand combat, to reveal perfectly sculpted, stunningly muscular torsos in what has now become commercial Indian cinema’s most-used formula across all states. In the way it is told, #WKKB is not as dramatic a revelation as expected. #DRTOHS, on the other hand, is absolute paisa vasool.

  

Rating (out of five stars): **1/4

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	167 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bahubali-2-hindi-movie-review-baahubali-2-rating-cocktail-of-visuals-terrible-acting-closeted-conservatism-3411488.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baahubali_2:_The_Conclusion

REVIEW 487: RAKSHADHIKARI BAIJU OPPU

Release date:	April 21, 2017
Director:	Ranjan Pramod
Cast: Language:	Biju Menon, Aju Varghese, Hareesh Perumanna, Hannah Reji Koshy, Deepak Parambol, Indrans, Alencier Ley Lopez, Anjali Aneesh Malayalam

Biju Menon could stand in front of a camera staring aimlessly for an hour, and somehow make that work. His comic talent, his knack for subtly suggesting that something else beats below the seemingly frivolous surface and his chameleon-like ability to supplement comedy with gravitas and poignance at the drop of a hat are the fulcrum of Ranjan Pramod’s Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu (Signed: Patron Baiju).

The film is set in Kerala’s languorous interiors, in a kinda sorta village called Kumbalam far removed from the urban bustle although Kochi is within touching distance. Time seems to stand still here. Those who leave zip ahead of those who stay back. As it happens, many Kumbalam residents simply do not want to leave.

Menon plays Baiju, a work-shirking government official who pours all his energy and passion into mentoring local cricket-loving boys. Thirty-six years back as an eight-year-old, he began playing the game on a vacant plot of land in the area. He never stopped.

Baiju is a founder member of the club/team Kumbalam Brothers. The Brothers and their playing ground are a microcosm of life in this village, which is reluctantly becoming a town and might be a city someday soon.

Baiju is a kind man, the sort who is exasperating to have as husband, father or son, but great to have as a neighbour or friend. Most of his time is spent away from home and office, on the field with his boys. He is a senior citizen in comparison with them, but continues to be a team member. He is not a man of indifferent cricketing talent, but his role in Kumbalam Brothers is way beyond that. He is their captain, patron (rakshadhikari), mentor, father figure, elder brother and buddy, often at the cost of short-changing his own family.

He is the one the boys turn to when a rich parent will not pay for a desperately needed cricket kit. He is the one they confide in through heartbreaks, career struggles and personal loss. Of course there are those in the village who take him for granted, but never with malice. The boys though are utterly and completely devoted to Baiju with every cell of their beings.

In short, he is everything to Kumbalam Brothers and they are everything to him.

There is much that is beautiful in Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu. The innocence of Kumbalam’s inhabitants, the simplicity and lack of complication, Baiju’s own delicious lack of ambition for himself are all designed to make a city dweller yearn for another way of life. Besides, the pacing – slow and almost sleepy – perfectly complements the seeming aimlessness of the protagonist who is content with his choices even while he celebrates the successes of those who move on.

The humour too is under-stated, like everything else in Kumbalam. Nobody tells jokes, they are just funny, real, believable people.

Ranjan Pramod has had greater success so far as a screenwriter (Manassinakkare, Achuvinte Amma, Ennum Eppozhum) than as a director (he has helmed only two other films so far). That he is a gifted writer is evident in the manner in which he creates about a dozen memorable characters in Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu without making the film seem crowded. There is Baiju’s sidekick (Aju Varghese) who is searching for a white-skinned bride, there is the team member wooing the pretty woman who lives right next to the playground, the irritable old man whose property also adjoins the playground, Baiju’s slow friend and – though women are marginal to this film’s proceedings – Baiju’s complaining yet loving wife Ajitha (played by the stunning Hannah Reji Koshy) who is thankfully not turned into a ‘nagging shrew’ stereotype.

The casting has been done with great attention to detail, the exception being a construction team whose voices we hear in the end – no doubt we are meant to assume that they are north Indian, but their accents suggest that they are Malayali actors who speak Hindi fluently. The rest though are a roll call of fine artistes, established and unknown. Menon, of course, is fantastic.

Although it seems like nothing much happens in this film, it is packed with stories, sub-plots, satellite characters and meaning. Without sermonising, for instance, it quietly throws light on the colour prejudice and gender segregation rampant in Kumbalam, which is a mini Kerala unto itself. Women are unwelcome on the playground, but are allowed to stay when they put their foot down. Dark-skinned people are accepted in the fold when they stick to their guns.

What is jarring though is that in comedifying that colour bias without qualifiers in a relationship involving a Kumbalam Brothers member, the film unwittingly trivialises the pain it can and does cause. In many ways, Pramod also betrays the narrowness of his male gaze when he reduces each woman’s existence to being someone in relation to a man in this story, not a person unto herself, and when scene after scene goes by with not a female human in sight. It is as if he – like the men in his film often do – forgets, or wants to forget that women exist.

So Ajitha, though not a caricature, is still someone Baiju is happy to leave behind at home. One Kumbalam Brothers player describes the cricket ground as oxygen away from a clingy wife (we have no idea what she thinks). Later, when a woman breaks up with a man she has not even fully hooked up with, the fellow’s friend promptly describes her as a user and a tease. This is the only kind of conversation they ever have about women. Yes, such situations and talk happen in real life – the point is the lack of a countering voice from the filmmaker.

Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu also tends to romanticise the countryside. Except for pointing out the need for medical facilities in Kumbalam, there is no mention of how tough rural life can be, how discrimination (caste, gender, communal and more) is much harder to flee or shrug off in small, close-knit rustic communities than in the much-vilified ‘urban jungle’.

In Shanavas K. Bavakutty’s exceptional Kismath last year, a low-caste, poor Hindu girl targeted for falling in love with a well-off Muslim man escapes to the big city where she is shown savouring being a drop in an ocean. Our popular cinema rarely reflects this, but the anonymity metropolises afford can indeed be a great escape. Kumbalam though is projected as an unadulterated idyll. The negative characters are asides, the “them” in the midst of the good-hearted “us”. There are two male villains, but they operate on the fringes. Even the supposedly treacherous female lover seems to be in Kumbalam only because her father is in a transferable government job.

This is a rose-tinted view of what can be a harsh reality. Village life is alluring from a distance, but it is definitely not the smooth ride it is often made out to be.

A 360-degree take on Kumbalam might have made this a more mature film. Baiju reminded me a lot of Kunchacko Boban’s Kochavva in last year’s loveable Kochavva Paulo Ayyappa Coelho, but that film by director Sidhartha Siva did not come across as being so selective though it too took a romantic view of the countryside.

As it happens, what we are served in Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu is so entertaining and Biju Menon is so magnetic, that it would be easy to not look beyond the sweetness and humour of the proceedings or Ranjan Pramod’s smooth narrative. Not counting the needless ‘lesson’ stuffed in our faces in the end, which under-estimates the audience, Rakshadhikari Baiju Oppu is fun and, in its own way, insightful, even though it chooses to tell only part of a story – the charming part, of course.

  

Rating (out of five stars): **3/4

CBFC Rating (India):	U
Running time:	162 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/rakshadhikari-baiju-oppu-movie-review-biju-menon-is-magnetic-in-a-sweet-but-rose-tinted-tale-3399976.html

Poster courtesy: IMDB