Set in post-Independence Madras, Selvamani Selvaraj’s auteur-versus-superstar tale crackles early, but the period setting, power play, and character arcs never deepen enough to match the film’s epic intent
The inherent desire to dispense an epic is apparent in Selvamani Selvaraj’s Kaantha from the very first frame. It’s Madras, a little after independence. Film studios are only a handful here, but each of them is bustling with spirit and freedom to dazzle an audience that feels in emotional accord.
Studio owners and producers might still have the colonial hangover with them, but they want to get to the heart of the commoner out there, and for that they need stars and talismans. In Kaantha, there are two: one’s the brooding director named Gothanda Raman or ‘Ayya’ (Samuthirakani), whose art knows no compromise. The other is the matinee idol T.K. Mahadevan or TKM (Dulquer Salmaan), whose art knows only the sound of applause.
The lore of cinema has confirmed to us already that no two men (or women) defined by their stature and temperament can be on friendly terms. If Ayya wants to realise a dream project of his, one that is an ode to his deceased mother, TKM must be the thorn in his path. If TKM wants to revel in the adoration of his fans, one that he has earned with great strife, Ayya must constantly remind him of the superficiality of his stardom. If Selvamani Selvaraj wants to give us that epic of a clash, Ayya and TKM must make that film together for reasons they individually know best.
A game of one-upmanship
The film’s strongest attribute is that it doesn’t skirt its premise, but jumps right into it. The whys and hows of the central dynamic are to unfurl gradually over the course of the 163-minute runtime, whereas the present is about a game of one-upmanship that oscillates constantly and reveals something new about everyone’s psyche. Ayya’s chosen title of ‘Saantha’ is rechristened as ‘Kaantha’ the very moment TKM ceremoniously sets foot on the sets.
In retaliation, the director finds an unsolicited weapon in his lead actress, Kumari (Bhagyashri Borse), who announces in all her innocent boldness that she will take instructions only from him and not the tyrant acting in front of her. When TKM finds that Ayya’s close-ups on Kumari showcase a raw talent that the audience is sure to lap up, he reconstructs a scene involving a slap to crank up his trademark theatricality. A pulsating rhythm, involving Jakes Bejoy’s electronica background score, kicks off the proceedings that nonchalantly bring Kumari into the equation, and it is here that Kaantha promises to grow delectable.
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Yet, the film simultaneously becomes unsure of how it wants to deal with this power tussle. Ayya’s pride is of the auteur kind, and the scowl about his demeanour screams how much his craft — particularly the film he has now set out to make — means to him. His disregard for TKM’s current brand of acting, too, couldn’t be suppressed, and a passage of the story is dedicated to how their master-pupil relationship soured over time.
There’s a scene about Ayya puppeteering TKM during the shoot, not caring an ounce about the heartthrob’s latest reputation. Another scene shows the superstar actor proclaiming to the producer that his vision for the film is better suited, while the director happens to overhear. More follow to further highlight the respect/disdain wave between the two, but the problem starts to arise when you get nothing else in between; be it an insider’s perspective of the story’s world, the exciting quirks of the time and place it belongs to, or a sense of leisure with which the plot is relayed — all these, and a few more, vital traits don’t really find place in the narrative that gets lost in its thematic depth.
The motif of power and its loss
Kaantha is a ‘stylish’ film that is well aware of the flamboyance it wants for its storytelling. But this emphasis on style comes at the cost of crafting an immersive, fully realised setting. In other words, even though there are no generic and grand sweeping shots of the era, its use still feels more ornamental than as a cultural milieu. A film like Mani Ratnam’s Iruvar (1997) might be too easy a reference in this regard, yet the milieu in that film allows the writing to add relevant intricacies to its characters — idealism, ambition, brotherhood, and so on.
Dulquer Salmaan commands a solid screen presence as TKM, and the actor’s own real-life affability merges with his character’s conflicted personality. However, we don’t get to see the true complexities of the man who is seemingly willing to pledge it all for something that’s entered his life only recently; nor do we get to understand what makes him so enamoured by this change in his life. Bhagyashri Borse, too, renders her Kumari with a mix of allure and naivete, but the casual mention of her past as a Burmese refugee barely reflects the essence of the person she is. The intimacy between two such people ought to elicit the kind of intensity that could be the fulcrum of the story — in fact, the Kumari-Ayya bond feels more poignant and well-rounded — but Kaantha just doesn’t lead us there.
Rana Daggubati’s entry into the fray after the interval mark, then, nudges the film in a new direction. An investigation into an event of crime begins, and the facades that both Ayya and TKM built for themselves, at least on paper, begin to crumble. The confrontation between the two must get real now, says the film, and the feral, unhinged cop that Daggubati plays (named Devaraj) is the right trigger for the moment. The motif of power, and the slow loss of it, once again makes its way in.
Grand and ambitious
At the same time, the screenplay isn’t equipped enough to elevate the ideas to great cinematic highs. It could be because of how the literal information becomes the new point of focus, or the fact that we weren’t properly emotionally tethered to the story by that point. Or it could be that the peripheral characters, just as Devaraj, are indistinct from one another, and aren’t given the chance to be more than narrative placeholders — irrespective of their significance, so many of them (especially that of TKM’s driver/helper Selvam) had the potential to be memorable, recognisable people. So, even when the plot heads in a convoluted path in its final act and crescendos, the impact is not hard because of many smaller features not being in place.
It’d be easy to claim that the film’s story, in its simplest sense, doesn’t grip you as required, when the concern lies in the approach with which it is told. For instance, one of the best scenes has TKM confessing to Ayya that he doesn’t know any better than to crave for his audience’s applause, and goes on to tell him why that is the case with him. It’s a moment staged without any extravagance, and has the two principal characters sitting beside one another, putting problems into words.
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But when almost every anchoring point is revealed through circumstantial dialogue and not a nuanced play of events, the resulting film is verbose and predictable, which doesn’t do justice to the incredible themes it takes on. TKM and Ayya’s clash is about trust, about the price one pays for fame and another pays for loyalty, and this rich melange of ideas needed deeper characterisation.
Kaantha, that said, is by no means a dull watch. It has many small touches scattered across that tease you with a one-of-a-kind period exercise, which is grand and ambitious, not just for the sake of it. What it needed to deliver exactly that was a unique, bolder perspective; Miss Lovely (2012) comes to mind here, and while Ashim Ahluwalia’s feverish abandon there mightn’t have been the right choice for Selvamani, there are enough parallels between the two films to bracket them together. In the present case, the technical aspects shine, and so do some of the central performances, but they don't fully compensate.
