After getting into the lift of a Mumbai suburban mall to catch the late night show of , we overheard an exchange between two young men. “Bollywood khatam hai. Hum bas Adipurush hi bana sakte hain.” It was easy to figure out that they just finished watching the Kannada mythological drama. This disappointment wrapped up in the Bollywood vs South comparison — which feels overdone now — should have been a hint of what was to unfold in the next couple of hours.
Leaving the cinema hall as the film’s end credits continued to roll, it was hard to not give into the impulse of reiterating what those gentlemen said. But keeping the urge to make a sweeping statement aside, there’s just one word needed to describe Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1 — transcendental. And the effect lingers on for long after the film, unless interrupted by emergency reality calls. In this case, where one forgot her bag on the seat because she was too awe-struck to bother about her belongings.
Headlined, directed, and written by , Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1 is the prequel to his 2022 blockbuster film, Kantara. But it’s not a mandatory watch to enjoy the new instalment, because the story is spoon-fed to you like in a children’s story book. More than that, the visuals tell their own story, ones that need no before or after.
One of the most used and abused phrase in the last few years in cinema discourse has been ‘visual spectacle’. Usually, it’s associated with a visual that is grand in scale and inventive in vision. A spectacle is a language that characters employ to express their emotions, but if the focus is placed on the aesthetics of a frame instead of the joy, grief, anger, and rage experienced by the characters, a spectacle will spectacularly fail.
Shetty knows it too well. So, while he amps up the scale, crafts an expansive and more immersive world in Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1, he makes sure to turn the story even more dramatic, raise its stakes higher, and phenomenally leaps into a realm where the audience is both mesmerised and moved, yet in a trance to remain bewitched till the end and after. Cinema often demands suspension of disbelief, more so when it’s centred on folklore. But the key word is conviction, which Shetty, his actors, and team exhibit unfailingly.
There’s a madness needed to see a story through that blends lore, human evolution, social commentary about class, and faith, which is often played with to further divisions in the country. On that count, Kantara: A Legend Chapter 1 is a marvellous feat. No, it doesn’t mean that Bollywood is over or incapable of enchanting its audience. In fact, in front of it sits a glorious example of sheer abandon and faith. If only it pays attention to this intervention.