Kantara means forest in Sanskrit. In the 2022 film Kantara, actor-director Rishab Shetty strives to bring elements related to yoga, dharma, and ecology and succeeds in creating brilliant cinema which pagans can relate to and celebrate. Shetty brings the man vs. nature discourse and much more via simple and complex characters who bring their dilemmas, morality, religion, and beliefs to light.
(Spoiler alert)
While Kantara is being publicized as a film with a regional flare, the universal themes of yoga and harmony within one’s self and with the surroundings; the importance of following one’s Dharma according to their role in society and the larger setting – the forest – are all equally important characters in the film. According to yoga philosophy, life is an interplay of the three Gunas of Prakriti or the female principle – tamas (inertia), rajas (activity), and sattva (consciousness). Each guna has its attributes though the goal of yoga practices is to bring balance and harmony to the system by transforming tamas and rajas eventually into sattva.
The audience is introduced to a king who is supposed to have rajasic tendencies given he’s a leader, and is driven toward seeking spirituality. Similarly, the present-day Kshatriya landowner character who is supposed to govern the locals and abide by the promise made by their ancestor king is seen to veer off their dharmic path, for the worse. The main character, Shiva, is portrayed as a happy-go-lucky, tamasic bhogi character in the beginning with a love for red meat and alcohol consumption, though his journey in the film also parallels other characters’ growth and evolution, before meeting with a resolution. His cousin, Guruva is portrayed as a sattvic character who falls prey to the greedy landowner. Shiva’s love interest, Leela, is also caught between the idea of the preservation of her people’s way of life versus her role as a forest official.
Shiva’s mother is shown to be always disappointed in him, hoping that he’d aspire to be more than the troublemaker he is. The most touching part of the film is Shiva and his friends, sticking together through thick and thin, with comic moments snuck in between to make the interactions less sappy. The most underrated character is the landowner’s wife – a mute spectator who seems to be all-knowing about the atrocities being carried out by her husband though says or does nothing throughout the story. The differently abled boy is also symbolic of the overall situation and less-than-ideal circumstances faced by the Kshatriya landowners and the community in general at a particular point in time. Clues make the audience think that this poor child is a result of the wrongdoings of the landowner family in the 1970s in this centuries-old story. It also shows how the landowner’s legacy will most likely end with this boy being the last descendant.
The setting – the forest – is experiencing the same challenges and changes as the characters who are and aren’t following their Dharma. The man vs. nature theme is too simplistic for this film as the villagers are not necessarily destroying more than their needs so man is not necessarily an enemy of nature here. Unlike the reality in many places in India where deforestation and resulting desertification are serious problems, the film specifically shows how the characters are hunting and harvesting forest resources for daily needs.* There is nothing obvious to show that trees were being cut down for selling nor were animals hunted to be sold off nor was their meat harvested for a market. The forest officer’s character is the most interesting as he learns to live in the non-dichotomous shades of grey, first seen lobbying for the environment and then developing sympathy for the villagers who have lost their land and wealth to the corrupt landowner. The audience goes through a love-hate relationship with Murali, the forest officer character, though one can infer after intermission that the officer will eventually emerge as the savior of the local people.
The forest is a living breathing ecosystem that sustains the villagers and their food. The images remind us that we are sustained by the soil and part of mother nature or Prakriti. The mystical dimensions of life are beautifully portrayed in the folklore aspects of the Bhoota Kola ritual where the audience is a witness between the known and the powerful yet mystical unknown. The three characters who are blessed to invite divinity in them or perform the Kola ritual are Shiva’s father, Guruva and Shiva, though each of them behaves uniquely in their role as a Divine medium.
Shiva’s father is most intriguing as we see him disappearing in the forest mysteriously after the Bhoot Kola ritual one night. Guruva on the other hand is one of the more developed characters who seem like a natural choice for the ritual given his chill disposition. However, the Daiva, the Shiva Bhagwan tattva, or the Shiva Gana chooses the character of Shiva, as Shiva has the innate strength to destroy Adharma in the form of Guliga. Shiva’s character throughout the first and a part of the second half of the film has been avoiding the Diving pull until it fully manifests in him and overwhelms him, eventually transforming him into nature’s force. Shiva’s dance and acting performance is breathtaking and immersive, taking us in between and beyond the life-death dimensions as we know them.
Bottom line: The Divine intervenes when things go astray for us humans when we don’t follow our Dharma. Shiva’s performance and Kola dance seem to restore all balance that had been disturbed by the Adharmic activities of the various individuals who wished to harm life – the forest as well as humans – around them.
Out of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Vishnu avatars symbolize the continuation and maintenance of life, while Brahma is attributed to the generation of life while the Shiva aspect is ascribed to ending as well as manifestation. Every village in India has the interplay of Vishu-Shiva and Devi elements and here we witness the Shiva element in play, as the nourisher as well as the destroyer. The Daiva and the ineffable Varaha decked in gold imagery peppered throughout the film remind us that despite the rise of Adharma, balance will be restored as the Shiva tattva destroys and regenerates while the Vishnu aspect maintains. Shetty takes us through multiple rising actions and the climax being Shiva’s death by the landowners. Though we quickly realize that the climax takes a turn when the Daiva blows prana back into Shiva’s almost lifeless body and he beautifully rises to the ferocious challenge to destroy evil. The resolution revolves around the landowner being eliminated, Shiva’s mother finally being proud of him, and a glimpse of Shiva’s girlfriend caressing his child inside her belly, indicating that life as we know it indeed goes on.
‘Varah Roopam’ is poignant and continues resonating in one’s being long after walking out of the cinema hall. An unanswered question is when the two Bhootas meet at the end – Shiva’s father and Shiva and one is left wondering where Guruva is. Overall, the acting is brilliant, and the music and direction are nearly flawless. Looking back, there were some unnecessary comical scenes where a woman with bad teeth is compared to a buffalo and also when Shiva plays the unnecessary peeping Tom. Another is the too-easy nonchalant portrayal of the premarital sexual relationship between Shiva and Leela, though perhaps all these aspects were necessary for Shetty to include to tick off all the rasas expected in films.
All silly things aside, the Bhoota Kola performances are raw, and unpretentious and will tug at something spiritual and mystical in everyone’s hearts. The plurality of Indian beliefs and rituals will make one want to explore practices that are native to our regions and villages. Most parts of India revere and worship local spirits, Devis, and deities and Kantara does something unprecedented – it helps ignite as well as restore faith in Divinity, allowing us to take an active part in forming our destiny. It also challenges contemporary film and documentary makers to up their cinematography game.
*I watched the film with subtitles and might have missed certain linguistic nuances.
The article was first published in https://myind.net/Home/viewArticle/yoga-dharma-and-ecology-in-film-kantara
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