There is a need to challenge the popular discourse and rework the notions of good cinema and a ‘neat’ film
By YL Srinivas
Hyderabad: Media and film are highly influential institutions with their ability to impact perceptions at the social and individual level, influence attitudes and beliefs, and thus impact behaviour. News, television, films, and other social media play a significant role in offering experiences that exist beyond the purview of daily interpersonal experiences. However, when media messages consist of stereotypes, they become problematic because they perpetuate very dangerous attitudes.
Very often, people get swayed by such popular discourse bolstered by the mass media, and tend to endorse what is being peddled without subjecting the narrative to any critical scrutiny. This leads to certain views and ideas assuming hysterical proportions, deeply influencing the perceptions of the people at large. Films, especially, are guilty of perpetuating stereotypes and dangerous beliefs, disguised as entertainment or emotionally wrenching narratives, leading to their endorsement as ‘good’ films. The need, therefore, is to build counter-discourse, no matter whether it is heard or unheard.
Perception and Euphoria
The film ‘Happy Days’ (2007) by noted filmmaker Shekar Kammula is an example for this phenomenon. The film was a great hit, and reviews pegged it as a neat, clean, and a good movie, whereas the film brazenly romanticises ragging and teenage love and gives the impression that youngsters go to an engineering college to get into a relationship. On the crucial subject of ragging, the film actually deserved a case for violating the recommendations/norms of the Supreme Court-appointed Raghavan Committee. Yet the film passed off as both a good film and a clean film.
Sixteen years later, we see a similar pattern of audience perception and euphoria for the movie ‘Balagam’. There are no megastars or power stars; there are no Oscar-class directors, yet the film has registered huge success. The location of the film in the rural interiors of Telangana, a theme that evokes the day-to-day reality of Telangana villages, and the action that reminds one of the characters of an art cinema, undoubtedly offer a fresh experience to the audience who are tired of the beaten tracks of masala movies. But, a critical analysis of the movie reveals the danger that persists in endorsing such films as ‘good films’.
• A movie that promotes superstitious beliefs and doesn’t aptly map the changing sociology of the villages cannot be called a good movie
The point is not whether the film ought to be didactic and moralistic; it need not be. But if a film is glorified beyond the proportions of being a good movie, the message that the film explicitly gives would have far-reaching implications in terms of influencing people’s behaviour and perpetuating stereotypes and superstitious beliefs, thus there arises the need to challenge the popular discourse and problematise the notions of good cinema and a ‘neat’ film.
‘Balagam’ can be a clever movie that entertains audiences, but whatever entertains audiences need not be put in the category of good movies. The film privileges superstition as only one part of the story, but what is alarming is that it leaves a threat that if a crow doesn’t touch the oblation offered as part of post funeral rites/rituals, the family of the deceased would face the risk of banishment from the village, which is a very serious and a horrific proposition even to imagine.
Serious Contradictions
Let us begin with the title of the movie, ‘Balagam’. In the introductory song, where the title is introduced, ‘Balagam’ is to live in harmony with the village ecosystem, with people, flora, and fauna. However, when the movie ends, the semanticity of the title is reduced to brothers, sisters, and other members of a family evincing concern for one another. The all-smiles family photograph is demonstrated, while family members display camaraderie, seeming oblivious to their just-buried feuds.
• A narrative that substantially blurs the line between reality and fiction can easily bamboozle the audience into believing far-fetched claims
This looks too academic, but it is important to pinpoint this contradiction as a prelude to foreground other serious and pernicious contradictions. The story is replete with many situations and conversations that either romanticise or valorise the absurd. The protagonist, Koaraiah, is a paradox – on one hand, he is a responsible farmer and head of his family, well-loved by the villagers, a role model for people around him, having a deep bond with nature and the village; on the other hand, he is projected as a flirt who does not observe boundaries. For instance, in the opening scene, when he takes a round in the village, he meets a young lady and asks why was she so late to work: ‘Isn’t your husband not letting you sleep even now?’
The lady replies that her husband has been away for the past three days. Then Komaraiah asks her why, when her husband was not there, she didn’t inform him, implying the obvious. Consider the reply of the lady, which is partially admonishing and partially patronising. She says if she had told him, would he have come jumping over the compound wall like a young boy. The implication is telling. It gives the impression that crossing the compounds for the obvious purpose is common in villages. Yet, all such episodes can be glossed over for the sake of having grey characters who keep it real.
But the story itself is woven around family rituals, folk traditions, and intrafamily ego clashes. The fact that the son-in-law of the house had not been served a bone of mutton for the purpose of chewing the marrow becomes the flash point leading to a 20-year estrangement between the families. Komaraiah’s scolding of a husband for his failure to keep his wife under control could be attributed to the dominant patriarchal culture, to which Indian villages may not be an exception.
• The film ‘Happy Days’ (2007) was a great hit, and reviews pegged it as a good movie, whereas the film brazenly romanticises ragging
Then, Sailu’s engagement to a girl is broken consequent to Komaraiah’s death, as an elderly lady holds the ill fate of the girl responsible for the family’s misfortune. The elderly lady says, ‘Goddu vochina vela bidda vochinna vela antaru’ (the time of a buffalo coming and the time of a girl coming), which directly attributes the death of Komaraiah to the entry of the girl into the family by way of a proposed engagement. The fate of the girl stigmatised thus holds no consequence in the story – whether she carries the burden of being an ill-fated girl for a lifetime. While none of these stereotypical and patriarchal beliefs are uncommon, such blatant portrayal is sure to endorse and further perpetuate such attitudes among the audience.
Problematic Theme
But the larger point is on the very theme of cinema. The crow eating the ritualist’s oblation is central to the story. On the third-day ritual, the crow does not touch the oblation. The scene repeats on the fifth day too. Despite the son-in-law’s offering of lavish meals and foreign drinks to make the oblation attractive, the crow doesn’t turn up. In the argument that follows these rituals, crow-eating oblation also becomes, preposterously, a test of one’s manliness, and a family’s honour.
After the fifth-day ritual explicitly fails, the story takes a pernicious and dangerous turn. The hero, in the execution of a set agenda, hatches a conspiracy in connivance with his friends. A rumour spreads like wildfire that the dissatisfied soul of Komaraiah is hovering in the village, in fact latching on to a few individuals, as a consequence of which they are facing problems. The three villagers who suffer minor ailments have three different reasons, but the real reasons are suppressed to an extent, giving reason to believe that their illness is due to the village being haunted by Komaraiah’s unhappy soul.
The village conducts a panchayat to discuss the matter. The resolution of the village panchayat is communicated to the family of Komaraiah. If the crow doesn’t touch the offering on the 11th day, the family will be excommunicated or banished from the village – a twist that defies all common sense.
• ‘Balagam’ attempts not merely the perpetuation of superstition but the privileging of one superstition over the rest
A crow or any other bird eating the offering is a belief prevalent in most parts of South India and is not in dispute. But Telangana villages, like the towns and villages elsewhere, are moving ahead. The offering is made by the members of the family in a place conducive to the eating by birds. A few families leave it in a pond in the hope that the aquatic creatures would consume it. Gone are the days when people would wait indefinitely for the crows or birds to come and savour the offerings.
But ‘Balagam’ doesn’t allow this reform to continue. There is an episode in the movie where we have a Pundit asserting that only crows, and crows alone should eat the oblation, as only they have the capacity to communicate with the soul of the deceased – thus foreclosing all the other options.
The film, therefore, attempts not merely the perpetuation of superstition but the privileging of one superstition over the rest. If the ritualistic oblation of a certain family is not eaten by a crow on the day given, the family’s fate hangs in the hands of the village panchayat. From caste hierarchies to communal polarisations, from entering temples to drinking water in the well, ‘Balagam’ adds crow eating or not eating a ritualistic oblation to hold the subaltern sections to ransom by the dominant groups in the village.
Selective Perception
While many may argue that the movie has its good points – unity in the family, overcoming family feuds, valuing the rural way of life, etc, the fact remains that the average movie goer- especially those from rural areas – would take a movie at face value rather than be able to discern the social rights and wrongs in the movie. Moreover, communities already attuned to superstitious beliefs would find this movie a balm for the cognitive dissonance they experience with scientific and modern thinking catching up with the changing times.
Selective perception and retention is another danger – whether people see the good points of the movie or not, they will selectively retain the parts that are advantageous to them, specially the superstitious practices, and the anomalous power vested in the ‘panchayats’ to interfere in a family’s internal matters and decide their fate. The region in Telangana in which this film was shot and the areas where the mass screening of the film is happening, have the culture of village development committees, which wield greater power than the elected representatives in the village.
• It is high time we understood that culture and tradition cannot be equated with superstition
Returning to the question of what makes a good film and what its characteristics are, it is important to be cognisant of the fact that these are highly subjective propositions to categorise into frameworks. When everyone starts praising a movie, the message that the movie subtly conveys has far-reaching implications. It is high time we understood that culture and tradition cannot be equated with superstition.
While imagination and fantasy is what make up most movies, a narrative that substantially blurs the line between reality and fiction can easily bamboozle the audience into believing far-fetched claims. Certainly, a movie that promotes superstitious beliefs, a movie that attempts to take us to the medieval eras, a movie that doesn’t aptly map the changing sociology of the villages, a movie that doesn’t register the progress that the villages have made because of education and modernisation, can’t be called a good movie. The movie may well entertain you, but that is not and never has been a parameter for a good movie.
If we still call the movie a good movie, we are perhaps endorsing a fresh tool of banishment and ex-communication of families.
(The author is a Professor of English and Pro Vice Chancellor Aurora University, Hyderabad)