Kantara: Chapter 1 - Varaha "dupe-'em"

Kantara Chapter 1
2025, Kannada

Director: Rishab Shetty

Stars: Rishab Shetty, Rukmini Vasanth, Jayaram, Gulshan Devaiah

I have with me a PhD research paper from IIT Indore on how the mysticism of Kantara can provide impetus for deforestation and sustainability. How I wish Mr. Shetty had read this dissertation before making this prequel.

The title is telling.  Mr. Shetty is has bought into the idea of a multiverse, and with it, allowing the ancient Tulu tale to fall into the bottomless pit of Pan-Indian catastrophes.  There is much in Kantara Ch 1 that reminds us of the ineffective efforts of the equally bad Ponniyan Selvan.  In fact, it feels like Jayaram just walked off the set of that movie to enter this one.  Here he plays an inept king who gives up the throne to put his tyrannical son into power.  The son's goal, perhaps reflective of his father's, is to possess the riches of the mystical forest of Kantara. 

The hero, who can only be played by our director, is now obligated to lead armies into battle, recreating the scenes from Bahubali, fighting off ogre-like dark magicians - from Adipurush, and bartering with spice-hungry Portuguese traders, all the while wooing yet another scantily clad princess.  

So, where are Panjurli and Guliga, whom this film is supposed to about it?  With the exception of a few references and a couple of "Whoas!!!", they are left to the closing scenes, leaving we as an audience duped.

The late philosopher Joseph Campbell blamed the West for what he called "concretizing myths," taking timeless mystical tales and leaving them behind as incidents of the past.  We Indians go one step further; we create the myths and in turn pulverize them.