Upendra, starring Upendra, directed by Upendra.

I went into Kannada director-star (titled "Real Star" in the Kannada film industry) Upendra's self-titled film (now there's a turn of phrase one rarely sees in cinema!) very cautiously. My relationship with the film maker has been one part awe, one part admiration or appreciation but also one part condemnation for the, shall we say, problematic elements in his films. 

In Super (symbol), I appreciated the wild imagination that brought the film its energy, but loathed the way that women were used rather predictably as nothing but mere symbols of the bigger picture. I also had a more minor problem with the message presented. In A, the "women problem" was even more prominent, though once again the film had enough interesting ideas that I didn't hate it - in fact, I'll probably end up rewatching it at some point. 

There is so much thought behind these films, I would never want to dismiss them despite the fact that I am deeply disturbed by the way Upendra treats his heroines. Like I said in my review of Super, it annoys me because I would hope that somebody who puts so much thought into crafting his stories would really think through his choices when it comes to portrayal of women. Upendra is not the only brilliant man who hasn't considered the opposite gender much at all, and he won't be the last, but I maintain my wish that it wasn't so. I wouldn't be so hesitant in recommending his films if women weren't thrown around indiscriminately to deliver ..no point whatsoever, really. To be fair, Upendra's heroes rough-house men as well, but it doesn't make it any more palatable. These are loud, eccentric films - but there's a way to do it without so much casual, pointless violence, and I think Upendra could consider that option.

However, and this is a fairly major 'however', I feel as if with Upendra (the film), I have reconciled my relationship with Upendra (the film maker). I feel like three films in, I finally understand him a bit more, and while those problems I have remain, I can look past them and appreciate his films on the level he intended. It was as if Upendra (the film) was a journey into the mind of Upendra (the film maker) and while I think out of his films, in terms of the story, I appreciate A the most, in terms of the message, I really came out liking Upendra (the film ..yes, I am aware of how confusing this continues to be!).

Upendra is a tale of Naanu (Upendra), an absolutely wretched, selfish human being. He doesn't believe in lying, so he exposes other people's hypocritical lives while  breaking every rule society has given him to break. Despite this, a young woman named Rathi (Damini) falls in love with him. However, she soon finds out Naanu has two other women in his life - he is pursuing the rich heiress Keerthi (Raveena Tandon) and has a wife (Prema) as well. Who will be choose to be with, and will any of the women have him?

The eccentric loudness makes the film actually quite difficult to watch, and the real experience actually only begins on the second watch. The first time, you feel as if you don't know where anything is headed - Naanu is your typical loud, violent, punch-dialogue-delivering Upendra hero, but the way he points out hypocrisies in society just isn't really all that logical. It's also really not that interesting. The juggling he does between the women in his life also starts to feel a bit dull after a while - he loves Rathi but wants Keerthi, but has obligations to his wife. 

Damini is possibly the weakest link in the cast - Prema and Raveena do well with their exaggerated characters, and Upendra of course doesn't need to do much to do what he knows to do in his films. It's a drag on the first watch, when one is still under the illusion that all these threads of story are actually headed somewhere fairly typical. Even once you find out the real purpose of the film, there is just so much slack.

I read somewhere that some press in India were upset over the vulgar portions of the film - there is pretty frank discussion of the hero spending time with prostitutes and other sexual topics. I didn't mind  these parts because they were there, but even in retrospect it is difficult to see their purpose.

And that's the real downfall of this movie - the purpose is so evident on the second time you watch it when it comes to some things, but not when it comes to others. I get the sense that Upendra (the film maker) often doesn't care what the audience that doesn't already love him, thinks of him, but there is much to be said for a slight toning down of the loudness to perhaps allow all of those who haven't previously enjoyed his films another look in. 

I think sometimes it's fine for a movie to be so much in your face with its everything - from the songs (lyrics penned by Upendra, unsurprisingly perhaps) to the acting, to the dialogue and even to the initial shreds of social message you may read into the film, and I wouldn't ask Upendra to completely abandon his style. Still, I think there's something to be said for taking it down a notch - less is more, that kind of thing. 

However, with all these criticisms, I really appreciated the final message of the film. I wish you could somehow remove the frillings and just focus on the point of the film. As it concerns the very end of the film, I'll have to slap a big SPOILER warning here right now. If you haven't seen the film, by all means, check it out if you think you'd like it. If you have seen the film, continue reading!

Anathaaru - what's in a remake?

Bala's modern Tamil classic, Pithamagan, is probably not the first film you'd choose to remake. It's a dark and grim tale of a man who barely knows how to communicate via speech, and its other protagonist is a scam artist - the film only operates in shades of grey when it comes to morality. It's also a film packed with powerhouse performances; not only did the film put Vikram on top of the list when it came to versatility in Tamil cinema, it's also remembered for Surya's portrayal of the lovable con artist, and the female leads (Laila and Sangeetha) were solid as well. (My Pithamagan review, for further reading.)

To my great surprise, however, Anathaaru, the 2007 Kannada remake of Pithamagan, does not fall that much behind its original counterpart. Perhaps what happened with Nanban, the vivacious Tamil remake of 3 Idiots - I love the original so much I cannot help but also love the same story and characters in the remake.

So much rested on Upendra's shoulders. Could he match Vikram's original dialogue-free performance in any way, shape or form? I was impressed that he more or less did. He doesn't copy his acting cue's from Vikram, but makes the character his own. The performances do not feel identical, though they clearly share the same roots in the story. I've been of two minds when it comes to Upendra as a film maker (see my reviews of Super and A) but I'm definitely of one mind when it comes to the man as an actor: he's talented.

Darshan plays Sathya the conman, and has the same infectious likability as Surya's performance in the original film. The character is still a horrible human being, and never changes for the better precisely; the romance he has with the young girl Parvathi (Sanghavi) after scamming her is still one of the more questionable romances I've witnessed on screen. And yet, I like both of them, and more astonishingly, I root for them to be together.

And naturally his scenes are hilarious to watch as well. 

Sanghavi portrays Parvathi with the same kind of petulant, yet sympathetic pluckiness as Laila did in the original. I'm sure some people find this character grating; I don't, and will like her in every version of the story.

The low-grade DVD (with English subtitles, thankfully) does not show a strong directorial hand, however, and I find myself wondering if it's just the DVD or perhaps the remake is simply not as well directed as Bala's original. The cinematography is fairly dull, and the colours even more dull - if I didn't already love the story, I'm not sure if I'd be that impressed with it this time around. It's a good film, but perhaps because it's not original, it's not a great film. 

Still, for the performances and the ability to bring life to this story a second time, I have to give the Kannada film makers props. It's a challenging film to remake, and they did a decent job of it. I would recommend it for Upendra's strong performance, but for those who've not seen the original - do not see this one before you've witnessed Pithamagan.

A: a film.

Kannada director-actor Upendra's A is a disjointed film full of bold choices, creative execution and merging serious points with more masala elements. It's a story about a director, and an actress he makes a star out of, and it's a story about love - however, to call it a love story would give you a rather weird idea of love throughout most of the movie. A bit of the underbelly of the film industry is exposed, but it's not an exposé.

It's almost impossible to clearly define what A truly is; all I really know is, I can't really discuss it properly without spoiling it. It did confirm something for me: Upendra seems to be a film maker whose choices I do not agree with quite often, but I still appreciate what he's doing, if not how he's doing it. A lot of these niggles have to do with how he treats his female characters, but I'll explain my thinking further in the spoileriffic part of this write-up. 

So either rush to watch it, or stop reading this.

From here on there will be SPOILERS. Including the very end of the film.

Head-first into the world of Upendra: Super (hand symbol).

What does any film watcher want in this world but to see something they've never seen before? To be surprised or provoked by a film experience is one of the greatest joys of it all, and on top of that, the delicious aftermath of telling a friend, "I saw a film unlike any film you've seen before."

From the moment I found out about Upendra, the "Real Star" of the Kannada language film industry of the south, often titled Sandalwood, I understood this was a man who was doing something Different, with a capital D. Now, whether it was something Different that I would like, I hadn't any idea, but I was curious all the same. 

So when I was putting together a DVD order of 6 films from six different film industries of India, and came upon "Super" (the title, being a handsymbol as seen in the screencap above, could be understood in multiple ways, as explained by Wikipedia but "Super" stuck in the media and fan conscious), I knew I had to see it, even if the DVD had no subtitles whatsoever. 

I mean, it's a film whose title is a hand symbol. 

A hand symbol.

Wrap your head around that first, folks, before you get on this ride - because "Super" is not just a quirky Southie director with a big ego playing around with concepts in a way that lends itself to amusing screencaps (though it is plenty of that, too!), it's also a political satire and a political philosophy dissertation in the format of a film. It's a film-long metaphor for the betterment of Indian society. It's simply put - something very unique, indeed.

Even the beginning credits provide something of interest. "Dialogues" become "die locks", story becomes "sorry". Producer becomes "fraud user". 

Behind these twists on words, we get scenes from life in India - all the negative aspects, be it violence, crime, or poverty. And then we reach this ultimatum: 

The letters "pendra" follow the U, eventually, but for a moment, the audience is literally being pointed at. This is your India. Look at it.

After that, we are taken 20 years into the future, to 2030 (this film was put out in 2010), where a foreigner comes to Mysore and sees a rich India, with cultured Indians strolling around in exquisitive Indian clothing (all the saris are made of the finest silk), with technology decorating tall buildings and not a trash in sight. Curiously, the problem of poverty has not been erased - but instead of fellow Indians slumming it, you have white people as beggars and service workers.

Naturally the foreigner - white British man, I should add - wants to know what lead to this enormous rise of India's wealth and infrastructure, and an Indian scholarly man tells him the story of how this all came to be, in a movie-long flashback.

Our "heroin" as per the beginning credits, Nayantara, enters the scene with flowers in her hair, romancing a rowdy who seems scared to death of her. Without subtitles this sequence is almost impossible to decode, but somehow she ends up threatening some rowdies until our hero bursts into the scene:

...carrying roses, accompanied by motorcycled badasses and white girls in mini-skirts. Okay!

The man is of course played by Upendra, the director himself, and the character is called Subhas Chandra Gandhi (remind you of anyone? it should). For a man raised in England, we see the enormous passion he's got for his home country, India. We even get a scene where the healing powers of the Indian soil are demonstrated in a scene that reminds me of Shahruh Khan's pigeon-curing in DDLJ.

Hand on heart, he has faith that his country, India, is the greatest in the world..

Eventually we see him meet Nayantara's character Indira (which leads me to ask what the meeting with the roses was about? God, I would kill for subtitles..), who is a traditional Indian girl, coming to London to perform traditional music and dance. We see the two fall in love.

It's all rather adorable, and they even get married, where we get the film's first twist; Indira is not really the traditional girl she acted like, but a mini-skirt wearing, cigarette-smoking, wine-glass holding schemer, who only married Subhas because years ago, her sister Mandir (Tulip Joshi) attempted suicide after he turned down her love, and now Indira wants to revenge this injustice.

She breaks down his idealistic view of India; Indians are rotten, corrupt and dirty, and could never amount to much. He's devastated, but takes up on her challenge to see Indian society for what it is.

This leads him to fight for a former teacher, who's got some trouble with his pension, but the problems of society hit him in the face every step of the way. He's distraught, but wants to make a difference all the same, and stays in India to do so.

Based on this, it might not seem like there is a lot going on, but the crux of the political satire and the message of the film only comes into full bloom on the second half. I've read that the film addresses specific Karnataka political scandals, and as I understand it, the political ideas of the film boil down to the thesis of corruption only existing so long as it is allowed by the people; Upendra's satire cuts not only the corrupt politicians but the people who dismiss politics as corrupt and don't try to change the ways things work on a microlevel.

In true film tradition, this political tale and message is still inter-cut with songs. The romance itself is a little questionable to say the least; not only the way in which it comes about (the scheming Westernised woman?) but also the way this plot-point ends - as a metaphor for something bigger. I'll get into some big spoilers later on regarding this, but for now, that's all I'll say. (I should also warn anybody who is squeamish over portrayal of rape, even just attempted such, there are such scenes in the film.)

At the end of the day, what is there to be said for a film so rich with thinking, even if a lot of it is fairly jingoistic? Well, I have to say, for all my criticisms of some of Upendra's points, and some questions that I have about the film as I saw it without subtitles, I really appreciate what he's doing, and how interestingly he is doing it. Even if I disagree with some of his choices, they are bold ones, they do make one think and they are packaged in a glorious mass entertainer that is truly in a league of its own. I think a subtitled DVD would be in high demand; this is a story not just for Indians, but also NRIs and even us Westeners to mull over.

It is weird and exaggerated (just look at the hairstyle in the screencap above), but it is also wonderful, and it has those complexities that you wouldn't necessarily expect from a blockbuster film. I don't think I understand Upendra in all his glory just yet, but I am more than happy to find out and see more. I didn't always agree with this film, but I ended up loving it for what is was - and what is was attempting to do.

SPOILERS 

Since the film is written like a thesis, I'll respond to it like one - with questions, thoughts and challenges. My first thought upon seeing Upendra's vision of the future wasn't to be offended that he portrayed white people as beggars, but rather the idea that an utopian future would include poverty in such a visible manner. To me, the problem in any society isn't the skin colour of the poor, but the fact that people are so poor they become beggars in the first place. I think the key to happiness in wealthy nations is not that I'm rich and somebody else is a beggar, because seeing them causes me grief/guilt and a number of other negative emotions - but that I'm reasonably well-off and my fellow (wo)man is not on the streets, either. The gap between the rich and the poor is what creates envy, greed and mistrust between people. I think somebody needs to send Upendra a copy of this book called The Spirit Level - which states that inequality harms us all, the rich the poor and the middle-earners. 

As far as his central idea goes, I am more persuaded. What is the responsibility of the people who consider politicians corrupt but continue electing them? What is there to be said for political apathy, and how much better would societies be if people felt more of a collective responsibility over the society that is essentially theirs? The thesis that you scale back democracy so much that the Chief Minister is the Common Man - or the common man is the chief minister of his own society - is very thought-provoking. The idea is that the choices we make on an individual level can be both to the detriment of the collective level - the society - or to the betterment of it. You can be great if you choose to live great - this sort of thinking.

I'll have to admit, I'm still unsure how I feel about the rape attempt of Indira to wake up Mandira from her coma. Even though steeped in metaphor - Indira as India, Mandira as Indian people, comatose from their apathy as to how bad things truly are - it still makes me uncomfortable. Of course, lack of subtitles made sure I had no idea whether Indira was actually in on this plan or not - whether she knew the true backstory of how her sister got to the state she ended up in. If she didn't, what is essentially happening - putting the metaphor aside for a moment - is that her husband is attempting to rape her. The horribleness of this imagery does lend the metaphor the sort of impact it was probably meant to have, but there's also other things to unpack here. (Did it have to be Subhas himself doing the raping?)

Why do women get to only to be metaphorical stand-ins for a nation and its people? There is a problematic, unquestioned misogynist premise here that is not uncommon in Indian films, but ought to be pointed out all the same; women are there to be "invaded" (raped) or protected. 

Patriarchy is not Upendra's fault, but I wish a director who obviously is thinking a lot about the film he is making, and has a tendency to present his messages in interesting ways, would question such decisions. Women who have agency are essential to any kind of social change that India needs as a country. (See several Satyamev Jayate episodes for succinct explanations of why this is.)

Another thing where I wish I had subtitles was so I could dig into the portrayal of Gandhism in the film. It seems like Upendra is saying, Gandhi's thesis of "turning the other cheek", being passive but strong against an enemy has made the Indian people docile in the face of adversity and problems. They are "turning the other cheek" towards corrupt politicians, when they should be making a difference actively, every day, in their lives. 

In the end, the biggest questions the movie brought up in me are questions of humanity - why do we do bad things, selfish things? Is it just our nature, or our carelessness about the welfare of others? And then the really tough questions - how can we change for the better, and whether we can change to leave a lasting impact?

But I do love the ending, and the punch it packs with such simplicity - who changed this all? You did. In the end, it's not a story of a hero, because no one person can change as much as needs to be. 

As for Upendra, I am extremely interested in watching his past works, both as a director and an actor. He's obviously doing something interesting, something unique and something different, and I think I can overlook the misogynist elements in his films (as I've heard there are some, and which was my biggest problem here) for the benefit of whatever else he is trying to say. He's also quite good-looking which is always a bonus. 

I also have to thank Amogh on Twitter for answering my questions about the film, helping me grasp some of the complexities of the message Upendra was putting forth.