the people from the Dalit community were seeing something different. It hit me that while I kept cribbing that the film was slow, boring etc. But then it’s hard to ignore the dominance of privileged caste and class narrative that surrounds Indian cinema overall. I should confess that I have a poor knowledge of Indian language cinema in general. I don’t know of any film (with an exception of Fandry and Sairat) that talks about caste and Dalit assertion in a way that Kabali does. The analogy of crabs not wanting others to succeed, the dialogues on claims to equality hurting them, the indefatigable spirit carried in Thalaivar’s suit, Babasaheb’s portrait in a reformative school and Buddha in the classroom, and so many more, all of them made me come out of the theatre a more positive person, with more faith in the movement than before, and also the desire to get my suit ironed. The theatre was so overwhelmed that there was pin drop silence and then exchange of smiles to strangers to my right and left and back (shocked faces made my smile even broader). When Rajnikant says that dialogue about the politics of wearing Dhoti and Suit by Gandhi and Babasaheb respectively and the rebellion contained in the act of wearing the suit, oh my god.
#Kabali 2016 movie
I wrote in my marathi review of Sairat then that art can be a mirror but also a hammer, and the ‘entry’ of caste realities into the movie world need not always be the victim route, but also the heroic route, the struggling route, the conquering route.
#Kabali 2016 tv
Because what we see on our home walls and our colony streets rarely ever makes to the theatre or the TV screen, if ever. This was in itself something new to the audience. In ‘Fandry’ and ‘Sairat’ you would see the icons of Babasaheb and Phule couple at the backdrop of a scene where something is happening, and you were supposed to make out the contrast. The comparison isn’t just because both movies have shown caste realities and is made by Dalit/bahujans but because of their timing too. And symbolism had recently been introduced to the Marathi audience via ‘Fandry’ and ‘Sairat’ and had caused immense churning of repressed minds with their arrival on the theatre, mine included, but ‘Kabali’ was something else altogether. So was Tamil cinema for many of those present in the theatre in Aurangabad. Assertions are common all over the country but one may not be necessarily aware of the ones from other places, like many of us are still pleasantly surprised over Gujarat’s fight back.
#Kabali 2016 full
I felt the full power of a metaphor, a symbol, an icon, all of that I felt it while sitting in the houseful theatre of Aurangabad watching a Tamil movie in theatre for the first time and witnessing the moment when all the theatre fell dead silent on hearing Rajnikant speak of Babasahebs name. “I won’t stop talking about ‘Kabali’, get used to it or unfollow/unfriend. To explain my point, I am taking the liberty to share a Facebook post of Gaurav Somwanshi, whose public posts I follow. It was puzzling for me as I wondered why they weren’t seeing what I was. They also vented their anger against the mainstream media and people from savarna communities for dissing the film. Nobody spoke about the fact that the film was slow that it gets boring after a point of time. They spoke praises about how Rajnikant’s powerful dialogues about Ambedkar. Everybody seemed to be going gaga over the film. So, I started looking up the profiles of members of Dalit community that I regularly follow on social media. However, I was curious to know about Dalit community’s reaction to the film. I felt my opinion being validated since many people on social media echoed my views about it being a poor film. I promptly came back and posted my opinion on FB too. Meanwhile, I remember coming out of the theatre a tad bored wondering how the film would have turned out if it was tightly edited. I also felt that the character of Tony Lee (villain) was no match to the persona of Kabali. But post-interval, I was bored and restless. To have Rajnikant’s character talk about the importance of dressing up well in suits was powerful but so were the subtle references to people living in an Ambedkar colony in Chennai. When I was watching the film, I thought that it was very interesting that the film had Ambedkar references throughout. It is a film about a Malaysian Tamil man, a labourer, who rises to become a leader of the Tamil community and eventually becomes a don.
I was expecting a typical masala movie (I had NO prior idea of Pa Ranjith’s filmography). After long I was looking forward to a Rajnikant film and its associated frenzy. Like everyone else, I watched Kabali too.