KANTARA RIDDLE
Throughout the movie, we hear screaming sound of the divine spirit. The scream loaded with pain, sense of urgency and care behind. The scream wakes up the hero from his sleep. The movie is indirectly making us to wake up to the riddles, questions that the director has thrown all over the movie on wide verity of topics. At one point the spirit questions whether we could see the answer (ಕಂತದಾ? Do you see it?), mentioning light from the torch, and vanish.
VANISHING ACT
“Kantara” is referred as mystical forest. It is like SUDOKU or any other puzzle where the answer is visible only to the one who tries to make sense of the puzzle. One who knows the nature of the forest, gets in and out of it easily. Everyone has the ability to see the answer, is the point the movie is trying to make. Everyone can become DAIVA (demi god) irrespective of our social status or caste. For the eyes of the arrogant and the ignorant the divine spirit simply vanishes and the ignorant will invariably be unhappy and face the consequences of their actions.
Is this the Demigod speaking?
Or is it the performer?
If it indeed is the performer,
may you find me again. However, if it is the Demigod… oooo (disappears)
CONFLICTS
The movie Kantara is a big screen adaptation of Bhuta Kola, a cultural drama of the people belonging to the forest of Tulunadu. Bhuta Kola is a ritual to celebrate the co-existence with differences and conflicts and to be in harmony with nature. The movie brings out beautifully all elements of bhuta kola culture and makes us to think and appreciate the essence of the tradition followed for centuries to protect themselves and their dwelling, the forest.
Here are some of the conflicting points the movie presents to our awareness.
1. Man Vs Animal conflict.
2. Shrinking Forest land Vs Expanding Cultivation land.
3. Forest land Vs Cultivation land Resources, food, Culture and Gods.
4. State authority Vs Native people rights.
5. Innocence Vs Intelligence.
In the movie, all these conflicts are subtly narrated as exchanges between Panjurli and Guliga. Guliga is ever hungry for more. Neither Panjurli nor Guliga is superior or inferior to one another. There is no winning but to acknowledge their roles and responsibilities.
ACCEPTANCE
The movie clearly states, the resolution to all the conflicts is to accept that the there is an issue. The hero roams around as an ignorant, purposeless and unaware of the issues that are happening around him. He is unaware that he has accepted himself as a subservient to the landlord not knowing his rights and capabilities. The hunger for pleasures blinds the hero Shiva.
When he learns about death of Guruva, his perspectives of the reality around him starts to change. The changed perspective, enables him to enter the house of the landlord with courage and has dinner as an equal to the landlord, otherwise was considered as an act of ‘untouchablilty’.
This realization is further strengthened when he encounters the wild boar after falling from the bike. He is no longer afraid of the boar, instead he goes after the wild boar, to find the answers to clear all his doubts.
VISION FROM LIGHT (ಬೆಳಕ್ಕಲ್ಲ, ದರ್ಶನ)
Through the divine spirit, the movie is making us to ponder over the question of whether we are seeing the objects or the reflections of light on the objects.
Light!
In light, everything is visible.
But this is not just light
It’s a vision.
This can be interpreted as God is showing in the form of light and we are seeing. Also interpreted as, God is there in all objects and ‘rupa’. That leads us to the interpretation of all that we perceive are the act of God, including the person perceiving. It is for this reason when we go to temple, not to see the God but to have ‘darsan’ of the God. All our temple visits are essentially to get clarity in understanding the difference between ‘seeing’ and ‘darsan’. ‘Seeing’ involves effort. ‘Darshan’ has to happen on its own.
‘Darshan’ is insight after connecting the dots or understanding about what we are seeing.
THE PARTS OF ‘SEEING’
We tend to interpret all that we ‘see’ as ‘I am seeing’ or ‘I am making the effort to see’. Anything that we see can be interpreted as ‘I am seeing” that which is being ‘shown’. We don’t say a tree is showing to us. But the light falls on the tree is reaching our eyes. In a way, the tree is presented to us by the light and we are making sense out the light. This way of understanding the parts of ‘seeing’ helps us to dig further.
SHOWING MIND
Similarly we could ‘see’ the thoughts, feeling, past memories, thoughts about future. We could see clearly a thought to buy milk, or to pay electricity bill comes on its own, without any effort. Those are thoughts of future. We can understand clearly the two parts, we are sensing the thought arising and the mind is showing those thoughts.
The light which will shine
on the past and the future.
Do you see it?
WHO AM I
Observing further reveals yet another mystery about who we are.
In the complete darkenss, when there is no light, we could sense our presence very clearly. In the darkeness others cannot sense our presence. But we could sense our existence very clearly without any doubt. To sense something, something has to be shown. Just as the way mind shows the feelings, thoughts and memories, mind is presenting the thoughts about our own self to the sensing tool of awareness. The feeling of our existence is just a thought projected by the mind.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/SYdjDnxkbhE
We are a thought in our mind. Mind makes us to believe that we exist and we are seeing the world. Try to lift the finger and realize what is your contribution in that action. The muscle that got pulled, blood that reached the pulling muscle, are all happening on its own, we are not aware of any of the these details. Yet we claim that I lifted the finger!! This a conceited ‘darasan’ of our own self.
With this clarity of understanding of self and and world around him, our hero receives a final screaming / wake up call from Panjurli that transforms himself as Guliga and fights with a purpose.
CONCLUSION
With all the spectacle of visuals and sounds, with a deliberate mix of all genre music, the movie appeals to our inner instincts to ponder over how one has to co-exist in harmony with nature and with right kind of accepting intelligence. Realizing our inferiority and superiority complexes, and when we accept that we are no less or greater to anyone, only then we can realize our true potential and act purposefully.
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