They say art imitates life and life imitates art. Because sometimes artists draw inspiration from real world and make a movie or write a book or painting. And some times an artist can write anything bs and in future some technology extravaganza this and that and art comes to life. I remembered this because I saw a bald police inspector on the road side stopping vehicles for routine license and insurance check and that immediately reminded me of Fahad Fasil from Pushpa. Although, Fafa plays a forest department inspector, but that's not the point here, Gootle. So, I kept thinking about Pushpa and was thinking oh I haven't watched Pushpa 2 and realised I have to get Netflix subscription and it was mostly month end so I was low on funds and some busy work at workplace, so I did what any reasonable person would do. I added it to watchlist in my mind and forgot about it. After few weeks, I was listening to music on Spotify and I remembered it's been a long time since I listened to Hiranya Pushpa Prabhavam song from Pushpa part one, the song that comes after climax and during end credits. For some reason, the audio didn't give me enough high, so I went to youtube to see that climax bit. The argument between Allu Arjun who I will further refer here on as AA. That intense argument between AA and Fafa, and how the casteism, being a bastard son and lack of education and all crushed him to ground and yet how he built that empire (even though it's criminal empire, which is not the point again, Kootle) and how Fafa making fun of him wasn't a good thing to do. So he stands naked and makes him stand naked too. And they stand on the ground, If pushpa goes naked on the street, everyone would recognise him, because that's the brand value he built on himself and nobody would recognise, even his dog without his uniform. The point was to prove Fafa is like s superman, with unlimited power and stamina. But without his uniform, he's just another Clark Kent who's the first one to die if someone like Homelander attacks the city, or in this case a village. And AA goes naked to the wedding hall, gets married to Srivalli and in front of them there is a homa kunda burning, partially covering AA face and partially revealing his face, resembling the inner turmoil of fire that was kept inside of him and how now he has became unstoppable as he has let go of the barrier of half cooked morality that was holding him. On the other side, Fafa's dog doesn't recognises him and barks at him thinking he's stranger, so he kills it. Fafa goes inside and gets the bribe money Pushpa has offered and drinks liquor and sets the money on fire. On one frame, for a second or two, you can see both of them are sitting in front of fire, one is from pooja and another one is from destruction and how they are both raging inside with it. And that gave me insane high that I was expecting and I got it on watching the climax on YouTube. I woke up to reality when the bus reached my destination.
Pushpa
I was walking home, phone in the pocket and yet I kept thinking about Pushpa and other related things related to art. One of the article I read came to my mind while I was walking home, while I was humming, "Nota banagraavayite, Srivalli, maate maanikyavayite" and I know I'm no Sid Sriram, but a guy can try right? So I was singing Srivalli song and okay I'm making this up. I was walking and my slipper fell off, and I tried to grab it and it went further away and I finally grabbed it which is similar to exact dance sequence of Allu Arjun in Srivalli song. And I was like, Oh my God, life imitated art.
That being intro, some movies are set in regular life, it can happen to me, you or anyone around us. Like the shop getting destroyed in Earthquake from Mukunda Muraari kannada movie, or that elope marriage from Sairat, or even something as wild as John Wick. At first killing 100+ people because they killed your dog feels far fetched, but anyone who has a doggo or even someone who petted one for five minutes would say, Understable John Wick, go on, kill everyone. That's about things happening in movies based on life and life recreating the events that happened in movies. In Drushya kannada movie, V Ravichandran kills the guy who harassed and filmed nude video of his daughter and buries the evidence of his body under the police station. A similar thing probably may have happened in real life., I'm not sure of it. I meant the That part of killing and burying body under the constructing building. Some have tried to smuggle wood after Pushpa, some tried to beat the police on head with soda bottle after KGF, and some depressed and got themselves killed like Saptha Sagaradache Ello. That kept me thinking about Cinema's impact on life. As they say, Cinema is obviously the powerful medium. And it can impact one's life and can influence people into doing or not doing certain things. When we are younger, we are easily influenced, good or bad that's secondary. But we will be usually get influenced easily. That's why the Government places Mukesh Anti Cigarette ads and throat cancer awareness ads before the movies. As a movie watcher, I hate that sheet, many filmmakers have opposed the idea of showing those ads before their movie. Director Sandeep Reddy Vanga criticised his movie scenes getting removed by Censor Board. When there are laws implemented by Government, it usually serves one or few purposes, and like any other law it does have its own drawbacks or limitations. In the recent audio release function of movie Retro, Surya asked and requested his fans not to take up smoking as habit or even try it, he only did that as part of movie shooting. And I thought that was not necessary. Surya is my favourite actor. But I have not started smoking because he smoked in Vaaranam Aayiram. But however, I did wish I had seven senses like him or Bodhidharman after watching 7am Arivu. So, the impact of movies on people and fans in general cannot be underestimated. As a law abiding citizen or respectful actor, he has own moral obligation that he's responsible for moral upbringing of his fans and I appreciate that.
One of the reason why a bad movie is dangerous than a bad book is because, you have to have to know reading and understand comprehension or metaphor to understand a book varying from Half Girlfriend to Crime and Punishment. But when it comes to movies, it is easily accessible and it catches on quickly so any anpadh crime enthusiast can watch The Goodfellas and inspire to be a Gangster. Matrin Scorsese didn't made the movie to push youth to be gangsters, but there is a possibility of that and that's where government restrictions step in. Taking two examples from people around me, Kalyug movie scarred few of my friends and they stopped watching porn for long time, because the movie shows how porn industry exploits the innocent and helpless. That was during our teen years. Another event is from childhood, Upendra film was new and everyone was buzzing. In mastu mastu hudugi bandlu song, we have seen Upendra tying jasime flowers around his wrist and dancing. So the kids looked at him, tied whatever they got to tie around hands kept dancing. For context, it's a tradition to tie that jasmine flower around bridegroom hand during their prastha shaastra or what they call as first night. That's super wierd for adults to see as kids who were dancing didn't knew anything about first night rituals or this and that, but for any adults seeing kids tying some jasmine flowers or anything around hand and sniffing would wierd out for sure.
That brings us to the question of the hour I started this article with. Does cinema can impact our life in a good or bad way? To which extent cinema or filmmakers are responsible in shaping up or tearing down the country. In muttu kannada film starring Ramesh Aravind, he is seen struggling to get good education for his kid and I haven't watched the movie, but I think it ends with his kid achieving his dream. In care of footpath movie, master kishan isn't allowed to get proper education but he studies hard and wins in life. And now coming to bad side of it, they arrested few people smuggling wood in Uttar Pradesh. Usually when police arrest criminals and they are taking them from police station to court or to the jeep, and when journalist surround the police for questions, the criminals in background are usually looking downward towards the ground, sometimes face covered in mask or clothes, hands tied or stuff like that. But the people who got arrested for that case, I saw the news in newspaper and it amazed me. Because, the criminals who were arrested didn't care a single sheet about the journalists who got their photo. Their face wasn't covered, and they made that Pushpa hand gesture on the beard like "Jhukega Nahi Saala" means they won't bend down. That means two things, one, they know what they did and two, they aren't ashamed of it. It brings us to the two questions I asked earlier. Does cinema change the person to pick the dark side (yeah star wars reference) or good side like a Good Samaritan from Person of Interest TV show. And should the filmmakers be appreciated when things go right or blamed when things go wrong. If we blame the Pushpa filmmakers for wood smuggling in Uttar Pradesh or anywhere, should we call and congratulate 12th fail movie makers because they gave inspiring story of education and success. Applauding Uri filmmakers for that patriotic persona or blaming Animal filmmakers for gore violence and half nudity in the name of art. Where do we take the stand here? For that I have a simple answer. It may not be perfect or a universally acceptable one, but as I said, it's simple.
I think of Cinema as a catalyst. Catalyst is a thing that's added in the chemical lab to speed up the process. It doesn't involve in the chemical reaction, but helps to achieve the result faster, that's my general understanding and the definition I remember from school days. Any AI would give you pitch perfect answer to that, so I'm not gonna focus much there. Like example if we add salt to water, it becomes salt water. That's simple english. In chemistry, we say NaCl + H2O --> NaOH + C2 + H2. This process doesn't involve catalyst but let's assume it has a catalyst named Peter. Peter will fasten the chemical reaction but doesn't participate in the chemical process. To analyse this in a funny way, there were mini quarrels happened some or other time during our school days. Like one kid from Class A accusing another kid from Class B that he stole his pencil or something like that. And a mini quarrel is happening in the classroom and one kid will come in between, and may say mean things to both and ignite their anger to push that quarrel to violence. That kid is Cinema. Or imagine a kid who comes in between and says things like All of us are God Gifts, we shouldn't quarrel in this holy temple we call as school and the kids stop quarrelling and become friends, that kid is Cinema as well
From the above examples of a kid igniting the fight and diffusing it, we can place the cinema in chemical reaction of our life. It doesn't actively shape the world or the push the darkness, but it does has the power to influence the things that's already there. Take the example of the two kids fighting from above scenario. If the issue goes to court, the two kids who fought will get to say why they did what they did. But those two kids cannot say third kid named Cinema came in between and pushed the fire of the conversation and that's why beat the sheet out of each other. In the same way, if the quarrelling discontinues and they become lifelong friends, it's because they wanted to become friends and the credit goes to the two kids and not the third kid named Cinema. Although, third kid did impact the outcome of two scenario, he only brought out the intent which was already there.
And we now come to next question, are filmmakers accountable for the thing that happens because of the art they produced. In eddelu manjunatha movie, as a punchline or something Jaggesh character Manjunatha says "Jnana yaava mooladadinda bandru tagobekanthe anta nam gurugalu helavre" which translates to "Our Guru has said, we have to take the knowledge from all the sources of life, when it's offered". That line was presented in the movie as a punch back to the previous quote but I still got the gist of it and followed it till this day. Like take this as wisdom, The universe is finite and it's resources are finite, so eliminating half the population would help the other half thrive. That's from Infinity War and it's said by Thanos, the epic villain of the movie. I didn't disregarded as it was a quote by Villain, for some extent it did made sense.
Life is beautiful, I don't care if this quote is by a criminal, I adore it with all my heart and I don't undervalue the quote just because a criminal said it. Having said that, filmmakers do have the same weightage of shaping the world we live in. They have the moral obligation of showing right winning over the wrong and things, but Mahabharata also has lot of adharma elements that sometimes make sense, lot of grey area. As Rocky said, this world is not always sunshine and rainbows and something something, I forgot the quote, but you got the point right? Filmmakers are suggested to show the right always wins over wrong but practically sometimes the evil wins, so they have to showcase that truth too. Only showing the bright colors of the world doesn't mean everyone will turn up good. Sometimes bad characters give meaning to life and they teach how not to live life. So, in the end it's the audience, who is advised to pick the right apple among the bunch of them at supermarket. As Akkamahadevi said, "Bettada Mele Maneya Maadi, Mrugagalige Anjidode Entayya" meaning, if you build a home on top of the mountain, you should let go of the fear of wild animals. Similarly, inspiration can strike anywhere, some have left City job and started agriculture after watching Dr Rajkumar's Bangarada Manushya, some have called parents and siblings after watching Vishnuvardhana's Yajamana, and some may have took dark path based on certain movies. As that Batman Begins dialogue, It's not who I am under the mask, but what i does defines me. Similarly, you may like American Psycho and donate to kids orphanage, in the end you matter, what you do and what you don't do counts. Here we close the article with Written and Directed by me, with end credits, See you next show.
