Two recently released regional films showcase the exciting new face of vernacular language films in this country. Sairat by Nagraj Manjule is a Marathi film about young love between members of different castes. Thithi by Raam Reddy is a Kannada film about the death of a family patriarch. Both films are deeply embedded in their milieus, a rural India where divisions of class and caste continue to throttle social life, even as youthful hope is beginning to shift the old order.
Manjule, whose last film Fandry was also about inter-caste love, switches the template in Sairat to a mercurial couple whose opposing caste statuses foreshadow a bittersweet romance. Parshya, a low-caste man, falls for Archie, an upper-caste girl whose father is a rich landlord. The story is similar to that of last year's Masaan, but the treatment is more visceral. Rinku Rajguru and Akash Thosar, who play the leads, display a mastery that belies their status as first-time actors.
Released in February, the film has become the highest-grossing Marathi film of all times, having done business worth over Rs 50 crore. This marks a new high for regional films that, even when they are critically appreciated, play second fiddle in the numbers game to Bollywood potboilers.
Compared to Sairat, Thithi's success has had a longer gestation. It premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last year where it won the Golden Leopard in the Filmmakers of the Present category for the director. It has since travelled the world, collecting awards and critical acclaim.
In the Mandya district of Karnataka, Century Gowda, a 101-year-old man known for his quick repartee, passes away, leaving behind three generations of his progeny. His eldest son, Gadappa, himself fairly old and wrinkled, is the sort of dreamer who passes his days in a haze, wandering the village aimlessly. Gadappa's son Thamanna is the exact opposite of his father, keen to exploit Century Gowda's death to make off with a property registered in the patriarch's name. Thamanna's son, Abhi, is a regular teenager who couldn't be bothered about anything but his infatuation with a local girl.
Their stories intertwine around Thithi, the eleventh day of Century Gowda's death. Shot with a wry sense of humour, the film ably captures the subtleties and ironies of village life without drowning in heaviness, in spite of the gravid themes around which it revolves.
As with Sairat, Thithi stars no known faces, yet it is this precise artlessness that makes it a consummate achievement. The plot moves languidly along, as if it were not headed towards a climax, and this freedom from resolution makes the film's conclusion all the more affecting.
While regional cinema has always produced stalwarts (Satyajit Ray and Adoor Gopalakrishnan, to name just two), the rise of the multiplex has substantially changed the dynamics of production and distribution. Both Sairat and Thithi are showing in metropolitan centres with English subtitles. The multiplex has enabled regional films to look beyond the hitherto customary route of film festivals and special screenings, which were the haunts of the cognoscenti. Ordinary film-goers, cutting across lines of language and region, can now enjoy the best of regional cinema, and bring with them big monies, as the success of Sairat attests.
The success of the regional film also has lessons for Bollywood which itself is passing through a long overdue churn. Writing in The Reel, Nandini Ramnath wondered what category the new Bollywood film, helmed by big stars but firmly tethered to the real, should be placed in. Referring to recent Bollywood hits like Queen and Piku, Ramnath says: "This film is not an arthouse exploration that is concerned with the language of cinema itself, but a drama of the kind that gets nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. And many of these films are performing very well at the box office."
Both Sairat and Thithi belong decisively in the arthouse category, as they explore deeply entrenched social neuroses in a richly faithful setting. Yet, they also share similarities with films coming out of Bollywood. Deep-diving into what is dismissively called the parochial, these films pay unwitting homage to the likes of Anurag Kashyap who has single-handedly heralded a new idiom rooted in the mofussil. In films like Gangs of Wasseypur, Kashyap returned Bollywood to a time of family rivalries and old-style vengeance in a refreshing narrative flourish.
Meanwhile, Bollywood has been exploring other fault lines, albeit in a more urban setting. The quiet feminism of Queen and the nuanced treatment of homosexuality in Kapoor & Sons showcase a willingness to tackle topics that have been invisible in commercial films. It is worth pondering if evolving social dynamics are prompting this change, making Bollywood finally come out of the shadows of jaded storylines and stock characterisation. Or is the reason increased competition from regional and international films that now make it to the same screens as Bollywood fare?
Whatever be the case, the audience is king in this battle of the industries. As the lines between commercial and arthouse blur, and as movies from Mumbai run alongside those from Mandya, the moviegoer is in for a treat.
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