'Kaantha' review: Dulquer Salmaan's strongest role in a largely efficient mystery

In Kaantha, not just the 'reel' (the film-within-a-film, that is) moments but the 'real' flashbacks showing key events are presented in monochrome. This is bound to cause confusion for some early on. But I'm guessing the choice was deliberate, since Kaantha revolves around the search for truth (and half-truths) concealed within the motion of multiple still images. What Jean-Luc Godard said about cinema being "truth 24 frames per second" takes on an interesting connotation in the context of the events in this new film from Selvamani Selvaraj.

But how do we look for the truth when one is confronted with the possibility that those up there on the screen may be acting outside of it, too? There's one incredibly brilliant moment — and this is not a spoiler — where someone's performance reveals to someone the truth about something very personal to the former. But then we learn that only half of the truth is revealed to us, which is interpreted as the whole truth. With his first feature, Nila, released 10 years back, Selvaraj proved that he is a filmmaker with a gift for evoking a certain mood and for writing characters tormented by unacceptable, unpalatable truths. Kaantha, too, delves into the mind of characters who, for some odd reason, have been tormenting themselves with unwarranted assumptions they were led to believe, for the longest time, as the truth.

And what better place to tell the stories of deluded individuals than the world of cinema itself? Kaantha begins with a murder, staged in true noir fashion. Monochrome, rain, and a silhouette of an armed, shadowy figure. Who is the victim? Who is the killer? It will take nearly three hours of storytelling to find the answer — three hours in which there are a few areas that don’t quite work and many that do.

Let’s get the weak bits out of the way first. The strangest choice here is the use of contemporary music for a period film set in the 1950s. Was it to appeal to the much younger crowd? If that's so, I'm not sure it really works, because the overall soundscape doesn't offer any new sounds. It's too familiar and template-ish, nothing extraordinary. Its outdated attempts to dictate the audience’s emotions are occasionally draining.  

It's not just the choice of soundtrack per se that feels out of place, but the choice of having some of the supporting actors perform in nearly the same theatrical manner as the actors did back then. This creates, at times, a sense of discrepancy when factoring in the notion that both the 'reel' and 'real' moments are supposed to look and sound different.

Dulquer Salmaan, I’m happy to report, understood the assignment, and so did Bhagyashri Borse. The former plays the fictional TK Mahadevan (a composite, perhaps, of several real-life matinee idols) as an actor whose on-screen and off-screen personas are easily distinguishable. Dulquer gives a thoroughly committed performance that eerily recalls some of his father's dark early roles. In fact, in one emotionally overpowering scene, he delivers an exclamation often associated with some of the celebrated Mammootty performances — and never does it appear awkward or imitative at all! It feels... genuine. Had some other actor done the same, it would've been potential troll material. Mahadevan is undoubtedly Dulquer's most memorable, strongest role yet.

And as Kumari, the newcomer heroine sharing the screen with Mahadevan, Borse is fortunate to get a part that, we eventually realise, forms the emotional fulcrum of Kaantha. Kumari comes with a background that adds an interesting layer to her personality. It’s a solid example of a woman's stunning old-school beauty and charm not interfering with her performance. The so-called 'cute' moments we see early on — the kind that may have already gotten her labelled the "next national crush" — attain a measure of poignancy in light of the events that play out in the third act, where we get into the fractured mindscape of a certain character. It's also where the editing finesse of Anthony is felt the strongest.

Rana Daggubati plays the cop, Phoenix, as someone who may have nursed acting dreams at one point, but didn't get a foot in the door and ended up joining the force instead. There's a slightly over-the-top quality to the character, which I found enjoyable. Phoenix is a far cry from the stiff, stoic, and very mechanical cop we have seen numerous times and got bored with.

However, I'm not sure I'm fully convinced by the reasons that fuel the film's principal conflict — the intense rivalry between Mahadevan and Samuthirakani's character, Ayya, the filmmaker who once mentored the former and gave him his first big break. There are times when I struggle to ruminate on the exact reasons for the rift, even after knowing the whys of it. But then, I've not worked in the film industry to experience the ridiculous pettiness of individuals who not only ruin others but also themselves. Can some people go to such extreme lengths to cause irreparable damage to someone who they feel has hurt their egos? I guess Kaantha is trying to say there are. Perhaps Selvamani drew from personal experiences. To me, Kaantha is more of a character drama than the investigative thriller that the film turns into post-intermission.

There's a line said towards the end of Kaantha, when things have gotten so bad to the point that this realisation has taken too long to register, that one needs to be humble to make a film that preaches the importance of humility. It reminded me of a line from Vincente Minnelli's excellent 1952 film The Bad and the Beautiful — also revolving around film professionals — in which Kirk Douglas's character, a producer, is told by a veteran filmmaker, "To direct a picture, a man needs humility," after the former decides to take over the project following unresolvable creative differences. The real issue was the producer's ego, not the director's skills. It could've been solved if they both had sat down and discussed things honestly. This Samuthirakani line about humility also makes you aware of the fact that there exists a section of “woke” filmmakers who don't practice what they preach through their movies. What should we do with them? What category of message-laden works of “art” do they belong to? It's complicated, isn't it?

Film: Kaantha
Director: Selvamani Selvaraj
Cast: Dulquer Salmaan, Bhagyashri Borse, Samuthirakani, Rana Daggubati
Rating: 4/5

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