Butterfly or worm?
Updated On: 28 July, 2024 07:11 AM IST | Mumbai | Meenakshi Shedde
And it is presented by Raj B Shetty (Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana), who also did the dialogues and additional screenplay, as well as plays a familiar goon
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Illustration/Uday Mohite
Roopanthara (Metamorphosis), a feature film in Kannada (with English subtitles) that released in theatres last week, is a superb debut by Mithilesh Edalavath. It presents an anthology of four stories, held together by a metaphorical tale on the power of storytelling itself. It is showing in Karnataka, Chennai and Kochi for now. And it is presented by Raj B Shetty (Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana), who also did the dialogues and additional screenplay, as well as plays a familiar goon.
The film opens with a dystopian future—convincingly created—taken over by violent gangs, where the air is grey with smog, and water is smuggled. A goon holds an old man at gun point—simply because he can do so—and orders him to tell him a story: he is a modern-day Scheherazade; if the goon is entertained, the man’s life will be spared. But the threat “I’ll shoot you if I’m bored” also seems to refer to modern audiences with short attention spans, who’ll ‘shoot’ the filmmaker if they’re bored with his story. Edalavath need not worry on that count at all. Each story is an existential reflection on different kinds of violence and death—and also considers whether we can evolve into our higher selves through compassion--yet the stories are moving, and even wrenching. The old man gives the goon a small cocoon to explain a key metaphor: life gives us opportunities to become a butterfly or remain a worm; what we become is up to us. This segues into the four stories illustrating the central idea.
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