In defence of the 100 per cent defensible

While Irsquod been outta the country for a week and out of circulation being unwell for another weekmdashguess the first thing I wished to do having returned to normal Watch the movie AdipurushOh no why Because thatrsquos how movie buffs earn cred Not by sitting through lovedrecommended pix Everybody does that By walking into movies in gigantic theatres knowing the world has hated it already Which creates a FOMO of its own since everybodyrsquos discussed it stillAnd so what if itrsquos a badly made Bollywood movie let alone on the Ramayanmdashlast checked that was the norm not a crime Or maybe we should check again on whateverrsquos going on in Allahabad High Court Maybe the writerdirector Om Raut chosen castcrew or the Censor Board will be pulled up for committing literarymythologicalreligious offenceAnd this singularly makes me wanna defend the three hours of the theatrical epicmdashthatrsquos not even half the shit itrsquos been made out to be Which isnrsquot a surprise since nothing is as crappy or great as publicly anointed anywayDepends on who you ask And if theyrsquore last in the line of people whorsquove offered the same opinionmdashthis bloke feels pressured to go the way of the wind agreeing that something was masterpiece or moronic because others said so Thatrsquos how judgements on social media get formed They feel final Theyrsquore not Hurt sentiments work similarly tooDo they reflect in boxoffice collections meaning footfalls of movies as well Well nobodyrsquos cracked that art and commerce correlation yet Even obvious quality is not a foolproof parameter for attendanceclicks What to speak of the restEither way the dagger in mainstream cinema falls on the lead actorsuperstar once a film lsquoflopsrsquo This is natural since they draw the craziest salary and equally take home all the credit if the film is a commercial successItrsquos hard to imagine the levels that Prabhasrsquos stardom wouldrsquove hit if national audiences indeed equated him with Lord Ram named Raghav in the R500 crore production Adipurush Itrsquos immaterial for a moment that he also led Baahubali 2015 rsquo17 Making him a lsquopanIndiarsquo starmdasha phony postpandemic term for a South Indian movie that does well in North Indian cinemasNever mind that hersquos delivered duds from Hyderabad Saaho 2019 Radhe Shyam 2022 since that only I watched in Bombay The only panIndian star for nowmdasheven if Yash KGFAllu Arjun Pushpa prove otherwisemdashis director SS Rajamouli Baahubali RRR and to some extent Mani Ratnam Ponniyin Selvan whorsquos been around foreverWe barely saw Prabhas promoting Adipurush that he headlined after allmdashas more of a sullen warrior king than a smiling lsquomaryadapurushottamrsquo dignified soul Which is just as wellPrabhas is a bit of a Big Moose I remember interviewing him oncemdashover email since he was in the US right after Baahubali 2mdashand not publishing it How many times can an interviewee go ldquoYes no maybe no yes yes nohelliprdquo Screw it get us SK AK SRK any dayWho was the most public face of Adipurush An absolute rando selfnamed Manoj Muntashir who writes lyrics otherwise and had typed dialogues of an existing Ramayan which he then also had to retract He had one job And he thought when I met him once it was to flaunt his proximity to the Prime Ministerrsquos OfficeAs you could also tell from a bunch of BJP chief ministersmdashmere mortals who wrangle votes to stay in powermdashapparently getting listed in the filmrsquos credits as upholdersendorsers of Indiarsquos greatestancient mythologyldquoHistoryrdquo as director Raut termed it to me In which case everybody is right to behave like reporters from the era factchecking Adipurush on clothes props speech diction as if there is some journalistic proof to tally againstMost of India visually knows Ramayan from the 1987 Ramanand Sagar series on Doordarshan personally commissioned by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi an irrelevant political fact Umbergaon in Gujarat where Sagar shot Ramayan has been Indian TVrsquos mythological capital sinceSiddharth Tiwarirsquos Ram Siya Ke Luv Kush 2021 at a reported budget of Rs 650 crore was the last Ramayan shot there for Colors TV I know this from having hung out with the castcrew in Ayodhya at its glitzy launch Adipurush would be eons ahead of that productionItrsquos certainly more coherent therefore the better film than Brahmastra 2022 even Rautrsquos Tanhaji 2020 Which was his Hindi directorial debutmdashalso with Saif Ali Khan killing it as the Jokerlike villainAs Saif does playing Ravan in Adipurushmdashwelding for pleasure chilling with anacondas for back massage feeding his lsquopushpak vimanrsquo with animal meat slaying it with a trident for light sabreThe motion capture action sufficiently recreates wide battle scenes through Lanka the kingdom of darkness The sea that RamRaghavrsquos monkeyarmy wade through itself appearing as a physical embodiment is fine touch alright Adipurush amateurish in parts otherwise feels dimly litBut thatrsquos just the problem with 3D as screen tech anyway Itrsquos still the same storymdashthat wersquove have been telling ourselves as a society for centuriesmdashlisteningpreaching as lsquopaathrsquo katha pravachanWhat was so blasphemousoffensive about doing the same thing differently on the big screen againMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture He tweets mayankw14Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper