FAMILY FISSURES AND THEIR SUBCONSCIOUS DRAMAS HAVE BEEN A SUBJECT OF MANY AN EPIC – BE IT A HAMLET HAUNTED BY HIS MOTHER’S HASTY REMARRIAGE AFTER WIDOWHOOD, TO OEDIPUS ACTUALLY MARRYING HIS MOTHER UNKNOWINGLY…TO THE LEGENDARY MAHABHARAT, A BATTLE PITTING KIN AGAINST KIN, GURU AGAINST SHISHYA…SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH ANIMAL? SANGEETA WADDHWANI ESSAYS AN ANSWER…
In the Hindu treatise of theatre and storytelling, the Natyashastra, all forms of narrative had one soul purpose..to enforce higher moral values on a society. Particularly among the unlettered, who had no direct way to read the spiritual texts meant to throw light on their journeys.
If you look at the basic message of the Bhagavad Gita, it was to show Prince Arjuna that the battle for good vs evil transcends family ties. Every effort was made to negotiate fair terms for both the Pandavas and Kauravas…but when the Kauravas remained mired in greed and injustice, Lord Krishna Himself told Arjuna this was a battle of values, and it would be dharmically correct to vanquish the Kauravas, as souls migrate from body to body, and filial ties are temporal.
When the lead character of ANIMAL, Ranvijay (Vijay) Singh, played by Ranbir Singh, makes a poetic reference to this great epic, the Mahabharat- it is close to the end of the movie, and sadly, a surface reference.
Ranvijay grows up with a deep void, a father-son wound. We first see him as a child who grows up seeking a father who will show him tenderness, concern, love….even while he hero-worships the man at the helm of Shakti Steels…the behemoth family corporation. This is a highly relateable scenario with children born to uber successfull fathers who are just never really there for their children.
In my own journalism journey, I have had a Shah Rukh Khan’s tell me that he has been a better father to little AbRam than to Aryan and Suhana…as he was too busy building his career when the first two children came into his world. “AbRam hangs out on the set, happily…my other two kids had no inclination really to see me at work! I take AbRam to IPL matches…everywhere little kids can go!” he had shared, his eyes all lit up above those disarming dimples.
Ranbir Kapoor had confessed to me that he had a father wound, too. In real life, Rishi Kapoor demanded a certain protocol and distance as a father. He wasn’t inclined to be buddy-buddy…so if Ranbir needed warmth, spontaneous affection, or to offload some trauma..it was mommy Neetu he turned to.
This basic backstory of a father-son wound as an emotional blueprint for Ranvijay Singh, was highly relateable. BUT…one is not so sure it would make an ANIMAL out of a young boy. The question that kept arising in my mind, was, does such a wound insist on creating a homicidal-prone adult?
Also, how plausible is it, that a son who has been exiled by his father, to boarding school, (for avenging the ragging of his sister in a school owned by their family)… is willing to put life and limb on the line when this brute father, Balbir Singh, deals with…and miraculously…survives a threat to his life?
At the viscerel level, Sandeep Reddy Vanga as screenwriter and film-maker, has touched explosive material within Ranbir… Gone is the rather understated method actor who won accolades as the sensitive Barfi who befriends the autistic Jhilmil Chatterjee, or the jilted lover Ayan, who suffers many scenes of unrequited love with Anizeh in Ae Dil Hai Mushkil.
After a long, dry spell Ranbir has been thrown into the deeper trenches of inhabiting an atypical dark hero…something we have seen a Ranveer Singh take on brilliantly as Allaudin Khilji or even as a hyper ambitious Maratha warrior, Bajirao.
SANDEEP RESURRECTS A SUPERSTAR
One won’t be surprised if Sandeep had a pseudo bromance with his leading actor, so intense is this physical revamp. And so hyped is the tagline in the credits and film poster: ‘Starring Superstar Ranbir Kapoor’. It is good to see Ranbir stretching his acting chops, letting Sandeep push him off the proverbial cliff, so he is free to take flight guided by his inner demons.
Yes, in the romantic scenes, which build your appetite to watch the movie, there is a begiiling mix of soft, intoxicating, hooded Kapoor caramel eyes meeting a confident ‘all brawn and primal brain’ swag. Seductive.
THOSE RANVEERIAN TRICKS!
One does love the lush, rougish mane Ranbir has adopted, that has also worked like a charm for Ranveer in Rocky aur Rani. We also see him exude a far more sexually self-aware aura… frequently bare chested….again a very Ranveerian trend.
Yes the script does warn us that Ranvijay is alpha male….The very first encounter with his heroine (artfully played by Rashmika Mandanna) warns us of this. The scene? She is set to marry a man introduced to her by family, who she has barely met, but who represents brighter job prospects for her humble, middle class self.
Seeking to throw his childhood lady love a rope to pull her out of such a mediocre partnership, he tells his sweetheart that she is marrying a man who could never hunt, feed and protect his woman…unlike an alpha male (like himself). He hints that the archetype she has chosen to marry (who represents brain power over brawn), wins women over by poetry. In other words, a loser! And to add to that primal vision of the world, he compliments her broad child-bearing pelvis structure, ideal for bearing his children.
Many women have found such dialogues misogynistic, not sexy at all and certainly not in synch with a world filled with alpha females doing the breadwinning, and delegating children to a much later time in life, if at all, or going to surrogates. Clearly, this film prefers to have overtones of the Neanderthal Man (as Shobhaa De says, in her insta-post)..
So as he vows to avenge the attempt on his father’s life, we see RanVijay Singh express his monstrous propensity for self-sacrifice, putting his beautiful body on the line, bloodshedding in a 100 lyrical ways.
One can see Sandeep gunning to be a Desi Tarantino, as music often accompanies the brutal slicing off of limbs, strange masked goons being shredded solo by our troubled homicidal hero…we close our eyes, feel our hearts cringe, and wish an Interval would redeem us. Yet, this very violence is being credited for the film’s blockbuster status…480 crores at the BO…and still counting!
IN QUEST OF TOXIC MASCULINITY?
One wonders, what is Sandeep Reddy Vanga building towards here, in a world where masculine and feminine polarities are melting down? Is it an attempt to take us back to our animal, primal selves, or a nostalgia for a time when human society only had a simple gender binary – no spectrum of Transgender, Homosexuals, Asexuals, Demi Sexuals? A time where men hunted, plundered and lived to drink the blood of their enemies? A toxic masculinity that legitimised the shedding of blood but not tears for fears? And where women, with their child bearing hips, had little to do but keep hearth and hearts of hubby and babies healthy?.
THE WIFE IS JEALOUS OF THE MOL AND FATHER-IN- LAW
To be fair, Rashmika’s character as wife to the alpha male, was not exactly a spectator/doormat. When Ranvijay has a passing and calculated post-marital affair with his enemy’s Mol, ..she delivers some priceless screen moments as the neglected wife trying to re-imagine her husband’s transgressions…and after minutes of asking graphic questions, says words so bitter she compells him to pick up a gun and shoot.
Rashmika plays her character with a consistent streak of worldly scepticism that, to her credit, lends a modern and believable touch. She knows her husband has murdered hundreds and has no fear of his own mortality when it comes to safe guarding his father. She is jealous of that father-love. So are we.
THE BOLD AND THE IMPLAUSIBLE
At a totally logical level, though, we wonder what aspect of his father’s legacy is RanVijay looking to take on? There’s only one dialogue that shows RanVijay being a little clued in to environmental violations by his brother in law – who is entrusted with more responsibilites within Balbir Singh’s Shakti Steel company than RanVijay. Of course when RanVijay finds out that his brother-in-law was part of the attempted murder plot against his father, he finishes him off in the midst of office staff, choking him with his bare hands. Now given a modern world with CC TV cameras…shouldn’t the police have enough evidence to convict RanVijay of manslaughter? But no, Primal Cavemen heros have to go about their real business…unhindered by law and order machinery.
So off RanVijay goes, after many twists and turns of the plot, to murder a distant cousin who was gunning for Balbir’s life due to his grandfather being barred from the family business and legacy due to malpractices.
THE MOST MEMORABLE SCENE
As for a scene that DID work…for me, was when RanVijay tells his father to do some role playing. He tells his father to be the little boy who sought time with his beloved father on his birthday, but who had to see his father fully engaged with the company stocks and the mobile phone. So Balbir starts to do so…saying Papa, Papa…only to be violently rebuked at every instance, by RanVijay acting as his father, Balbir. This kind of Family Constellation therapy is actually used to heal deep family wounds in our day… and in the scene, Balbir finally relents, realising how toxic his parenting had been for his adoring, worshipping little son. In fact there is a fascinating reference to father and son switching roles across lifetimes, and RanVijay saying ‘next time around, I will be your father and will maybe treat you the same way you have treated me in this life…and this Mahabharat will go on.” To which Balbir, tearfully vows never to be such a ruthless father again.
But overall there are so many cracks in the plausibility of the narrative, it makes you want to wake up soon …as if out of a 80s potboiler stupor. I mean RanVijay nearly dies, then has a heart transplant that sees him so fit he slices his enemy’s neck with a knife. Just when we leave the theatre thinking it’s over..you see people running back up the stairs to see one last gory scene!
And you know what? Bobby Deol who plays Abrar..The arch villain whose neck is sliced by his cousin RanVijay, after a gruelling hand combat…has been quoted telling the press..”If Ranbir’s character can be resurrected by a heart transplant, maybe I too will have a miracle surgery and feature in the sequel!”
This is what makes a hit? A hit man’s fantasy?
Worried about the world we live in! And horror of horrors..a sequel is already in the works…with more violence on offer…ANIMAL PARK! Why not just check this whole cray cray family into therapy? Rashmika’s character would so agree!
LIFE OF A MAGAZINE EDITOR 