Imagine having a fascinatingly novel plot involving the Roman Empire attempting to create rifts amongst a five-clan community in a mountain, with each clan having unique characteristics, professions, costumes- yet a magnanimously mounted epic treads on a familiar tale of re-incarnation, ending up doing justice to none. That is Kanguva. Expecting larger than life elements and huge spectacle treatment is certainly not a bad thing, but there are certain facets to it, demanding some sort of nuance. Kanguva seems to have misunderstood this aspect in its epic attempt and hammers these sensibilities to all possible corners.
From all Siva films, it is safe to say that one doesn't arrive to his films, expecting subtle emotions and underplayed moments and it's not completely wrong.
With Kanguva, Dir.Siva attempts to broaden his canvas and experiment with genre-types and in his pursuit to integrate his trademark emotions to this narrative, Kanguva terribly misses out on creating an impactful epic that it strives to be.
Kanguva is relentless, unfortunately not in an optimistic manner. The film is unnecessarily paced out on all maximum levels and never allows for any breathing space. There are hardly very few moments where the film allows itself to take a minute and value it's emotions.
For any epic generation spanning story to convincingly unfold, emotional engagement has to be strong and the film feels completely detached on this front. The lesser said about the wannabe 'updated' present portions, the better it is.
The problem with Kanguva is that it never knows when to stop. The excessive violence, the never ending barrage of underwhelming usage of characters, and almost many steps it takes forward, never comes to fruition. There are several broad stroke attempts, that becomes increasingly glaring in this handsomely mounted narrative. The tribal people, ancient civilizations were powerful and had animalistic instincts in terms of their behaviour and fighting style. Yes, this aspect is captured in the film but the film has clearly misconceived this with unnecessary screams and shouts, and becomes increasingly jarring, loud and noisy, to an extent we don't hear ourselves think.
For no such reason, this film needed to be this loud to even overshadow it's visuals.
Suriya gives his everything at his disposal, from flexing his biceps and muscles on physical front to showcasing moments of vulnerability in his eyes, he has definitely made a terrific presence out of his sloppily developed character. Kanguva remains the only character with some sort of development - a valiant and fierce warrior with a vulnerable heart and that's it. Every other character seems to be a product of only creative imagination with no soul. Bobby Deol gets the antagonist look menacing but neither does the writing nor the screenplay gives him any sort of space to create an impression.
Barring Vivegam, every Siva film has this interesting conflict point or knot where both the protagonist and the antagonist are given with same emotions but through different means. Here, we see a small boy adopted by the main character and by the fag end, we see a son born out of wedlock, arriving as the next leader of his tribe. This interesting contrast of emotions is never tapped to its fullest potential and neither does the already established track is remotely emotional. Kanguva boasts of several potentially intriguing sub-plots that could have been anything better than what we are given with. The whole re-incarnation angle is never stitched properly and the film uses the same means to transport to these two worlds.
It is in its concluding moments, does Kanguva finally manage to create a balance between its loud pitch and its heroically epic tale. But it becomes too late to salvage this haphazard film that goes on and on with little to no stopping.
The music by DSP is rousing and does the job of elevating scenes to a considerable extent but the overpowering noise never really allows the scene to be savoured. The fight choreography lacks a certain energy to it and often becomes monotonous.
Kanguva is certainly not a crashing bore, for it genuinely attempts to create a visual spectacle that scores in terms of visuals and there are fleeting moments where the film really manages to make a mark in terms of presentation and sequences. The art works and production quality screams brilliance but it is the path chosen, that makes this a very generic and underwhelming film that squanders its immense potential.
Nice Review Ram , good going
ReplyDelete