Kalyug (1981), devised as a modern-day parallel to the legendary epic "Mahabharatha", depicts its multifarious cast by helpfully showing a pictoral family tree. More than a dozen characters are introduced. Two wealthy business families are featured- and the heads of these two industrialist houses are brothers. One has passed away while the other is as good as the living dead. The family shown first is led by the late father's 3 sons all of whom are surnamed Raj- Dharam (Raj Babbar), Bal (Khulbhushan Kharbhanda) and Bharath (Anant Nag). Supriya (Rekha) is Dharam's wife. The ruling bigshots in the rival family are Dhan Raj (Victor Banerjee) and Karan (Shashi Kapoor) There are others but I'll be damned if I list all of them.
A party at the outset also functions to further introduce this extended set of players. Friction and ill-will start straightaway. Dhanraj's company has bagged a hefty industrial contract and this invokes the ire of Bharath. Bharath is young and aggressive- the real hands-on leader of his family business .The elder Dharam is not essentially a degenerate man but prefers to devote his energies on the horse-racing arena (a parallel with the Yudhishtirof yore, who despite his virtuous virtousity had a weakness for gambling) Dharam is gentle-hearted,plays only a ceremonial role in the family's business affairs and is shown having a separate bed from his wife. Seething that Dhanraj has cornered the contract by nefarious means, Bharath files a legal appeal. Acrimony intensifies, long-held family secrets are threatened into exposure and the cross-fire escalates towards the path of criminality.
In the other family, it is Dhanraj's role to spew fire and venom without showing any real intelligence. As for Karan, he is a Rhodes scholar,no less (If this movie were a outrightly commercial one, he'd have been only labelled as an Oxford graduate. In real life this movie's scriptwriter Girish Karnad was a Rhodes scholar himself)) who plots victory by cunningly strategizing while showing his cultured "soft" side. It is discreetly shown that he has reserved love for Supriya for a long time, but she is now someone else's wife and the evanescent nature of their mutual glances convey the regret of this reality.
Soon any semblance of the blood-ties' obligations between the two sides are dispensed with ,and they will perhaps stop warring only when the casualties become too much to bear. Certain revelations (anticipated by those who are familiar with the afore-said epic) and the hard hand of fate give further roil and poignancy to the tragedy.
The movie's most memorable performances come from Ananth Nag,Shashi Kapoor and Rekha.Ananth Nag's native language is Konkani, he hails from the state of Karnataka having done most of his work in Kannada films but he spouts Hindi here with the fluency of a native Hindi speaker. I expected his acting to be good but he tops expectations here with a nuanced,emotionally charged act. His character discusses trade details, romances his girl, swears revenge on his enemies and orders a '76 Bordeaux all with equal panache. A.N is a versatile charismatic artiste (the Kannada industry has not ably mined his talent) and its a pity that in the Hindi industry Shyam Benegal was one of the few directors to invest in and popularize Anath Nag's theatrical chops.
Rekha in her role here as Supriya, compliments her prim beauty with tightly reined intensity. Rekha's character in the family does not hesitate to acknowledge Bharath as the real spear-head of the family -her relationship with him is of one strong person showing care and special consideration towards another steely character. In watching her performance here ,I was reminded of Khalid Mohamed's interview with Shatrugan Sinha. When quizzed whether Rekha is suited to enter the political arena, S.S sums it up perfectly when he says" She is not cut out for politics.She is for politicians to talk about, discuss, admire and desire"
'Tis always heartening to see Shashi Kapoor in an non-commercial enterprise. Here he looks much more handsome than he did in his 20s, has oodles of charm and flair ,while consummately enacting the gamut from little gestures to operatic emotion. The character of Dhanraj in keeping with his mythic counterpart- Duryodhan- is meant to have the darkest shades but it'd have amounted to more wicked fun if this character was sculpted with a more complicated,less predictatble edge of villainy.
Om Puri in a cameo makes a fiery mark displaying not only oratorial vehemence, but also shrewd composure in a scene at the negotiating table. One of the stars and sirens of modern Indian cinema- Urmila Matondkar, interestingly makes an appearance here in the guise of a small boy!
One truly jarring element of this film is a terrible song that first pops up and informs the picturization of Bharath's honeymoon. Everytime or most of the time his wife is shown later ,her character is infected with the habit of playing this song on tape. It is a pathetic collation of noise which passes for a pop song, and it becomes a patently ludicrous tactic to popularize this number by letting it punctuate the story multiple times. Another musical segment involving a disco sequence is more tolerable, but better compositional skill would have better benefited these concessions to commercial appeal. The background score creates a rather formidable ethos for the opening credits but falters quite artlessly in the scene where the police disperse protesters. It picks up later ,especially in scenes which effectively deploy Western Classical music to underscore sorrow.
Some of the movie's parallels with the mythic epic are apparent,others more subtle. The violation of Draupadhi sequence is given an interesting spin when tax officials start stripping a bedroom. The scene involving a character kneeling down to repair a vehicle, in the backdrop of a beautiful sunset, has a delicacy of metaphors. Cinematographer Govind Nihalani (himself a notable director of notable non-commercial Indian cinema) is in charge of the visuals and while a flair-laden lensing pattern is not conspicuous here, one can note a stalwart standard throughout and occasional niceties like the camera smoothly arcing around a room to record a certain scene from different vantage points.
I approached this film with great expectations,hoping it to possess epic force and sprawling sweep. However what one gets here falls short of a Battle Royale. Girish Karnad who co-wrote the material with Benegal ,knows how to design high-impact screenplays -and he should have worked harder to make this story bigger and richer (Check out Agnivarsha in which Karnad creates a powerful mythologic screenplay) Shyam Benegal has done well in bringing this script to convincing life, yet I will venture to say that he could have masterminded more intricacies and flourishes in making Kalyug an all-out searing saga. Neverthess, he has to be credited for extracting strong performances from the cast and ensuring steady narrative rhythm (he won't be forgiven for including that song though!) The Mahabharatha is an epic throbbing with profound ideas - a film which is based on it always runs the risk of inviting high hopes ,especially when it is crafted by a distinguished director. Such cavils aside, Kalyug can at least claim its deserving position in the pantheon of good Indian movies with an extended star cast.
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