Malayalam cinema’s latest blockbuster Lokah Chapter One: Chandra has swept the box office across India, winning both critical acclaim and commercial success. Directed by Dominic Arun and produced by Dulquer Salmaan, the film stars Kalyani Priyadarshan as Chandra, a young woman with supernatural abilities summoned from Sweden to take on a criminal cartel in India. The story reimagines the Kerala folklore of Kalliyankattu Neeli for a modern audience, with Chandra hiding her powers in a Bengaluru apartment. I watched it on a Monday evening in a packed Hyderabad theatre, delighted by its blend of folklore and urban life — the icing on the cake being the familiar setting of my hometown, Bengaluru.
But not everyone shared that joy. In Bengaluru, especially among Kannadigas and sections of the Kannada film fraternity, the movie has triggered anger. A now-deleted dialogue is accused of insulting the city’s women, while others complain that Malayalam films misrepresent Bengaluru, mangle Kannada, and reduce the city to pubs, parties, drugs, and violence. Some even question why Bengaluru has become the preferred setting for Malayalam filmmakers, even when their movies are location-agnostic.
As a Kannada speaker from Bengaluru, I want to respond to these complaints — and explain why much of this outrage misses the point.
The ‘offensive’ dialogue that was deleted
The dialogue in question is where a policeman tells his mother he will never marry a woman from Bengaluru and goes on to slut-shame them. This outrage led to the filmmakers issuing an apology and deleting the sequence, at least in Karnataka’s theatres.
When I watched the movie in Hyderabad, the dialogue was not deleted. And I am glad it was not. There was no need for it to be cut or for an apology to be offered. It is clear to anyone who has seen the film that the policeman is the main antagonist, and it is natural that a villain says despicable things.
Even if this policeman were not the villain, the dialogue is a realistic depiction of the likely worldviews of many policemen — not just in Bengaluru, but across the world. People with social capital may hold the police on a pedestal, but the oppressed experience the reality. If the filmmaker had glorified this character, intended the audience to cheer for the dialogue, or actually held those views about the city's women, the outrage would have been justifiable. But none of these are true.
It feels like offence is being taken at the audacity of an “outsider” making a character slut-shame Bengaluru women. Perhaps it is being taken as a personal affront to the masculine pride and honor of Bengaluru’s Kannadigas that a Malayali filmmaker allowed a character to say bad things about the city’s women, presumably Kannadiga women.
Isn’t this the same right-wing trope of tying pride in one’s ethnic, religious, or national identity to the ‘honour’ of women who share that identity? There are numerous examples in Kannada films of protagonists — not even negative characters — saying deeply misogynistic things about women. Many superstar movies from the late 1990s and early 2000s has him go on edgy monologues that slut-shame women, either the leading female character or a random woman on the street. These monologues in these films are celebrated even today by these very people. Is it that local filmmakers have the licence to let their characters slut-shame women?
Do Malayalam films misrepresent Bengaluru?
For those unfamiliar, much of the criticism surrounding Lokah is that Malayalam filmmakers have failed to correctly represent the lives of average Kannadigas in the city. This is because many Kannadigas hold strong notions that they have primacy over Bengaluru. They consider the Kannadiga lived experience as the most authentic, and in extreme cases, the only authentic lived experience in the city.
From this notion stems the displeasure that Malayalam films have disregarded their hard-fought primacy and dared to centre the lived experiences of the thriving Malayali diaspora. It is important to first identify this for what it is: a supremacist expectation.
Why is the Kannadiga lived experience the only authentic one in Bengaluru? Why is there an expectation that any film set in the city should only centre the Kannadiga lived experience? Why should Malayalam filmmakers who want to make movies about the Malayali diaspora in Bengaluru first learn about the lives of Kannadigas, or Tamils, or Telugus, or Dakhnis?
When Kannada filmmaker Nagathihalli Chandrashekar made America America or Nanna Preethiya Hudugi, did he centre the lives of white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants from San Francisco or New York, or the lived experience of first-generation Kannadiga immigrants to the United States? Wouldn’t it have been both ridiculous and racist if white supremacists had attacked his films for failing to “understand” the United States and its people? Kannadigas should stop denying or feeling angry that Bengaluru is a multicultural and multiethnic city.
Secondly, it is deeply inaccurate to equate Bollywood films about ‘south Indians’ with Malayalam films set in Bengaluru. Bollywood productions claim to represent the south Indian lived experience, and fail terribly. Malayalam films set in Bengaluru do not make such claims.
Did the filmmakers of Bangalore Days, Aavesham, or Lokah ever say their film represents the average Kannadiga lived experience? Absolutely not. They claim to represent the Malayali lived experience in Bengaluru. Whether that is accurate should be judged by the Malayali diaspora living in the city, not by Kannadigas who are outsiders to that experience.
The charge of bad Kannada and miscasting
Malayalam filmmakers can take it as legitimate feedback that if an important character is a Kannada speaker, they should cast someone who can speak Kannada well. But it must also be said that no Indian film industry, including Kannada cinema, has set admirable benchmarks for accurate casting. Kannada films have a long history of misrepresenting, caricaturing, and trivialising people and dialects from different parts of Karnataka itself.
Moreover, having watched the movie, the Kannada spoken by various characters did not make me uncomfortable at all. Yes, many characters spoke in a way that made it clear they were not very proficient, but there were also others who spoke with native proficiency. This is actually a realistic depiction of life in Bengaluru, where a significant portion of the population speaks Kannada as a second, third, or even sixth language.
There were characters meant to be Malayali, Tamil, Kannadiga, and so on, and they spoke Kannada with varying proficiency. If anything, the fact that a Malayalam movie showed characters from different linguistic backgrounds trying to use Kannada as a common language should have been cause for joy.
Why only Koramangala, HSR, and Whitefield?
It is difficult to understand the anguish over Malayalam films in Bengaluru being centred around Koramangala, HSR Layout, and Whitefield. If these stories are about the lives of the Malayali diaspora, isn’t it natural that these movies are situated where the Malayali diaspora is concentrated? Why would they be situated in Basavanagudi or Malleshwara, where dominant-caste, pure-vegetarian residents won’t even let Kannada-speaking bachelors or meat-eaters within 100 metres of their homes?
And this question can be turned around. Are Malayalam filmmakers stopping Kannada filmmakers from making their own movies about life in other localities? How well have Kannada filmmakers represented Bengaluru? Apart from Suri, I can’t think of a single filmmaker who has convincingly shown contemporary Bengaluru — not even the predominantly Kannada-speaking parts.
Even as a dominant-caste, upper-class Kannadiga man from Bengaluru, I do not think I have been properly represented by any recent Kannada film set in the city. And here we are, expecting Malayalam cinema to represent us well.
The ‘pubs, parties, drugs, and violence’ complaint
It is ironic that fingers are pointed at Malayalam cinema for this, when the industry has carved a niche for itself in churning out perhaps the most diverse range of sensitive, meaningful, and thought-provoking stories. Perhaps only Tamil cinema can be included in the same conversation. Kannada filmmakers, infamous for decades of ‘rowdyism’ or longu-machhu films (as we call them) set in Bengaluru, should definitely sit this one out.
Across the entire Malayalam filmography, it is likely only a marginal share of movies that centre on these themes. The reason most Malayalam films set in Bengaluru tend to feature them is obvious: a vast majority of Malayalis migrating here are young people, who are either studying or working. Across the world, stories about this demographic feature themes of pubs, parties, drugs, and nightlife.
It is also difficult to understand the outrage over Bengaluru being shown as a hub of pubs and parties when, in reality, there is truth to it. Do Kannada films set in Bengaluru show the city’s youth as sober, God-fearing teetotallers without vices? Did Karnataka generate Rs 36,500 crore in excise revenue without Bengaluru’s youngsters frequenting pubs and parties?
If the discomfort is with reality itself, the focus should be on critiquing that reality, not the films that depict it. Yet there is hardly any serious critique among these circles of the broader political economy and development models that have caused this transformation of life in Bengaluru.
Why dread Malayalam cinema choosing Bengaluru?
What is there to dread about Bengaluru becoming a preferred setting for Malayalam films? As a Bangalorean, I am glad that films across languages are narrating stories set in the city.
A Malayali friend recently told me that the largest contingent of Malayalis anywhere outside Kerala now lives in Bengaluru. The impending Census may shed more light on this, but a walk through Madiwala before any Malayali holiday should be enough to conclude that Bengaluru is a preferred destination for many young Malayalis. Therefore, it is obvious it will also become the preferred setting for films targeting them.
Movies like Lokah, Aavesham, and Bangalore Days give us a glimpse into the Malayali lived experience in Bengaluru. Whether accurate or not, they remind us that this is a vast metropolis where people from every part of the country arrive with big dreams, find their own people and comfort zones, and build lives and careers.
In doing so, they retain some aspects of their native cultures while adopting some from the local cultures, forming plenty of new and vibrant subcultures. Like every big city, Bengaluru contains many Bengalurus within it. The lived experiences here vary by language, caste, class, gender, and religion. There is no single ‘authentic’ experience, and believing otherwise is regressive and supremacist.
May there be a hundred more Malayalam films — and films of every language — about life in this city.
Rakshith S Ponnathpur works as a Public Policy professional at a non-profit. He is also a keen follower of politics, society, and culture. His op-eds spanning these themes have been published across leading Indian media publications such as Deccan Herald, Scroll, The Wire, The News Minute, The Print, India Spend, and Prajavani.
The opinions expressed in this article are his own and do not reflect those of his employer or the publication.