The Guardian’s List of '100 Best Films of the 21st Century' was announced on Friday and Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur at No.59 was the only Indian film to feature on the list. Such international lists on cinema turn the spotlight towards a country’s filmmaking talent, giving the films their due recognition.
TIME Magazine's 'All-TIME 100 Movie List' had Mani Ratnam's Nayagan apart from Satyajit Ray's The Apu Triology and the 1957 Guru Dutt film Pyaasa. However, it is rare for a film from the south Indian industries to get featured on a global list.
Despite several critically acclaimed Indian films being made every year in languages other than Hindi, Indian cinema continues to be equated with Bollywood by international critics.
Asked to comment on this, Kannada film reviewer Karthik Keramalu jokes, “I would not blame the Guardian jury. When our own Amit Shah (a reference to the Home Minister's Hindi Diwas speech) cannot see beyond the Hindi belt, how can they?”
Baradwaj Rangan, film critic and editor of Film Companion South, explains that international jurors tend to pick films that appeal to their sensibilities. “Whether it is the Oscars or the Guardian list, they will pick films with certain sensibilities that they are able to absorb. Gangs of Wasseypur, for instance, is Indian in milieu and also westernised. Films that are rooted in the Indian ethos with a westernised language get across to an international audience.”
Hemanth Kumar, a popular Telugu film critic, says that most international publications don’t really focus much on Indian movies despite the country having one of the largest film industries in the world. He also says that most foreign publications have been exposed only to Bollywood for too long and that one can only hope for a gradual shift in attention towards south Indian films.
“20 years ago, we didn’t really talk as much about regional cinema on a national level as we do now. But today, Malayalam cinema is widely renowned for its brilliant stories. Tamil and Telugu too have their own strengths. But for the foreign media to take note of these changes will be a gradual process. It’s been only a few years that Hollywood has started taking diversity seriously...and African-Americans have been living there for at least 300 years!” says Hemanth.
He goes on to add: "It is the same reason why only a select few of Satyajit Ray’s films, Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, Salaam Bombay, and Nayagan were named among the most influential films of the 20th century. These films are seen as an introduction to Indian cinema in many foreign universities."
But what if critics who are familiar with south Indian cinema could make their own list of films from the 21st century that deserve to be watched everywhere? Which southern films would make the cut?
Tamil
Baradwaj Rangan points out that Tamil cinema in general does not have a well-established tradition of making art cinema like that of its neighbours.
“Malayalam has Adoor Gopalakrishnan, G Aravindan. In Telugu there’s B Narsing Rao. In Kannada we have Girish Kasaravalli but in Tamil such filmmakers are very few. Even Mahendran’s Uthiri Pookkal is still considered a mainstream film," he says.
Nevertheless, he notes that a lot of interesting new films have come up in recent times in Tamil.
“Something like Vetrimaaran’s Visaranai would have been a good choice, it also played at Venice. I would also have liked to see how they might have consumed Karthik Subbaraj’s Jigarthanda. It was a gangster film, a dark comedy, a meta movie. It was ambitious and very stylishly packaged," he says.
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Visaranai
He also lists director Manikandan’s Kaaka Muttai as a film that might have been interesting to the international audience.
“It spoke about globalisation but was told in a very interesting way," he points out.
Made in 2015, Visaranai was a crime thriller adapted from a novel titled Lock up, written by M Chandrakumar, an auto driver from Coimbatore. The story was based on real events and starred Attakathi Dinesh, Kishore and Samuthirakani among others.
Jigarthanda, which came out in 2014, was directed by Karthik Subbaraj and starred Siddharth and Bobby Simha in lead roles. It told the story of a gangster who forces a filmmaker to make a movie with him as the hero.
Kaaka Muttai came out in 2015 and told the story of two young brothers from an underprivileged home who are on a quest to taste pizza for the first time in their life. The film won two National Awards.
Malayalam
Malayalam film critic and founder of The Cue Maneesh Narayanan names Ee. Ma. Yau and Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum as the two movies that should be in an international list like the Guardian’s. He also adds Ottaal (2015) and
Ee. Ma. Yau came out in 2018 and was a dark satire directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery. The film was about a son’s desperate attempts to give a proper funeral to his dad, who dies while he performs an impromptu dance at home. The film is shot in the night as Chemban Vinod, playing the son Eeshi, tries to suppress his shock and sadness over his father’s sudden death and attempts to arrange the best funeral possible for him.
Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum, directed by Dileesh Pothan, came out in 2017. The film tells the story of a couple who get entangled with a thief who steals the woman's gold chain. Fahadh Faasil plays the thief while Suraj Venjaramoodu and Nimisha Sajayan play the couple. The cast was highly appreciated for their performances in this drama which was mostly set in a rural police station.
Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum
Ottaal, directed by Jayaraj, was adapted from Anton Chekov's Vanka and featured the relationship between a child and his grandfather. The boy has to leave his grandfather and the village he grew up in, to go to work at a young age.
Iyobinte Pusthakam, directed by Amal Neerad, is a period drama set in the mid-20th century. The film follows three brothers and their sibling rivalry, with the characters named after and having similarities to Dimitri, Ivan and Aloshy of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.
Telugu
Vamshi Reddy, a film studies professor at IIT-Tirupati, says that one of the major reasons that Telugu movies or south Indian films don't make it to such lists, is that Bollywood is still considered to be the representative of Indian cinema.
“The selected films are either Hollywood or films that fall under the aesthetics of Hollywood. For example, Gangs of Wasseyapur in relation to the West is called India’s answer to The Godfather. Despite all its merits, it’s unfair that Bollywood is still considered to be the face of Indian cinema. C/o Kancherapalam is one movie from the Telugu industry that deserved to be on the list. It even made it to so many international film festivals. Earlier, visibility was the major issue for south Indian films to be picked for these kinds of list. But now active diaspora and digital distribution have made the films from the south equally visible along with Bollywood,” Vamshi says.
He also adds such a stamp of approval is not really required from the West.
C/o Kancherapalam by Maha Venkatesh told the many little stories of people from the town called Kancherapalam. The film released to critical acclaim in 2018.
Kannada
Karthik Keramalu notes that Kannada directors tend to make very interesting debuts but are soon forced to cater to the audience since art films make less money.
“Ulidavaru Kandanthe by Rakshit Shetty was an under-appreciated film. When it released in theatres, it was a big flop. It was non-linear, inspired by Quentin Tarantino. it was shot in and around Mangaluru and it had Tulu flavours. Over the years, it has created a fan base,” he says.
“Ondu Motteya Kathe by Raj B Shetty too was a very well-made film. It is about a young man going bald and consequentially finding it difficult to get someone to marry,” he adds.
Ondu Motteya Kathe
Karthik also picks Bell Bottom, a comedy thriller, for his list.
“There’s a police constable who isn’t respected well but wants to solve bigger crimes. A case falls into his lap and he solves it. The film was very interestingly presented,” says Karthik.
Film writer Subha J Rao lists three 2018 films - Nathicharami, Ondalla Eradalla, and Katheyondu Shuruvagide as some of the under-appreciated but well-made films in Kannada.
“All these films did not have a good theatrical run but once they released online, they just skyrocketed. The OTT platforms are helping cinema in a big way, in that sense,” she says.
(With inputs from Cris and Priyanka Richi)