In an age of streaming platforms, visual extravaganzas seem to be the answer filmmakers have found to draw audience to the big screen. The multi-starrer, multi-lingual 3D film Kurukshetra delivers on this front and is to be watched on the big screen.
With the film telling the all-too-familiar story of the 18-day Kurukshetra war and what led to it, it is the interpretation that must hold the audience. Unlike most Mahabharata adaptations, the film refreshingly has Kaurava king Duryodhana and his friend Karna as the protagonists.
While the first half is dominated by Duryodhana, the focus shifts to Karna and other characters in the second half and the pace picks up. Apart from the Duryodhana and Karna, most characters lack depth.
Though billed as an answer from Kannada to the Baahubali franchise of Telugu films, ironically, the film seems to be highly influenced by the 1977 Telugu classic Dana Veera Shoora Karna , a magnum opus directed and produced by N.T. Rama Rao in which he essayed roles of Duryodhana, Karna and Krishna. Several scenes in the film (especially of Duryodhana) seem to be similarly staged. Crucial dialogues seem to be minor variations, or in some cases a direct translation of iconic dialogues from the Telugu film.
- Cast : Darshan, Ambareesh, Arjun Sarja, V Ravichandran, Sneha
- Director : Naganna
However, for most of the audience who have had no exposure to the 1977 film, Kurukshetra may still work.
While the filmmakers have concentrated on the technical aspects of the film chiselling it into a 3D extravaganza, there seems to be not much focus on the script. It is sad that in Kannada that has had a glorious literary tradition of interpretations of Mahabharata from Pampa’s ‘Vikramarjuna Vijaya’ to the modern-day ‘Parva’ of S.L. Bhyrappa, a film adaptation of the epic borrows very little from the land’s literary tradition.
One of the departments where the film falters is in the use of language. The everydayness of the language does not sit well with the mythological setting. Surprisingly, the film is also mostly in prose, with very few poems thrown in, though rhetorical poetry is a trademark feature of mythological plays and films.
Though this is the first mythological for most of the actors, in a pleasant surprise, most turn in good performances. Darshan as Duryodhana and Arjun Sarja as Karna deliver convincing performances. Darshan’s body language and dialogue delivery suit the role. Ambareesh as Bheeshma and Ravishankar as Shakuni have delivered notable performances.
The music of the film fails to register.
