Kalki, the Dalda-tin aesthetic

What prompted this reclusive, busy writer to write a post after an entire year was one comment from one reader. I take it as a sign from the universe that I need to write. You can take it as a sign of my self-doubt and need for validation. I’ve been hanging around Substack notes all this while reading about writers writing about writing, smiling knowingly, heart’ing them but never opening a word document. I’d hop over to Instagram, write wordy captions for my workout photos and complain about people paying no attention to the caption. It’s me against me.

I scroll through 368 kurta sets on Myntra and lull myself to sleep. I watch reels of golden retrievers, babies, golden retrievers and babies, gym humour, workout tips, styling videos, mom’s joking about dads doing nothing and shit load of memes about being stuck in life. Instagram not only profiles me; it judges me. I of course go through Substack notes, read posts, admire all the great writing, sigh and switch to the other tab to browse through some co-ord sets to dull the ache. All of this is after 11 pm. The day is dedicated to adding value, being productive, chiming in & raising the bar. Aah, the perks of the corporate job.

I did not mean for this post to be about movies but then last night I went to see Kalki. I don’t think there is a risk of spoilers with this movie but you may decide if you want to read further. The bigger risk is watching the movie itself.

I’ve not seen a more confused movie. Like a multi-tasking woman trying to be everything, to be cool, fun, responsible, disciplined, carefree, assertive, kind, confident, docile, sexy, homely. This movie tries to be an adaptation of an epic, a futuristic epic, science fiction, an action movie and a mass entertainer complete with history’s most forgettable hero introduction scene. It feels much like mixing biryani, curd rice, kichadi, noodles, falooda and Thums Up in one dalda tin. I’d call it the Dalda tin aesthetic.

I’ve never really paid attention to art direction in a movie but you will notice it when it is so jarring. Here too you will be struck by the ‘dalda tin’ aesthetic. Some of the villains are dressed in star-war robes, some others in ancient Roman style robes, some others in metallic battle gear, many others in layers of indescribable layers of rags. The villains are wielding light sabers and large sized safety pins. The good rebels are holding cheap NERF guns and sometimes temperature meters. Some of the vehicles look like modified tankers, some like re-modeled garbage trucks and others like the flipping car toy. Only this car toy is actually from ‘Transformers’, it can become a fighting machine. Don’t ask me why vehicles that can levitate and fly are chugging along dusty mountain roads.

The evil guys have sucked the world’s beaches and mountains and all of nature and placed them on the top floor of their inverted pyramid building. In lower floors, old people from the Titanic crew are still partying. Prabhas’ robot sidekick is probably meant to look like ‘Eve’ from ‘Wall-E’ but looks like a funky webcam. His casual girlfriend in dystopian 2898 wears a ‘Dhoom’ midriff-baring costume and has a strange video game face. When they enter the ‘complex’ they wear the Squid game uniform. Kalki-bearing pregnant Deepika Padukone walks through a tunnel of fire unscathed, but her tube top alone burns off and she shields her breasts with her hands while fainting. Good to know soft porn is mandatory even if it’s mother of God, even if it is 2898. On partaking of a drop of the serum, dried prune Kamal Hassan becomes Aalavandan Kamal. The currency of this world is called ‘Units’, the pyramid building is called the ‘complex’, the leader of the evil forces is the ‘Supreme’, I kid you not. Lack of imagination? or no time for that kind of thing?

Copying from one film is inspiration, copying from 15 different films is… ?

If we are to de-dup the dialogues, eliminate trashy build-up lines and unnecessary cameo lines, there are exactly 3 things that people are saying – ‘God is coming; coming soon’, ‘Supreme wants serum’. Sorry, just 2 things. It was like watching episodes of a Vijay TV megaserial back-to-back. No movement in story, school skit level dialogues, flat paper-thin characters. You are waiting for Krishna paramatma to arrive as Kalki and put an end to the misery but alas this is just Part-1. The starting and ending scenes of the movie are battle scenes from Mahabharata and are presumably there to show us the epic nature of this story, the magnificence of it all. But sandwiched in between the opening and ending scenes is this Dalda-tin dump much like click-bait. I will watch Doordarshan’s ‘Mahabharat’ anyday.

If you’ve watched the movie, do let me know what you thought of it. I’d love to hear from you.