While I myself have not experienced much of Indian cinema, what I have explored tend to be long films populated by multiple tones, at one moment being a badass action movie, at others being a silly comedy, and always having a few dance numbers of great energy thrown into the film for good measure. Tonal shifts often populate films, but they often do so in a negative way. Suicide Squad and more have all suffered greatly in this department but in Bãhubali: The Beginning the filmmakers, handle the tonal shift in a way that makes the film experience incredibly smooth by using the juxtaposition of character emotion and audience emotion, in some of the smartest tonal shifts I have ever witnessed. So, to properly look at the way that Bãhubali switches its tones on a dime, we need to take a look at the tones themselves. Bãhubali starts out as an intense action film, but only stays that way for a few minutes before it shifts into an entertaining, somewhat silly, movie about a young man who is trying to gain the love of a young woman. This tone, however, after showing us the niceties of the world of Bãhubali, sheds away into a much darker adventure story full of murder and chained up prisoners. The film will vault between the silliness and the darkness throughout the entire amazing experience, a move that would typically cripple the tonal palette of any film, due to the way that harsh tonal shifts can fracture the verisimilitude of an experience. That doesn’t happen in Bãhubali, though. Two scenes early in the film accentuate this strength greatly. Shiva (Prabhas) has found a mask that has dropped from a waterfall, giving promise to the fact that there is a beautiful woman at the top that he may seduce. The following sequence is an incredibly intoxicating but also ironic sequence of Shiva climbing the waterfall (like a badass) lured on, in song and dance, by his projected image of the woman at the top. She dances and sings to him about how he will come and sweep her up in love. The moment seems to be silly and hilarious because it is played so over the top that it seems to make fun of Shiva’s ignorance towards the ways of women. He sees her as an object that he can get if only he can climb the waterfall. This scene also serves to contextualize the jarring shift that will occur in the next scene, showing us a funny and overall exciting view of the heroics of our hero, but also the follies of his perception. He almost seems childish in his way up the mountain and it infuses this early moment with the sweetness that it needs to later provide us with an excellent tonal shift. The second scene comes once Shiva has made it up the mountain. As he explores the woods at the top, the same woman of his dreams appears, sprinting away fearfully from some armed guards. The moment that she appears on screen is just as Romantic as the perception of her that Shiva imagined on the mountain. It’s in slow motion, panicked, in need of his help. The filmmakers smartly play into our expectations of Shiva saving his female compatriot as he soon gives chase. This is the filmmakers teasing us with our expectations. By giving us exactly what we expected to see, they’re also luring us into a tonal trap, ready to spring it on us once the real action of the scene gets going. In a moment of jarring fluidity (that makes sense) the love interest, known as Avanthika (Tamannah) yells to her own compatriots to throw her a sword, which she promptly catches and stabs into one of the guards. The moment takes the movie from the silliness of the earlier scene into the darkness of the next few scenes, and it does so jarringly, but that jarring sense is perfect for the moment. The filmmakers juxtapose Shiva’s own shifting perception of Avanthika with the shifting of the film, therefore placing the surprise of Shiva on the audience. Our own surprise in said shifting tone matches the surprise of Shiva, making the surprise of the jarring tonal shift feel fluid and natural to the audience. This type of tonal shift, where the characters intense or tempered personal emotions drive the shift, is seen in other places throughout the film. Take, for example, the next one that happens in the film, in which the story transfers back into the more whimsical story of love that is driving Shiva’s ambitions. The moment where the tone is allowed to change happens as Avanthika considers who she is and the passions of her cause. Framed, beautifully by a puddle reflection she stares into her own eyes, but soon brushes her fingers through the scene dismissing the person inside. This too, much like the last tonal shift throws the audience off guard, making us wonder why the passionate, skilled Avanthika would be so underwhelmed in herself? Again, the audience is allowed the same emotions as the character present in the scene, juxtaposing our own confusion at Avanthika's self-consciousness with Avanthika's own self-conscious confusion in herself. This leading into the affirming view of Shiva coming to underwater flirt (yes, this happens) with her smooths the tonal shift between the darker tone focussed on more violent aspects of the movie and the fun courting part of the story. Filmmaking is paramountly about storytelling and conveying the emotions of a character to the audience. In Bãhubali: The Beginning by allowing for the emotions of the main characters to match the emotions of the audience, the filmmakers rectify the flaws that may grow out of the genre that they are working in (not that the formula of Indian cinema is flawed, just that there has to be some difficulty in balancing tones that come with said formula). PS: If you haven't seen Bãhubali: The Beginning, I really recommend it. Bibliography Bãhubali: The Beginning. Dir. S.S. Rajamouli. Perf. Prabhas. 2015. DVD.
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AuthorStephen Tronicek. Archives
July 2017
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