The film Empuran, released last month, was the first major attempt of Malayalam cinema to pan India market, with in major distribution chains of films. This is not to forgetting the sneaking in of soft porn Malayalam films on to pan India B & C town screens in the 80s. But with the emergence of multiplexes and their screens across India and OTT outlets, being pan India is what each of the major filmmakers, be it commercial or meaningful films, aim at for their own reasons.
The reasons can be more money and exposure to the films and its makers and opening up of new markets and audiences. Looking up the pan India market foray of South Indian films recently, one can see the Telegu period drama “RRR” grossed a total of nearly ₹1,200 crore (roughly $140 million) worldwide, becoming a global blockbuster and the third-highest-grossing Indian film. The Kannada film,”K.G.F: Chapter 2″ earned a total of approximately ₹1,227 crore worldwide in 41 days. And Malayalam’s Empuran, with best foot forward in promotions and scale of the movie could not reach what the earlier two achieved and its earnings, stood at global earning of Rs 268 Crore gross on day 21. Even that figure is being contested by many.
Only recently Hindi-Marathi filmmaker, Mahesh Majirekar , went on record saying that only Malayalam and Marathi films are the only one’s attempting some new content acknowledging the fact that Malayalam films are being noticed by the filmmakers across the country for its “innovations”. Many a Malayalam film has inspired Hindi remakes for reasons of its strong content, the latest being the Hindi remake of “The Great Indian Kitchen”.
That takes us to examine why Empuran , despite its rightful and massive build ups across Indian main cities and also with pan India identifiable actors like Mohan Lal and Prithiraj Sukumaran in the film, did not carry the day in the box office. Content and placement of the narrative appeared to be its issue looking at its overall impact on the film. When you place the content solely in Kerala politics, the dynamics of which is alien of majority of average audience in Pan India, for instance Stefan Nedumpally , an MLA, emerging as Quresh Abraam in the Gulf as don is somewhat unheard in their imagination as they have only heard about a Dawood from Mumbai in Gulf and making news. And for most in North India, the name Qureshi Abraam is a puzzle, as there is no such name for Muslims in the North. Qureshi is a community of butchers among Muslims and Ibrahim is the correct name of Abraam. If the script writer and filmmaker are trying to imitate Sharuk Khan’s sons name there also they might fall flat, as Abraam is a first name not a second name as in the film. For North Indian audiences they expect a Pan India film not to offend their common sense in simple things like names to enjoy it, whatever be the content of the film.
Film pundits have observed over the years that the Hindi films are successful on a pan India basis as they do not place their characters in any single milieu. For instance, if you think the film Pathan is about the Kabuliwalas( real Pathan community), you are totally mistaken, as it is a given name for lead characters’ service to save kids in an Afghan village. Well such heroic acts viewers accept any given names, but to place a character like Munna inside the heart of Gujarat riots in a heavily politically sensitive ambience of India ( nothing formal censorship guidelines though) is utterly innocent of the situation for the writer and the filmmaker. It simply means the writer and the filmmaker have no idea about Pan Indian politics of the ruling establishment, which heavily twists films into their ideological programme. For every burning political issue, there is a film being sponsored by the ruling establishment, from Kashmir Files to Chaavva to Kesari films are being used as propaganda tools of the ruling ideologies. In that scenario, if the Empuran writer thought he could get away with a “Munna” character, reminding the audience of the horrors of Gujarat riots of 2002, it is being politically naïve of the national situation. One is not surprised they had to change the contest and name of the character Bajarngi even without any official dikaths, as that is the order of the day in film content these days. If in doubt just read what is happening to the film Phule.
Also no one among Pan Indian audience can fathom the fact that an orphan origin MLA from hilly district of Kerala can emerge as an International don in a lifetime, like the Qureshi Abram of the film. A don from Western Ghats of India aligned with international drug mafia with links direct to British Intelligence can only be in the fertile imagination of a Malayalam film writer grown up James bond films, but has not an iota of truth as facts are known in the international scene. Look at any of the James Bond films. The placement of Bond in each country including India when it happened followed a lot of research and was based on some kind of reality, not just a fertile imagination of writer and filmmaker. The reason being films being a visual medium the content has to hang somewhere in the imagination of people’s information base. Unfortunately, Empuran, with such filmy facts does not hang anywhere in the information base of the emerging pan India audience of India, in theatres or on OTT. Compare the same situation with that Prithvi led “ Goatlife” film. It got the imagination of atleast OTT audiences since they have an information base about the desperate Malayali workers in the Gulf, which allows them to enter that story.
It is true practically no Malayalam filmmaker has attempted such a pan Indian entry with films like Empuran, getting released in screens across towns of India in recent times. A decade ago Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s film “ Pinneyum” tried such an exposure, but limited to screens near Malayali population and that too minus such media build ups. Adoor had no such ambitions of collecting crores, but was using the newly opened chain of screens in urban centres of India with his film.Blessy’s Goatlife, did better as it catered to the newfound interest of Malayalam films as a hub of innovation in content. For that limited interest the film served its purpose too. Blessy’s film became a talking point among the filmy people of North India.
However, though placed as a Pan Indian film like a RRR or KGF, Empuran failed even to make a ripple among the filmy people of North as most could not identify with the film, in content or its placement of the characters. The lesson is simple, when you go pan India with your film, try and study the sensitivities of the market, a market survey or a focus group discussion as in the pre launch of corporate products, before investing on such huge amounts. That can avoid a lot of controversies and save money for the producers, especially in an ideologically charged atmosphere of India now.
