Tumbbad Creative Director Anand Gandhi Says Kantara Celebrates ‘Toxic Masculinity’

Filmmaker Anand Gandhi who directed Ship of Theseus, says Rishab Shetty’s Kantara celebrates toxic masculinity. Set in a fictional village of Dakshina Kannada region of Karnataka, the film follows the story of Rishab Shetty’s character, who is a buffalo race champion. In a tweet, the filmmaker expressed that Kantara is nothing like his film Tumbbad. Gandhi was the creative director and co-writer of the film.

His tweet read, “Kantara is nothing like Tumbbad. My idea behind Tumbbad was to use the horror as an allegory of toxic masculinity and parochialism. Kantara is a celebration of these.”

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Besides Anand Gandhi, filmmaker Abhiroop Basu also criticised Kantara. Basu is known for films such as Laali and Meal. He told ETimes, “I feel it’s a mockery of anyone’s intelligence. Poorly made, regressive, loud, replete with tropes, no real character to root for, so-called plot twists appear dishonest and merely serve as gimmicks, the protagonist’s redemption arc is laughable and by the time the film reaches the much talked about climax, I am not really interested anymore.”

He continued, “But I guess it shouldn’t really be shocking for a film that forces you to believe in ‘divine intervention’ earning aplenty, especially in a time when you are trying hard as a country to prove the scientific relevance of a mythological character. So really, it all fits in.”

Meanwhile, Kantara opened to terrific response and audiences seemed to love it. It also performed well at the box office. Produced by Hombale Films, Kantara stars Rishab Shetty, Achyuth Kumar, Pramod Shetty, and Sapthami Gowda in the lead roles. Kantara originally hit the movie theatres on September 30 this year. While its Hindi version arrived in cinemas on October 14.

Kantara is also available for streaming on Amazon Prime in four languages, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.

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