Post-interval blues: Kannada cinema and the curse of the second half

In 2024, several Kannada films have suffered from an underwhelming second half as new filmmakers continue to face the age-old crisis of finishing films on a high after a promising start

Unlike Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy, which was set-piece heavy, Matt Reaves’ The Batman, the reboot of the popular franchise, uses action sparingly. During the screening of the Robert Pattinson-starrer in a theatre in Bengaluru, the crowd was left grumbling when the screen turned blank for the intermission moments before the film’s first big action sequence. Thanks to the Indian concept of the interval, the theatre operator had to stop the movie at a point he deemed correct.

We can’t avoid the feeling of abruptness when we break for an interval during a Hollywood film. The reason? Films are made as one single entity. Hollywood filmmakers don’t have the pressure to split films into two halves. On the contrary, Indian directors hate the burden of writing two endings for a movie. One arrives at the intermission point, popularly called the ‘interval bang‘, and the second is the film’s climax. Commercial filmmakers alter the traditional three-act structure by writing an elaborate interval episode apart from the setup, confrontation, and resolution.

The pressure of taking a break

Social media has made the midpoint an indispensable part of a commercial movie. For highly-anticipated films, fans put out reviews of the first and the second halves, treating the movie as two films clubbed together. However, the post that garners the most attention on social media is about the interval. So much so that a film’s quality is measured based on the excitement you feel at the interval point, fuelled by a shocking twist in the plot or an adrenaline-pumping sequence.

The Kannada short film Madhyantara, which recently clinched two National Awards (Best Debut Director and Best Editor), is a fascinating take on the two halves of a film. The movie is about two poor men who are mad about movies in the 1970s.

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What happens when all they can afford is one movie ticket? One watches the first half, while the other sits for the second half! Destiny lands them in the film industry. Will their way of watching films in theatre help them thrive in a cut-throat world?

Director Dinesh Shenoy’s quirky conclusion to a unique idea works fantastically inside the film’s universe, but the reality is a different picture. In a bid to pique the viewers’ curiosity at the halfway mark, are filmmakers drifting away from the film’s core idea? Are we seeing films that begin strongly and then lose their way after the break?

The curse of the second half is an age-old problem, with even the biggest Indian filmmakers across industries finding it difficult to crack the challenge. In 2024, the issue has been a significant hurdle for Kannada writer-directors. Several interesting films have fallen short of being perfect due to uninspiring second halves.

Post the interval

Pepe, starring Vinay Rajkumar from the Dr Rajkumar family, was supposed to offer the actor a ‘mass’ image. It does, to an extent, with some high moments. After setting up his film like an epic — involving two groups divided by caste and privilege — director Sreelesh Nair throws his hands up. In the second half, continuous action sequences kill our curiosity. What’s the point of seeing the hero kill a thousand people when you have already stopped caring for the film’s characters? Pepe forgets one of the basic elements of writing: to evoke emotions from the viewers.

The director hesitates to take the story forward, for he has a sequel planned. The first part is always about setting up the story. How can you convince the audience for a sequel after you have lost their trust in the first installment?

Laughing Buddha from Rishab Shetty films portrays the fitness issues of our police officers, ridiculed for having pot bellies. In the second half, Laughing Buddha becomes an investigative thriller from a comedy-drama. The jokes dry up, and the narrative gets stretched. Many such films start with one idea and end with another one. To its advantage, however, the film concludes on a high, and that’s a big plus. As audiences, we tend to retain visuals of what we see during the closing portions of a film (Remember Rolex in Vikram?).

The demands of commercial cinema often push filmmakers to compromise with their stories. Bheema, directed by Duniya Vijay, showcases the harmful effects of drugs in the slums of Bengaluru. After a breezy first half with many theatre-worthy moments backed by Charan Raj’s fabulous score, the crime drama goes downhill. Vijay takes the idea of a social message too seriously, and the film becomes too explanatory. Moreover, playing to the gallery, he takes the tried and tested route of one man saving the system.

In Family Drama, a quirky comedy made by newcomers, we see the problem of one half hurting the film, albeit in reverse. It has one of the best second halves of Sandalwood this year. An unconventional middle-class family attempting to eliminate a feared don offers a hilarious experience. That said, why leave the best things too late?  It’s as if the director had a superb interval block but failed to reach there convincingly, resulting in an underwhelming first half.

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Waiting in the queue for our popcorn tub, we build a perception about a film after watching it till the middle. How do filmmakers ensure that viewers remain invested in the movie throughout the runtime? Solid writing helps us extract maximum potential from our unique ideas. Perhaps an engaging screenplay can strengthen the overall output. 

According to writer Javed Akhtar from the great Salim-Javed duo, a good screenplay increases curiosity at the right place and knows when to slow down. It understands when to make the narrative jump and when to take stress off the conflict. Easier said than done, but when one of our finest writers has a lesson, it would do no harm to practise it.

Published - September 20, 2024 05:11 pm IST