Film Review: Who is Encroaching? Narratives of Land Encroachment in Kantara

This paper reviews Kantara: A Legend, a Kannada language movie, released on 30th September 2022. This anthropological action thriller is based on the culture of coastal Karnataka, however cultural borders between Kerala and Karnataka, blur in many places. It flags off issues of tribals, forests, land encroachment and the mythology of smaller hamlets in rural India. ‘Kantara’ has brilliantly manifested the subject of land encroachment using historical narrative. Here, we found three narratives of land encroachment: 1) the Narrative of land encroachment by the feudal Zamindar, 2) the Narrative of Land encroachment by tribals and 3) the Narrative of Land encroachment by forest officers/state actors. While themes of tribal assertion, misogyny, untouchability, women’s empowerment and role conflict are meticulously discussed through character analysis of the movie. Most intriguingly, the ideas of spirituality and community consciousness are discussed through a mythological analysis of the Kola festival, which appears as a site of solidarity and togetherness among the villagers. Overall, these themes have been woven like a fine tapestry of music, dance and drama.