Kuberaa

Telugu filmmaker Sekhar Kammula’s reputation speaks for itself. With films like ‘Anand’, ‘Godavari’, and ‘Fidaa’, among others, his films are rooted yet progressive at the same time. His films, even after years, make you fall in love with it all over again. His latest offering, ‘Kuberaa’, with a power-packed cast including Dhanush, Nagarjuna, Jim Sarbh and Rashmika Mandanna, is a film that touches upon various topics including power, money, betrayal, humanity and justice. Has he managed to strike gold again? Let’s find out! Neeraj Mitra (Jim Sarbh) is a powerful and ruthless businessman who discovers oil reserves that could support India for the next 15 years. He strikes a deal with the ruling government that would benefit both parties in the long run. To help execute his plan, Neeraj approaches Deepak (Nagarjuna), an honest CBI officer who is in prison due to a false case. Although Deepak initially refuses, he eventually joins forces with Neeraj and his father after much prodding.

It is natural to expect a moral tale about greed or an existential fable about wealth with a film titled Kuberaa (the Hindu God of wealth) and with a beggar for a protagonist. But what one would fear is the film turning overly sentimental about poverty. Kuberaa is both. As expected, it is a story of a naive beggar taking a cunning multi-millionaire for a ride, throwing a familiar light on the rich, exposing them to be self-serving murderers. It is a social commentary on the top one percent, failing to help the rest. On the other hand, the film also has a familiar gaze of the poor as a naive and oppressed lot – a perspective that has been popularised by our mainstream commercial films. However, Kuberaa treads this path carefully.

The film begins by acknowledging its writer-director’s 25-year career, and the title card — Sekhar Kammula’s Kuberaa —says it all. Kuberaa is driven by its director and his ambitious tale that does not pander to the starry aura of Dhanush, Nagarjuna Akkineni, and Rashmika Mandanna. Sekhar makes them play characters — men and women inhabiting a complex world driven by money, power and greed. The narrative is not perfect. Yet, it is a brave one in the realm of mainstream Telugu cinema, giving viewers plenty to chew on. In broad terms, Kuberaa is the story of a capitalist exploiting those who are below the poverty line. How these two worlds collide makes all the difference. A multi-billionaire (Jim Sarbh as Neeraj Mitra) believes ‘fame is power’. He lives in a Mumbai high-rise that has an infinity pool. At the other end of the spectrum are those who beg for alms, whom this film describes as the ‘invisible’, brushed aside at traffic signals and at places of worship as an inconvenience.