Answers: Films from Southern India and the World

In March, RRR became the first feature film from India to secure a prize at the Oscars, winning the best original song award for ‘Naatu Naatu’. RRR is a Telugu-language production and not a Bollywood film in Hindi, a distinction missed by many including Oscar host Jimmy Kimmel.

Vibrant film industries exist in multiple languages in India and I am using this quiz to showcase how films from the four main southern languages (Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Malayalam) have interacted with the world outside India.

Answers

1) Where was the Oscar-winning ‘Naatu Naatu’ song filmed?

Outside Mariinskyi Palace, the official residence of Ukraine’s president. The song was filmed just months before Russia invaded Ukraine. More here.

2) The 1993 Tamil blockbuster Gentleman’s climax had a teenage suicide bomber on a bicycle carrying out a political assassination. What real-life assassination was the sequence inspired by?

The assassination of Sri Lanka’s president Ranasinghe Premadasa during a May Day rally in Colombo in 1993. More here, here, here and here.

Gentleman’s climax sequence was rewritten at the urging of the producer after Premadasa’s assassination. The film was released nearly three months later on July 30.

3) The 1980 Malayalam film Vilkkanundu Swapnangal (Dreams for Sale) is widely remembered in Kerala for being iconic actor Mammootty’s first credited screen role. It is also a landmark movie for where it is partly filmed, reflecting economic and social changes in Kerala. Where outside Kerala was Vilkkanundu Swapnangal partly filmed, marking a first for Malayalam cinema?

The first Malayalam movie to be partly filmed in the Middle East (Dubai). The lead character travels to Dubai as an undocumented migrant. The oil boom of the 1970s was the impetus for the first surge in migration to the Gulf countries from Kerala. More here, here and here. Since then remittances from the five Gulf Cooperation Council states have become crucial to Kerala’s economy.

More on how Kerala’s ties with the Middle East have been portrayed on celluloid since the 1970s here. In addition, the 2000s saw the emergence of a low-budget genre of Malayalam films known as ‘Home Cinema’ that were sold directly as VCDs/DVDs or released at video rental stores. These films catered to the Muslim community in northern Kerala and were based on Gulf migrants’ lives. Many of them were partly filmed in Gulf countries. More here and here.

2024 update: Malayalam films depicting Gulf migrants has struck a chord among some migrants from the northern state of Bihar. Nehal Ahmed has written about their experience of ‘Malabari films’ here.

4) The 1979 Tamil film Nangooram was the only screen appearance of this actor in an Indian film. He was a popular actor in his home country who turned to politics. In 1984 he broke away from an established political party and founded a new party. He was assassinated in 1988. Who? (Hint: His wife was also a prominent politician)

Sri Lankan actor-turned-politician Vijaya Kumaratunga. More here, here and here. Kumaratunga and his wife Chandrika broke away from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party led by her family to set up Sri Lanka Mahajana Pakshaya in 1984. Promoting reconciliation with the Tamil minority, he visited LTTE stronghold Jaffna in 1986 and supported the Indo-Sri Lanka accord of 1987. He was assassinated by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a leftist movement that espoused Sinhala nationalism (JVP led a failed armed rebellion against the state from 1987-89). More here and here.

Chandrika Kumaratunga, whose father and mother had been prime ministers, returned to the SLFP after Vijaya’s death. She was elected president twice, serving from 1994 to 2005. She survived an LTTE assassination attempt in 2000.

Here’s a song featuring Vijaya Kumaratunga from his sole Tamil film Nangooram.

The late 1970s saw Indo-Sri Lankan joint productions such as Pilot Premnath and Nangooram. More here. But this collaborative spirit ended in the 1980s as ethnic tension in Sri Lanka escalated into civil war.

5) Prussia-born Eugen ______was an international celebrity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He came to India on an eight-month tour in 1904-05 as eager fans waited to catch a glimpse. Among those inspired by this global celebrity was P.K. Nagalingam from Tamil Nadu. He had a flair for wrestling and made a career in Bombay as an action hero in silent films in the 1920s. Along the way he took up the name Raja ——-(from the global celebrity). He then turned his attention to filmmaking and became a trendsetting director in Tamil in the 1930s. Fill in the surname.

Eugen Sandow was known as the ‘father of modern bodybuilding’. More here, here and here on his visit to India. The Economist has called him the ‘world’s first fitness influencer’.

P.K. Nagalingam changed his name to Raja Sandow. More here, here and here.

6) Another transformational figure in Tamil cinema was American director Ellis R. Dungan who helmed Sathi Leelavathi (1936) which marked the screen debut of actor-turned-politician M.G. Ramachandran. In 1945 Dungan directed a biopic in Tamil on a 16th century princess-turned-mystic. Who was the mystic and who played the lead role (it was her last role in a film)?

Meera. The role was played by Carnatic classical singer M.S. Subbulakshmi. More here, here, here, here, here and here.

7) Volodymr Zelenskyy took just a year to secure a landslide win in Ukraine’s presidential election after his ‘Servant of the People’ party was officially registered in March 2018 (The TV series Servant of the People featuring Zelenskyy as a schoolteacher who is unexpectedly elected president after a profane rant against corruption was first broadcast in 2015). Decades earlier an Indian actor turned his on-screen charisma into political power just nine months after forming a new political party, becoming chief minister of a southern state. Who and which state?

N.T. Rama Rao, Andhra Pradesh. More on NTR the actor here and here. More on NTR the politician here, here and here. Jr. NTR, one of the lead stars in RRR is NTR's grandson.

8) Playwright, writer, actor and director Girish Karnad, a recipient of India’s top literary award, directed the 1978 Kannada film Ondanondu Kaladalli (Once upon a time). It’s set in 13th century Karnataka when the region was splintered into small kingdoms and features two mercenaries employed by rival brothers. Ondanondu Kaladalli is inspired by which renowned filmmaker’s work?

Akira Kurosawa. More here, here and here.

9) G.V. Iyer made a mark as an actor and director in Kannada. In 1983 he made the first-ever film in another language, which scooped up four national awards including best film and best screenplay. The film was based on the life of an 8th century philosopher and theologian. Name the language and the philosopher.

Sanskrit. The film was Adi Shankaracharya. More about Adi Shankara, philosopher and top exponent of Advaita Vedanta here and here. More about G.V. Iyer here, here and here and films made in Sanskrit here and here.

10) This landmark 1952 Tamil film features three brothers leading prosperous lives in a neighbouring country, who are forced to leave by Japanese bombing during the Second World War. This film had a major political impact regionally in the 1950s and elements stoked by it had national repercussions in the next decade. Name the film and the neighbouring country.

Parasakthi. The neighbouring country is Myanmar. The film was scripted by M. Karunanidhi, who later became Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. Parasakthi turned out to be a huge propaganda vehicle for the Dravidian movement centred on Tamil identity, language and culture. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) took power in the state in 1967.

More about Burma as a recurring motif in Tamil cinema here. As moneylenders, the Tamil Chettiar community had played a crucial role in transforming Burma into Asia’s rice bowl. Many of their old mansions are now in ruins.

11) The 2011 Malayalam film Urumi depicts a fictional mission to kill which historical figure of the 16th century who played a pivotal role in the early years of western colonialism in India?

Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, whose arrival in Calicut (Kozhikode) in Kerala in 1498 laid the foundations of centuries of European colonialism. More about the film Urumi here and here.

12) The Tamil film Kuttrapathirikai (Charge Sheet) was completed in 1992 but was denied a censor certificate. It was released only in 2007 with cuts after a court ruling. Why was the film based on real-life events initially banned?

The film was based on the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by an LTTE suicide bomber in 1991. Kuttrapathirikai was accused of glorifying Tamil Tiger fighters. More here and here.

13) The Malayalam film, Sandesam, released in October 1991 is a political satire featuring two feuding brothers who are foot soldiers of rival political parties (one resembles the Communists and the other Congress, the two major forces in Kerala). The film draws inspiration from the Communist-led LDF alliance’s surprise defeat in assembly elections in 1991 as well as the retreat of the Soviet Union from Eastern Europe. A major laugh line was the leftist brother’s angry reaction when reminded of Lech Walesa being elected to power in Poland. Another jibe targeted at communists was based on the reburial of a European leader in 1989 who had been executed 31 years earlier. Who and which country?

Imre Nagy, Hungary. A reform-minded communist, Nagy was briefly prime minister following the Hungarian revolution of 1956 only to be toppled by a Soviet invasion. More here and here. More about Nagy’s reburial in 1989 here in the New York Times. The article quotes a young liberal politician at the time named Viktor Orban who gave a stirring speech demanding Soviet troops leave. The speech was a political launchpad for the current prime minister, whose politics since then shifted decisively right. More here and here. Orban is now ambivalent on Imre Nagy and friendly towards Russia and its president Vladimir Putin.

More here on the political undercurrents in the film Sandesam.

14) This historical figure is believed to have travelled from India to China in the fifth or sixth century CE. The 2011 Tamil film 7aum Arivu depicts the character as a Pallava prince-turned-monk, who leaves Kancheepuram in Tamil Nadu for China. Who?

Bodhidharma. More about the film here and here. More on Bodhidharma here.

15) Kannada cinema’s top actor Rajkumar played the role of a 16th century emperor in a popular 1970 film, also Rajkumar’s first in colour. Who was the emperor? (Hint: Salman Rushdie)

Krishnadevaraya. The Vijayanagara emperor is a character in Salman Rushdie’s latest novel Victory City. The answers to my recent quiz on Rushdie below.

More on Kannada film icon Rajkumar here, here and here.