Thithi stings death with humour, India with patriarchy

In the very first scene of Raam Reddy's delightful Kannada film Thithi, which won the Best First Feature award at the 68th Locarno Film Festival, we see Century Gowda squat at the side of the road hurling abuses at random passersby.

He's a 101-year old man - as the name suggests - famous in his village because of his age; and just when he goes to a nearby corner to relieve himself, he drops dead.

The opening beautifully sets the tone for what is to follow. There's wry, almost absurd comedy throughout, and Reddy uses this backdrop to raise questions that would seem immensely pretentious in a film not as deft about its tone.

Century Gowda's son Gadappa (literally meaning beard-man) is a cranky old man who loves to roam around sipping his alcohol and puffing on beedis; much to the distress of his son Thamanna, who is worried about scheming relatives laying a claim on the land his father is too carefree to bother to sign the inheritance papers for. His son Abhi, meanwhile, whiles away his time in adolescent romantic pursuits.

At first, we wonder if all this is but empty laughs. "Eccentric" village characters are too convenient a trope, especially in a film such as this where the quirk is borne by villagers and ridiculed by the urban multiplex audience.

But Reddy, who was all of 25 when the film was made and had already authored a novel, is smart enough to create what is both a great ethnographic film and an affecting drama.

The comedy in Thithi isn't hollow, nor does it look down upon its characters, but is laced with immense empathy. The humour is predicated on a wildly absurd scenario that, on closer look, reveals itself to be much closer to reality than one would imagine while looking from a distance.

Century Gowda's legendary status in the village ensures that his grandson feels obligated to follow the astrologer's advice and pay a fitting tribute to him by holding a grand funeral ceremony (thithi) for which he has no money.

Reddy mines this premise to investigate and subvert the patriarchal order in small town India, or India in general, where death becomes an organisation unto itself - one which dictates that duties and societal pressures be created.

And what better way to do justice to all those lofty claims than to treat it for what it is, a black comedy? Reddy strips his pursuit of any pretention - not for a moment does the film posit itself as one which tackles "serious issues".

Gadappa, the drunkard, is the eldest man in the hierarchy and yet, couldn't care less about the obligations he is burdened with owing to the patriarchal order.

He would rather spend his nights chatting with random shepherds he runs into at a nearby village, distribute his bounty of money among them than have to do anything with his father's wealth.

His son Thamanna, meanwhile, is forced to fake Gadappa's death so as to fulfill his own duty as the patriarch. The generational chain at the centre of the film isn't just a whacky premise for well-observed comedy with a local flavour, it is what gives the film its dramatic weight.

Each character in the film - each male character in the film - is trapped between his duties as the son and the father; and when both Thamanna's father and his son would rather stray from the norm, Gadappa is trapped in the middle with the burden of societal and traditional expectations clawing at him.

In order to critique patriarchy, a more simplistic film would have pit the son against the father, or the man against the woman, but Thithi is too intelligent to do any of that. Instead, it shows how patriarchy squeezes the patriarch himself.

The cast comprises almost entirely non-professional actors, each of whom lend their parts singular personality.

In an insightful interview with BOMB magazine, Reddy reveals how each of his fictional characters were drawn from the people he came across while exploring the place with his friend and the film's writer, Ere Gowda. While he draws enormously from reality, Reddy asserts that he is committed to fiction.

Thithi benefits a great deal from the interplay between fiction and reality. In the interview, Reddy talks about how he was impressed by Abhishek's fashion sense, who would go on to essay the role of Abhi, the youngest in the three generations.

The influence of reality shows in the film, for example, in the pathos-laden scene wherein Gadappa decides to give away all the money his son has given him to travel to faraway places to shepherds whose cattle have just been stolen.

Thanks to what the actors bring to their parts, Reddy doesn't need to use additional devices such as a background score to get his point across.

Thithi isn't the first film that has attempted to provide a snapshot of the social realities in India, but it is refreshing to see a film do so with a distinct, effortless charm and humour.

It largely succeeds in its motives because it doesn't hammer its message home, instead draws you in, with much simplicity and spirit.