Review: Mahavatar Narsimha marks a promising start to a new cinematic universe

I live in Los Angeles, which is a very fortunate place to live for a movie lover. Pretty much every movie that opens in the US opens here, because this is obviously the movie capital of the country/the world. I live within twenty minutes of probably like, twenty or so different movie theaters. If I go further out, say thirty or forty minutes, I can reach some that are a little more specialized. For instance, the AMC Atlantic Times Square plays a lot of movies from Asia that don't play anywhere else in LA. 

This weekend, I discovered a new theater that makes extra room for Indian movies. Yes, I trekked all the way out to Simi Valley of all places to see a new animated movie. The next-closest option was Orange. ORANGE! I honestly was a little shocked that there were so few options for me.

But! The important thing is I got to catch Mahavatar Narsimha on the big screen, in a close-to-sold-out theater. I just heard about the movie maybe a week ago, because it's made headlines in India, where it is now the highest-grossing animated movie in the country's history, blasting past all of the Hollywood imports, even, which is very cool. After seeing the movie, I'm both not surprised and surprised by the milestone. I'm not surprised because this is a movie that comes from Indian culture, delving into its religious texts, legends, and folklore to tell a story that will, of course, resonate strongly on its home turf. I'm a little surprised, however, because this movie is extraordinarily violent. 

When you think of animated movies that break box office records, they're generally going to be four-quadrant, family-friendly fare. Not something where blood is splattering all over the screen every few scenes. I was gagged and gooped by how graphic the action was here: eyes dangling out of sockets, heads getting ripped off, people being cut in half. I wish Christian animated movies would go this hard in the violence department. Those Old Testament stories could really rip if they wanted to.

The violence is perhaps balanced out a bit by the caliber of the animation. This is a crazy-looking movie. It's beyond looking good or bad. It exists in an aesthetic plane that I would argue is above such base adjectives. Mahavatar Narsimha is arguably aiming for something like photo-realism. Most of the characters have pretty realistic proportions. Animals aren't goo-goo-eyed. The environments are clearly attempting to look like the real world (other than the more cosmic or fantastical planes, of course). How these various elements read is wildly hit-and-miss. I would say a lot of this movie takes place in the Uncanny Valley, especially the way the human characters move. Eyes bulge a little unnaturally, gaits don't always read super fluidly. It kind of looks like an early PS3 game a lot of the time, and not even in a bad way -- it just is what it is. Ultimately, I really warmed to the visual presentation.

What's maybe weirder is how amazing and badass some of the more supernatural characters look, particularly the animal forms Vishnu takes on during the movie. In an early scene, he becomes a boar-man, and for the blood-soaked finale, he's a lion warrior, who definitely did awaken something in me. Between Wolf in The Bad Guys 2 and lion Vishnu here, this has been an eye-opening month for me. 

So yeah, visually, this movie is bit all over the place, but I land firmly in the camp that it's overall easy enough on the eyes, and the roughness is part of the charm. Countries where animation is more on the up-and-up, I always try to be a little kinder, view the edges with some grace. Here, that was easy to do.

The real meat here falls into three main camps for me: the story, the action, and the music. This movie is the first in a planned mega-saga of seven movies about the ten avatars of Vishnu. When I tell you I am all-in for this project, I mean I am all-in. I was immediately fascinated from the opening disclaimer, which explains that the film is drawing from various sources including religious texts, folklore, etc., and that it doesn't mean to offend anyone of any belief system, caste, or whatever else. Paired with the credits sequence which includes photos and descriptions of real-world locations and artifacts that are tied to the story, my head was kind of spinning the whole time. It feels like such a treat for a movie to open the door to stories like this that are so far outside my experience and worldview. A chance to engage with beliefs, stories, and culture that I don't usually get to brush up against. Very cool stuff.

The basic plot is that a woman gives bith to two demon brothers who are hell-bent on defying Vishnu and tormenting his devotees. This obviously doesn't sit well with Vishnu, or the pantheon of gods and demi-gods who operate under him, so Vishnu ends up killing one of the brothers. The other one does some trickery to gain immortality and rises to the rank of king, enslaving Vishnu's devotees and putting demons in charge.

The catch: the demon king's son, five-year-old Prahlad, is a devotee of Vishnu, much to his father's chagrin. The friction eventually becomes too much for the king to handle, and he condemns his (again, five-year-old) son to death. But death does not come easy to a devotee of Vishnu, leading to escalating horrific plans of action.

The first half of the movie is a little strange in that it feels like it lacks a protagonist. The closest thing we have to a protagonist is arguably the demon brothers, who we're obviously rooting against. After the intermission (yeah, weirdly, there's an intermission in this movie despite it only being a little over two hours long), Prahlad emerges as the true hero of the story, and that's when it really hits its stride. Watching this kid's complete devotion and faith is really compelling, especially when basically everyone around him is trying to get him to fall in line. It's a fantastic dynamic, and I was impressed with Prahlad's characterization. It would so easy for him to come off as annoying or holier-than-though, but there's such earnestness and goodness at the core of his character that I was completely rooting for him, and excited to see where his devotion would lead him next, and what miracles would manifest.

I've already touched on the action, which will be a definite highlight for most viewers. Vishnu is such a badass when he gets violent, especially when his various forms sprout additional arms and thus additional weapons, leading to some moves that made me long for a Vishnu video game. I'm not sure if that would be frowned upon from a religious standpoint, but if not...let's make it happen.

Finally, the music is fantastic, as is often the case with movies from India. The score is full of bangers, and the few songs that pop up are great, too, though they're all more on the slow side. I hope in future installments that we get some more up-tempo musical numbers, but here they wouldn't have really made sense with the slower pace and more solemn tone.

Because this is a very new world to me, I don't know what to expect from future entries. It feels like Prahlad should continue to feature prominently, since he's basically declared Vishnu's favorite person here. All I know is that I'm very excited to see what's next (there is a brief teaser at the end of this for the next one), and I am willing to drive to Simi Valley for each and every one that'll play there.