Bahubali – Movie: What I could not understand in Part 1 ?

Right from the announcement of Bahubali movie, I’ve been following the updates and I’ve penned down the thoughts here on how much I liked the movie.

There are few things that I couldn’t understand in the movie. Would be glad if someone could clarify.

  • Dance: Why there’s no dance in the beautiful melody:- ‘pachcha bottesina’ song and why there are modern steps in lifting Shiva’s idol scene.
  • Bhallaladeva emotions: The character has been highlighted as equivalent to Duryodhana in Mahabharata. After showing him ferocious in the introduction with bull fight, why is he not very aggressive in the Gold Statue scene which results in Bahubali chant and also in the Kalakeya war despite having a wonderful chariot. Duryodhana wouldn’t react so calm if his Birthday is ruined and also if its showtime in the war. We were anticipating something on the lines of Senior NTR’s splendid Duryodhana’s role in DVS Karna.
  • Kattappa’s confrontation scene with Sivudu:- Kattappa fights Sivudu, for long then why can’t he recognise Bahubali features instantly as many fighting shorts are at closeup. Should it be assumed as the result of night effect and old age of Kattappa.
  • SS Rajamouli’s cameo: A minor doubt. SSR asks Bahubali if he has ‘Dabbu’. In those days it was referred as ‘paikam’. Dabbu is more of a modern word.
  • Snow storm: To set doubts aside the film opens with the map of Mahishmati kingdom, kuntala rajyam and snow mountains on the lines of Himalayas. Yet I couldn’t understand how can there be snow mountains and storm when north and south parts of it are lush green.
  • Tribals who brought up Sivudu: It was surprising to see that they are not at all aware of Mahishmati kingdom which is few miles away, although at a different altitude. In their life span and at least from their elders, they should have definitely heard of it.
  • Kalakeya: Why there is no special introduction scene for Kalakeya. Usually in Rajamouli’s films villain is very strong and it was surprising to see that there’s no effective establishment scene to Kalakeya, except for his menacing look and new language.
  • Short Sight – Long distance issue in the War:
    1) When Bahubali gives the motivation speech, how can Kattappa who is at a long distance and holding responsibility of shielding the entry can hear his speech and react immediately. Should it be assumed as another chain reaction.
    2) How can Sivagami, Bijjaladeva clearly view who’s fighting who and how they are tackling Kalakeya. It was mentioned that Kalakeya sends his army front and he stays back. So definitely there’s huge distance between Kalakeya’s position and Sivagami, Bijjaladeva.
  • Rajamatha-Sivagami, maate saasanam:
    1) She names the just born kid as ‘Bahubali’ then who added the prefix ‘Amarendra’ and how come his son name is ‘Mahendra Bahubali’ with ‘Bahubali’ as the surname. Is it because of the grand legacy of Bahubali.
  • 2) As Rajamatha, she effectively handles the kingdom then why can’t she handle her husband first who seems to be the source of all issues.
  • 3) Why doesn’t she scold Bhallaladeva, who breached her goal of getting Kalakeya alive.

Are these things going to be clarified in part 2 ?  Check out What is NOT Clear in Part 2 of Bahubali 

6 Comments

  1. This is old but I think nobody is on the right track. Some things though, I think Bhallaladeva AND Bijjaladeva are supposed to be like Duryodhana. They’re both corrupt but Bijjaladeva is more blatantly evil and crazy. Bhallaladeva is more clever and his plans are more careful. Because of this, the son is probably more scary.

    Also the geography of the land is accurate. They’re at the top a mountain so it’s possible to have snow and lush greenery together.
    Geography is probably why Shividu’s tribal family doesn’t know about Mahishmati. No one knew about the cave going up the mountain and no one was able to climb the mountain either. Also when you reach the top of the mountain you reach the Kuntala hideout, then you have to ride a bit away (like Shividu did) to reach Mahishmati so it’s a bit far anyway.

    Also Shivigami may be Rajamatha BUT her power comes from being the mother of the next king (literally “raja” “matha”)and being the daughter in law of the old king. Her husband is the connection to her power and he has his own supporters who agree with him and respect him as Bhallaladeva’s father. For those reasons, she can’t kill him. It would be treasonous and a danger to her power because she herself isn’t a princess. (No one calls her rani unlike Devasena who is called rani a couple of times by the Kuntala rebels).

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    • I can address one question: who named him Amarendra and why. Katappa named him so. It was because of his speech “Kya hai Mrutyu” which has some workings related to being “amar”.

      Reply
  2. @nobody
    Thanks for the detailed analysis. I agree that these all are too minor things in a monstrous project like Bahubali.
    All these have come with pure admiration of the movie and the people who made it possible !

    Reply
  3. Dance – wasn’t teen maar modern.. it was supposed to indicated ‘Shiva Tandavam’. A dance, that Lord Shiva usually performs, and in a few ways those steps were similar to it.

    BhallalaDeva’s emotions – Firstly, Bhallala Deva doesn’t know that it is shivudu who started the chant (which is why they try to find this out from the guards in the scene that follows). If you think about it, even by the time we reach the climax of the movie, BhallalaDeva still doesn’t know that bahubali or his son is alive. He could have called his birthday celebrations off or stopped with the statue erection – both would have been a logical defeat for him in front of all those people.

    Kattappa seeing Sivudu – it is clearly shown that when Shivudu turns around, the mud on his face comes off and Kattapa drops that spear at this very moment. You will see a close up on the dripping mud before he turns around and the rain intensifying with thunder when Kattappa starts running. So, you can assume the mud and darkness to be the reason for Kattappa not seeing Sivudu during the fight.

    Rajamouli camoe – yes, this is a minor flaw. But if you go with this logic, there is lot of dialogue that is nothing close to what they probably used 500 years ago during the age of kings. a lot of sanskrit/folk words were used. To be honest, even if they wrote the script to have this kind of language, 80% of people would have walked out of the movie (given how the younger generation is), because they wouldn’t have understood a word of it. For that matter, I am sure you didn’t understand most of the lyrics in the first song near the waterfall. Except for ‘evadanta evandta’ stanza, rest of them are pure sanskrit. Only a pandit with through sanskrit understanding will be able to appreciate those lyrics. Infact, if you notice, the sanskirt part was not sung by Kailash Kher, who sang the telugu part of that song. It was a chorus who were good at sanskrit. I have basic sanskrit understanding (something I studied 15 years ago). I still had to use this bollymeaning.com/2015/06/shivuni-aana-lyrics-and-translation.html to understand those lyrics.

    Snow storms – yes, this is a geographical flaw. I think this kind of geography can exist, for instance, himalayas and uttarkhand – but I guess such locations would have to be a few hundred kilometers far. To be honest, the entire snow fight sequence was totally unnecessary and it didn’t add anything to the movie and the CGI was also horrible in that fight.

    Tribals who bought up Sivudu – Tribes live in seclusion, cut off from civilization – even now. Probably that’s why. Also, it wasn’t glaringly evident that they didn’t know anything at all.

    Short sight – Well ok. This is cinematic liberty. Rajamouli keeps audience interested by showing you close up shots of his actors. He focuses on their eyes and their reactions. Not just this movie but all of his previous movies too. This lets you identify with the character. So, while practically it was impossible for them to hear or see, it flows well with the shot and you’d want to see something like that to go with the flow of the movie. Yes, probably in a hollywood movie, Bahubali would have fought this war miles away from home and would have come back home victorious to his mother. It won’t work very well with indian audience who are used to years of emotional movies, and hundreds of soaps everyday on tv.

    And the last point.. I think I don’t have enough energy to write more, but in short, you are over thinking those points. For me, if this movie had an actor who could really act, then that would be Ramya Krishna. She breathed life into that character, without which this movie would have been just two WWE ready telugu hero personalities fighting a lame war.

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  4. The movie could have been a bit tighter, but overall I thought it was fabulous. Certainly better than the rubbish that Bollywood usually puts out (I’m north Indian, so this is the first Telugu movie I’ve seen.) Regarding your specific critiques, I’ll give my opinions.

    Dances seemed fine. Nothing looked so ultra-modern that it was out of place. Although I’ve seen others complain that there shouldn’t have been any item songs allowed.

    Gold statue was being erected during time of older Bhalladeva as king, if I remember correctly. As king, perhaps Bhalladeva wasn’t going to confront Shivudu whom the people were immediately rallying around at that moment. Just like he didn’t confront Bahubali & mom Sivagami when she named Bahubali as king in front of everyone. Then too they were also chanting Bahubali. Besides, older Bhalladeva confronting Shivudu immediately would have changed the course of the plot.

    Kattapa was fighting Shivudu in the rain and the darkness, and he was mainly focused on defeating him. And Shivudu seemed totally covered in mud. Perhaps as the rain washed that mud off, then finally Kattappa was able to recognize him.

    Darn – I didn’t notice SSR’s cameo! I wish I had known, because then I would have kept an eye out for it. Does he do this in all his movies? Heheh, reminds me of Peter Jackson or Stan Lee (actually even Shyamalan does cameos, too.) Anyway, I don’t speak any Telugu, so I can’t comment, other than to say it’s a minor gaffe which can be learned from.

    As for snowy mountains, that can be the result of the higher elevation. The lush green parts can be lower elevation. (Sorry, I don’t remember what that map looked like too well.)

    Maybe tribals were on the other side of the mountain from Mahishmati, and maybe they weren’t allowed to come too close. Okay, you’re probably right – this was a plothole. After all, adoptive mom shows up at the scene where Shivudu is told of his real identity.

    I suppose an introduction scene for the Kalakeya invaders would have helped. But they weren’t necessarily the real enemy of the movie, because Bhalladeva is perhaps the real enemy. Just like in the Exodus movie, we start out watching Moses and Ramses fighting together against an enemy army, but not much attention is paid to who that enemy force were. I sensed that SSR had patterned the rivalry between Bahubali and Bhalladeva along the lines of the Moses and Ramses rivalry. Anyway, these are archetypes, so lots of stories feature such things.

    Yeah, I too noticed that Sivagami and her entourage were able to see things happening as if they were right next to the front lines of battle. Hehe, if this had been Star Trek, then she would have had a viewscreen to give close-up detail of events on her command bridge.

    Yes, I guess they could have handled the naming more deftly, but I guess the main point was that Sivagami names both generations of kids Bahubali. Remember, she is the great force of law and dignity. Regarding Sivagami’s treatment of Bijjala, I’m not sure she could necessarily just imprison her husband, because this might cause the royal family to collapse. It’s like asking why the heck Bheeshma couldn’t just put an arrow through Shakuni’s head. Why couldn’t Gandhari just slap her blind husband in the head to give him more sense?

    Actually, why the heck couldn’t Krishna have just vaporized all the Kauravas without even blinking an eye? Because then we wouldn’t have a story.

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