PUSHPA & THE ART OF MAKING MOVIE AS AN OTT SERIES

TRUE terror," Kurt Vonnegut said, "is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country." Or making movies. Sukumar's Pushpa 2: The Rule could well be the end of cinema as we know it.

- C P SURENDRAN

Normally, a movie has a basic three-act structure: a plot hook within, say, the first 15 minutes that destabilizes the protagonist, the rising odds confronting the hero/heroine for the next 50 minutes or so, and the resolution.

But the Pushpa franchise sees itself more as OTT in theaters than a movie. Just as Pushpa 2: The Rule ends in an episodic cliff-hanger, Pushpa 3 is announced. We get up from the seats happy, deaf, and ready for more of the same.

As with Pushpa 1, the eponymous hero essayed with neurotic intensity by Allu Arjun, Pushpa 2 clearly continues to consume tribal steroids mixed in all his regular mutton-curry meals. Sukumar sees to it that almost every scene has a conflict. It almost always begins with the low caste/black sheep protagonist wanting something, is humiliated, and then getting it.

This formula is how the movie grows-mostly sideways. For example, the state CM Narasimha Reddy, who is in power partly because of Pushpa's charity, refuses to be photographed with the sandalwood smuggler, fearing a political backlash. But Pushpa's wife Srivalli (Rashmika Mandanna) has been promised the gift of the photograph. Naturally, the virtuous, family-oriented Indian audience is more aligned with Pushpa's honor at home than the CM's political fortunes.