I, Chitti

Robots, love triangles, dancing, and art-horror oh my! Greetings, fellow sojourners of the Spectral Symposium. Today I come out of writing retirement to offer you a brief and hopefully compelling glimpse into the wonderful world of South Indian Cinema by showcasing my personal favorite film of all time: the 2010 film Enthiran (translates to Robot in English). This unbelievable tour-de-force masterpiece of cinematic excellence combines the best elements of Pinocchio, Terminator, the Matrix, and Frankenstein into a 3 hour sci-fi techno thriller horror musical extravaganza that will leave you exhausted, invigorated, and amazed. Known internationally as the “Avatar” of Kollywood (not to be confused with Bollywood), this film is just about the most perfect thing ever committed to film, but don’t let my enthusiasm get in the way of the post…

In southern India the summers are long, hot, and dirty; poverty is extreme, and every year millions of people flock to cinemas with hopes of escaping everyday life for awhile. This dreary backdrop helps encourage movie makers to go ‘full out’ with providing a dazzling visual experience at the cinema, as well as raising the bar for suspension of disbelief with on-screen action.

The star of Enthiran is the incomparable Superstar Rajinikanth. Known by his hundreds of millions of fans simply as Superstar, this Chuck Norris-of-India commands a pseudo-religious cult fan following. In fact, producers are often forced to cast multiple roles for him in each of his films since they cannot kill a Rajinikanth-played character in a film for fear of rioting movie-goers destroying the theater (yes that is an actual thing). His performances are known for their unrivaled swagger, cool masculinity, and skilled dance moves, despite his age (born 1950), and Enthiran might be his magnum opus.

Summary

The film opens with Dr. Vasee (played by Rajinikanth) finishing his decades-long project of building a perfect android robot made in his image and likeness, for usage in the Indian Army. After a rousing opening dance number, Vasee’s robot downloads the sum of human knowledge and goes out for his first human interaction, an awkward and necessary part of his training. While at a family dinner, Vasee’s mother affectionately names the new robot “Chitti” (also played by Rajinikanth). Chitti and Vasee both prepare for the upcoming international robotic conference while Vasee’s gorgeous, frustrated, but faithful girlfriend Sana (played by former Miss World Aishwarya Rai) waits patiently for some quality alone time with the Subaltern Superman (tension builds!)

Chitti debuts to raucous praise and amazed onlookers at the conference, where our nemesis and Vasee’s old mentor Dr. Bohra fumes with jealously over his inability to make a better android. (hint, he makes robots for evil, whereas Chitti is made for good). With his superhuman knowledge and abilities, Chitti quickly endears himself to Sana and aids her with everything from cleaning to cheating on her med-school exams, while saving her from muggers and noisy neighbors in the process. Sana slowly begins to rely more heavily on Chitti than Vasee (tension!) but Chitti can’t feel emotion so Vasee has nothing to worry about.... After failing a key test before the Artificial Intelligence Research and Development Institute (headed by Dr. Bohra), Dr. Vasee, frustrated with Chitti’s failure, adjusts his “neural scheme” to feel emotion, seeking to accelerate Chitti’s evolution and chances of passing the final test. After slowly showing a romantic interest in Sana (uh oh, here we go...), Chitti is scolded by Vasee. Chitti, in protest, intentionally fails his army examination and is subsequently destroyed in a fit of rage and disappointment by Vasee and left in a heap of parts at the junkyard, where a waiting Dr. Bohra hatches an evil plot...

Bohra revives Chitti and inserts a red microchip containing his “destruction mode”, intent on weaponizing Chitti and manufacturing an army of robots to satisfy his evil German weapons dealer 'clients' who have been angrily awaiting a final product. Needless to say this plan totally backfires on poor Dr. Bohra. “Chitti 2.0” swiftly murders him and sets forth on his plan to rule the world and capture Sana for himself. What follows is some of the craziest action I have ever witnessed in a film(that claim is saying something considering my intense viewership of Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme) as Chitti and Vasee clash over the fate of Sana and the world. See the clip below for yourself...

Chitti 2.0, as he is known, is purely malevolant, thanks to Dr. Bohra's red chip, and rampages all across Chennai and Southern India. His goal is to capture Sana and have an unholy hybrid child together, as he bends the universe to his will in a creepy and unstoppable plan. To accomplish this, Chitti 2.0 clones himself into a vast army of interconnected Chittis that rapidly overwhelm local police and military. Left helpless, the authorities turn to Dr. Vasee in a desperate attempt to save Sana and civilization. An epic showdown between Creator and Creation! Good stuff... Dr. Vasee hatches an ingenious plot to neutralize Chitti and return him to his likable non-murderous state, and in the end all is well in the kingdom, but not before the authorities order Chitti to be permanently decommissioned. In a touching denouement, Chitti, as he is disassembling himself, reminds us that everybody has a red chip of envy, lies, and deceit in their heart, but that love will survive.

Analysis: Do Robots Dream of Electric Dance-offs?

      There is a surprisingly large amount of thematic and philosophical material to chew on in Enthiran. What makes a robot a robot? What makes something human? Can robots love? Do you need emotion and free will to be moral? Chitti is caught between Vasee and Bohra's dreams but nobody cared to ask him about his.
      The central philosophical theme of Enthiran is one of the most basic philosophical questions: what makes something “human”? This is not new to fiction or even film. We have seen in it played out many different times. Indeed, one of the very first films, Frankenstein, occupied itself with this question. Enthiran focuses on one aspect of humanity: emotion. For quite a long time now,science- fiction has been suggesting that emotion is at the heart of what it means to be human. For some classic examples, Kirk and McCoy endlessly inform Spock that logic isn't everything and in order to be truly human, one must accept and embrace emotion. In Blade Runner, the Voight Kampf test is designed to determine whether or not a test subject is a human or a replicant (an artificial human). 
      If the subject does not display empathy, then the subject must not be human. Enthiran seems to go down this path, but does it? After the tragedy at the burning apartment where Chitti saves a naked bathing girl, who subsequently kills herself from shame, it is determined that Chitti needs to have some sort of emotion chip added so that he will understand cultural morays among other things. In short, he needs to become more human in order to understand human ways.  When the new program is added, it of course throws Chitti into a confusion ultimately leading to a permanent rift between himself and his creator. On the surface, it appears to be a classic example of logic vs emotion—logic is controlled and calm while emotion is confusing passionate and destructive and human. Vasee in an emotional rage quite literally destroys Chitti. But this doesn't truly suggest humanity does it?
      Provocatively, in the epilogue when a student asks “why was the robot dismantled?” Chitti replies “because I started to think”. This line reveals that the film is operating on a slightly deeper level than a simple emotion vs. logic motif. It is creative thinking, not mere emotion, nor basic logical processing that makes something become more human. This is an important distinction. Emotion itself cannot be what distinguishes the human from the non-human. Dogs have basic emotions, as do cats and probably even squirrels. But these creatures do not show evidence of creative thinking. But simple logical processing cannot be what makes something human either given that computers can do this (of course with the guidance of human programming).  The film seems to suggest that it is some combination of emotion and logical processing that defines humanity. Some philosophers, such as the Stoics, believe that human emotion is a fundamental part of reasoning (here thought of as something distinct from simple logical processing). Perhaps, then, what is essential to humanity is logical thinking informed by emotion. This is all debatable, of course. Maybe human beings are just walking computers with a vestigial emotional system cobbled together by evolutionary forces to keep us from falling off tall cliffs and getting eaten by tigers.

      Fans of sci-fi and horror will find many familiar elements in Enthiran, ranging from the classic creation rebelling against creator archetype (though more parts Pinnocchio than Frankenstein), science over-reaching and generating an uncontrollable situation, an unstoppable robot apocalypse (think of Carroll's monster-by-massification), and a fair share of visually horrifying images (for example, Chitti's face melts off during his initial destruction).

Conclusion: Music and Magic

     Indian films are as much about the music as they are about the movie, and Enthiran follows suit admirably. The music video interludes (about 4 or 5 in total) are visually gorgeous, and very skillfully choreographed. The tunes themselves (by A.R. Rahman) are hummable ear worms (hopefully the only Indian worm you catch) that will have you YouTubing them over and over for a week.


     Like a good chicken tikka masala, Enthiran is impossible to describe in few words. Is this film over the top? Yes, but it’s not a mindless Michael Bay-vian orgasm of robot warfare. This movie has a soul. It tells a story with characters you care about, and just happens to have some of the most outrageous action sequences ever conceived peppered in for good measure. Is the film three hours long? Yes, but the storytelling is well paced and cleanly laid out, with refreshing musical interludes when the on-screen action loses some momentum. Is this film a scary movie? No, but it certainly echoes of the horror genre, especially when Chitti 2.0 (our monster) goes on his horrific rampage and outlines his unnatural plans for Sana and the globe with a truly creepy confidence. There is something about Enthiran that is refreshingly honest and charming. It isn't stained by the cynicism and “realism” that plagues many of today's Hollywood blockbusters. If you need a reminder of why movies can be called magical, you should watch Enthiran. If you go into this film with an open mind and willingness to suspend disbelief, I guarantee that you will fall in love and have the biggest smile on your face as the credits roll, as you quickly fumble for your cell phone so you can tell all of your friends. I hope this brief glimpse is enough to whet your appetite for this Majority World Masterpiece and convince you to find it and watch it. If anybody is interested in watching it in the original Tamil (not the lesser quality Hindi dub)I am more than willing to share my copy.



 Happy watching,








 Here are some more images from the lovely film