Ever since Kshanam released in 2016, I have been making sure to rewatch it every few months to relive the nostalgic thrill. No matter how many times I view the film, my attention and interest never seems to waver, as if the film is anew each time. Based on this emotional barometer, I consider Kshanam to be one of the most important films in my cinematic repertoire as an audience member. My unrelenting enthusiasm for this film led me to question why it’s so captivating. What about this low-budget film with fringe actors and inexperienced technicians led me to have such a fondness for it? After asking myself this question several times, I realized that Kshanam embodies the transformative power of a strong screenplay. Although this film lacks a lavish production budget, it has the one element that defines good cinema: story. As a result, Kshanam establishes itself as a watershed film which urges an outcrop of passionate, young filmmakers to reclaim Telugu cinema from it’s recent, unfortunate fascination with spending resources on eyewash rather than on script. In short, Kshanam is the first in a (hopefully) long list of new-age Telugu films that I’ve been waiting so long to see.   

 

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Telugu films lack good stories. On the contrary, the plots of most Telugu films are so complex that they require in depth discussions to fully understand (and I’m not exaggerating when I say this). I can give you an example. Have you watched the film ‘Padi Padi Leche Manasu’? You haven’t? Okay, read the Wikipedia page. Now read it again. Now watch the film. Did you get it? I didn’t! 

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However, regardless of ample plot complexity, stories ultimately fall flat if there isn’t sufficient depth in the characters and premise. This is where Kshanam differentiates itself from the competition. The audience can easily tell that characters are treated with the utmost importance when they're easily able to identify the aura of each character along with each character’s importance in the overall plotline. Because of the carefully-placed detail, the characters seem to have a life outside the immediate plotline.     

 

Kshanam is a thriller (with sizeable additions of action and romance) that explores the way in which destiny can completely transform personal reality. The story follows NRI businessman Rishi as he returns to India after an urgent call from his ex-girlfriend, Shweta. Upon arriving, he finds out that Shweta’s daughter Riya has been kidnapped and decides to help Shweta find her. However, as he begins investigating, Rishi starts to unravel a conspiracy involving the police team, drug traffickers, and Shweta’s own husband Kartik which leads to the untimely deaths of Shweta and Babu Khan (a close friend) and further complicates the already-difficult task of locating Riya.  

 

In Telugu, “kshanam” translates to ‘moment’, which is representative of this film’s overarching ideology: life can change in a single moment with a single decision. And character decisions are the fundamental drivers of action in this film. I read somewhere that crafting plot is merely about stringing together a chain of causal events but crafting an engaging story is about challenging characters to make specific choices that organically modify a narrative’s direction. In Kshanam, what makes the story resonant is the tight interconnection between plot and character decisions. Events don’t passively happen to Rishi, Shweta, Kartik, or the primary antagonist, ACP Bharadwaj. Their present choices create their respective futures.  

 

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To add further brilliance in any screenplay, it’s essential that these choices are neither easy nor have positive consequences. Rishi is a flawed character who knows that his decision to stay back and help Shweta may put him in harm’s way both physically and emotionally. Nonetheless, he chooses danger rather than safety. In order to come to this decision, there was intense mental deliberation that was picturized cleverly: in flashback. Past histories between individuals almost always determines their present states and this principle was employed in Kshanam. Instead of having someone narrate Rishi and Shweta’s turbulent relationship, the filmmakers decided to actually show us this story in a meaningful way. By doing so, we learned details about Shweta’s emotional motivation to marry (ie. because her Father was diagnosed with a terminal disease) and Rishi’s aversion to the practice of medicine (ie. because that’s where he met Shweta); these details enrich our audience experience and are elements that we wouldn’t have guessed at if all we were given was a simple narration.

 

Another amazing plot construction device used in Kshanam was increasing the stakes for characters. There are studies in psychology that suggest that the human mind is so averse to failure or damage that it would rather not take risk, even when it stands to lose immense benefits. However, when experiencing a character’s story, the mind outsources it’s zeal for risk onto the narrative it’s being shown. A lacking prospect for danger in this case means that it’s probably going to be a ‘slow’ (or any other euphemism for boring) story. As a result, the more difficult of a choice a character has to make, the more emotionally invested the audience becomes. A good example of such a choice in Kshanam is Shweta’s decision to marry Kartik as opposed to Rishi. In this case she has risked and lost her happiness, independence, and future. It isn’t the most cheerful outcome but that’s what makes her story interesting. Moreover, her ‘mistake’ is what causes her to become the mother of Rishi’s child and convolutedly lay the groundwork for Riya’s future kidnapping. The seed for the future was sown by her actions in the past, which gives the plot rational causality and gives the story some emotional subtext. Flawed characters are interesting because they don’t always understand the far-reaching implications of their misplaced actions. Flaws are interesting because they make for good stories. 

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Progressing the plot isn’t the only function of character decisions, however. Martin Scorcese, in an episode of Dinner for Five, says that the “films that [he] constantly revisited or saw repeatedly held up longer for [him] over the years not because of plot but because of character”. Sure, each character in Kshanam made a choice that influenced plot progression. But what does that choice tell us about the state of mind of a character? Shweta isn’t just the worried mother of Riya, she’s a woman trying to make the best of difficult life decisions that force her to choose between her own independence and her father’s happiness. Rishi isn’t just a helpless romantic, he’s a character that’s trying to find closure for his jilted relationship with Shweta. Of course, the plot is unrealistic. Of course, there is melodrama. Of course, there is the romanticization of reality. But most times, story isn’t as much about plot as it is about character, and how those characters react to adversity and act as mirrors for people in real life. 

 

Kshanam is a film that I love because it is an apparent showcase of cerebral screenwriting. Good writing is as much of an art as it is a science; crafting personable characters, understanding the audience’s psychology, examining causation and literary themes. The next time you watch any film and you’re hooked, I encourage you to think about why. Nine times out of ten, I can guarantee you that the indescribable ‘it’ factor in a story is the collective outcome of a writing team that is much smarter than you or I would ever think to admit.