A film that can delicately walk the tightrope between modern filmmaking technique and ancient storytelling structure is a film that is both innovative and familiar. Thithi is exactly that. It is a film filled with cultural context and custom but nevertheless seems very contemporary. The film doesn’t glamorize or beautify the rural reality of South India. It doesn’t even seek to preach any moral message. That’s not its purpose. This film is a simple showcase of a place, a people, and a lifestyle filled with quirks, trivialities, and conflicts that aren’t too different from our own.  

Thithi is a Kannada-language film that tells the intergenerational story of a lineage of sons in the village of Nodekoppalu, Kerala and how they deal with the death of Century Gowda, the patriarch of the family. The death of the 101 year-old man is perceived, by the villagers, to be a monumental event due to his stature and presence in the village. However, to Century Gowda’s immediate family, his death is not only trivial, it’s almost an inconvenience. Gowda’s son Gadappa, an alcoholic straggler, walks miles for his favorite brand of whisky but upon learning of his father’s death, walks in the opposite direction of the funeral. Gowda’s grandson Thammanna, an opportunistic business-man, sees Gowda’s death as a financial burdan as the villagers expect him to serve meat at the funeral. Gowda’s great-grandson Abhi, is more concerned with wooing a girl than caring about the funeral of an old man. Although Century Gowda’s funeral is a crucial community event, it is anything but meaningful to his family. 

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A thithi is a very culturally-rich and relevant concept to Hinduism. By definition, it is an auspicious place, date, and time for an important event. Often times, the first, most essential component of planning anything from marriages to ticket-booking for travel arrangements in India is the thithi. In the context of this film, however, the Thithi of Century Gowda’s funeral is the climactic verge of misfortune for his surviving family. Gadappa is forced to perform funeral rituals and is verbally abused by his son, Thammanna gets trapped in his business deals and is publically humiliated, and Abhi refuses his responsibilities towards his family. However, at the end of the day, all of villagers have a good meal of goat meat and everything is forgiven and forgotten. 

 

The organization of plot details in this film often places tradition in stark contrast with reality, which prompts hilarious outcomes. For example, the passing on of land from father to son is a conventional ‘handing off’ of heritage. In a sense, this tradition is a metaphor for past generations entrusting future generations with their wealth and ancestry. However, in this film, Gadappa refuses to pass on Century Gowda’s land for the mere reason that he doesn’t like legal papers. Frustrated, Thammanna fakes the death of his father, obtains a fabricated death certificate, and transfers the land to his name. The blatant disregard and lack of respect for younger or older family members is a very common theme in Thithi. Although the three generations are living under the same roof, they are immersed in very different and separate lives. In this way, Thithi compares traditional notions of an ideal, joint-family with it’s dysfunctional and darkly humorous rural reality. The three protagonists possess positive attributes of the archetypal representations of the three stages of life. Abhi is young and eager to explore, Thammanna has an earnest motivation to ensure the financial stability of his family, and Gadappa is quiet and kind old man. However, their gaping character flaws are in such conflict with their cliched identities that it’s just plain comical. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thithi’s authenticity can be largely attributed to the believability of it’s actors, or rather, non-actors. The reason these characters breathe like humans is because the actors that play them live these realities. Thus, the regional trademarks of Nodekoppalu, be it in dialect or gesture, are palpable throughout the film. Rather than training actors to be immersed in a new existence, giving those who live that life a spotlight allows for greater plausibility. Thus, Thithi sometimes comes across as more of a documentary than a scripted film. Conscious of this, the filmmakers used wide-angle still shots with characters moving in an out of the frame as they please. This decision has psychological implications for the audience. It implies that the camera is simply capturing characters and not creating them, which means that these characters are free, just like any other living individual, to reveal only the details they wish to reveal. A fitting example of this is when Gadappa tells the story of how he got his name. He recounts a convoluted tale about his father, his wife, and his family, only to end the narrative with how this entire tale might’ve been a dream or the outcome of a drunken stupor. We don’t know if it’s real, but then again, maybe that’s not the point.

 

This film is an homage to a Keralite village. It is a love letter to the peculiar and damaged, yet simultaneously innocent and loveable caricatures that populate Nodekoppalu. Raam Reddy and Eregowda, the screenwriters of this film, have said in interviews that their purpose with this film was to showcase the village. Most of the planning for the film was apparently based on observing the community rather than creating the plot. In this film, plot was second-place to context and this decision was motivated by the filmmakers’ urge for personal self-exploration and education about their own heritage. And what better way to understand a place and a history than to understand the different people that have contributed to that cultural collective? For this reason, I found Thithi to be extremely refreshing and poignant because it had personal implications for the filmmakers. In my eyes, film should be as much about the audience’s learning as it should be for the creators and actors. We are on the collective journey of storytelling and in my opinion, there is no better way to celebrate it than scripting, filming, acting, viewing, and analyzing a good film.