 Encircled by a flyover and overshadowed by a mall being assembled next door, Gopal Talkies sticks out defiantly in the face of decades of change. The cavernous insides of the theatre have, through the years, hosted idlers in need of respite, couples looking for a few hours of privacy, or occasionally even a student seeking a less cerebral break from his doctoral pursuits at the Indian Institute of Science nearby.
Last month, two shows each day at this theatre in Yeshwantpur were dedicated to director Rama Narayanan’s bilingual film Bombat Car. Screened in Kannada at Gopal Talkies, the film follows the adventures of a brother and sister who are killed in a bizarre human sacrifice ritual by some amateur practitioners of black magic. Their vengeful spirits return and possess a young and very annoying school girl, as well as a mustard yellow Morris Minor. That is the basic plot into which Narayanan throws in plaster of Paris sets, mind-numbing CGI and Ramya Krishnan in a cameo role.
The south Indian actress, who through the 1980s and ’90s presented a calming influence on millions of testosterone-charged young men, appears in Bombat Car as a fierce goddess with excessive makeup. Narayanan’s creative powers reach their zenith in a song in the first half when the possessed girl and the Morris Minor, which has by now metamorphosed into Bumblebee from The Transformers, come together for five minutes of unrestrained tappan kuth, the frenetic dance form endemic to Tamil cinema.
During interval breaks, the lone snack counter at the talkies was abuzz with requests for nippat (Rs 5), packets of finger chips (Rs 10), and Wills Navy Cut cigarettes (Rs 5). Smoking in public is not frowned upon here, and the grateful lot pull on the nicotine in the theatre’s lobby. Post-interval, Bombat Car descends into sheer lunacy. The girl and a now-flying Morris Minor set out to kill their murderers before a grand climax in which a giant anaconda swallows the chief baddie – an evil wizard who wears a Mudvayne t-shirt under a mess of Tantric trinkets.
Undeterred by box office oscillations, Gopal Talkies has continued to screen movies that other establishments wouldn’t touch with a bargepole, although, in return, the films are expected to sacrifice continuity: power outages, sound system problems and minor projector room emergencies abound. Predictably, each interruption is greeted with hoots and whistles. And when the film – even a mindless epic like Bombat Car – resumes, the world outside, with its flyovers and multiplexes and gravity and good sense, are quickly blanked out. Darshan Manakkal
Gopal Talkies, 18, Tumkur Road, Yeshwanthpur (2337-1244).
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