‘Lokah: Chapter 1 - Chandra’ Movie Review: Kalyani Priyadarshan’s Superhero Outing Is Visually and Narratively Striking

Chandra is no ordinary woman. This seems to be a common assessment of Kalyani Priyadarshan’s brooding diva in Dominic Arun’s Lokah: Chapter 1 - Chandra. It’s funny how the men in the film mouth a lot of these observations. You hear it from a random thuggie in Bengaluru — where the film is set — who just got his rear side royally kicked by Chandra in a brilliant twist to the typically testosterone-charged parking lot fight, and her neighbour Sunny (Naslen), who is left gasping for words (not unlike us) when he truly sees what Chandra is capable of. Chandra is no ordinary Malayali who just moved into a dingy apartment near central Bengaluru. She is a goddess to some and a slayer to the rest; it all just depends on who you are.

While not all films lend themselves well to a cinematic universe format — quickly shaping up to be an overused irritant — Lokah does, not because it’s a superhero film, but because it’s a film that is driven headfirst by world-building. The colour red that so naturally surrounds Chandra, in the form of a lone streak on her hair, the maroons in her jacket or the spiffy neon red smoke that emerges around her animation in fight sequences, isn’t just an aesthetic tool in Lokah’s lookbook. The film’s Bengaluru connection is not a random pick. Like the city it’s set in, the people of Lokah are polyglots of various cultures: we have a Malayali superhero, a Kannadiga crime ring, and a Tamil cop, whose paths often cross. The city is also a brilliant placeholder for the loneliness that a lot of the migrants — especially Chandra — usually feel. Kalyani Priyadarshan is affecting in these scenes.

Kalyani Priyadarshan

Chandra is a superhero who can fly, works on the instincts of a ninja, and saves fragile men and women in the city. It would be a disservice to the film’s team to reveal anything else about her carefully discreet past that the film wants us to keep to ourselves. And like everything Lokah delicately creates, her past, too, is deeply rooted in the film’s ethos. Inspired by a terrific Kerala folklore, involving kings, yakshis, chaathans, and goddesses, the film expertly melds popular legends with cinematic sensibilities. The interval, which bridges Chandra’s storied past with her present, does this with intricate drama writing. 

The people surrounding Chandra don’t get a lot of detailing, but still manage to make an impression. Take, for instance, her dopey neighbours and unwitting partners in crime, Sunny and Venu (Chandu Salimkumar). Their stinky bachelor pad is always studded with bottles of liquor, smoke, a perennially drunk stranger on a couch, and a cuddly feline companion with a fierce name (Jango always has time to judge their indolence). When Chandra enters their lives, things go adorably wrong. 

Naslen and Chandu Salimkumar in 'Lokah: Chapter 1 - Chandra'

Sandy plays Nachiyappa Gowda, a misanthrope and a cop who grimaces to take orders from his female boss, and passes coloured comments on women with a free mind in the city. While his dialogue delivery is largely stilted, he makes a worthy opponent for Chandra, his feminist antithesis. 

Lokah has a lot of plot-writing going on in the second act, introducing various characters and, of course, cameos that lay the ground for the future of the franchise. But even when the screenplay loses a little bit of its characteristic speed towards the end, its inventive use of music and action makes it difficult for us to peel our ears and eyes off the screen. Stunt choreographer Yannick Ben and composer Jakes Bejoy do a delicate dance with Kalyani Priyadarshan's Chandra, often nudging us to suspend disbelief with their work. Ben knows just what exactly to depict in real-time action and leave the rest to some slick animation or off-camera action, maintaining an aura of mystery for Chandra, never once overindulging... very much like the film itself.