Animal – A violent, meaningless, male-dominated and bloody exploration of the Oedipal complex.

Sigmund Freud spoke about the “Oedipal” complex for the first time in his 1900 book “The Interpretation of Dreams,” and over the next thirty years, he refined the idea. So what is “oedipal complex” in short? Based on his observations of patients, Freud noted that the manifestation of neurotic behavior as adults usually had its roots in the early years of one’s life, especially in the obsession of one’s parents. If it is a boy, it is towards the mother; if it is a girl, it is the father. As the child matures, such tendencies are repressed and sometimes forbidden by society, but according to Freud, they don’t disappear completely. They lie dormant and pop out in adulthood, subtly and sometimes surreptitiously affecting the way one behaves. Such was Freud’s firm theory about why adults display neurotic behavior, enter into depression, or turn narcissistic. Freud borrowed the term Oedipal to describe his theory from the ancient Greek tragedian Sophocles, who wrote a couple of plays about the queer fate of Oedipus. According to the story, Oedipus is cast away by his father as a child because of a prophecy that his child would be his murderer. At the end of the play, Oedipus, now a young man, unwittingly ends up killing his father and marrying his mother, thereby fulfilling a prophecy that he would do so. The key word is “unwittingly”. Oedipus never wished to kill his father. Growing up, he was aware of the prophecy and tries hard to avoid such a calamity. However, during one of his journeys, he happens to meet Laius – his father – on the way, and kills him in an uncontrollable fit of rage over something, not knowing it is his father he has killed, and continuing further in his journey, he answers the famous riddle posed by the Sphinx, and as a reward, he becomes the king of Thebes and – to his utter surprise and mortification – his mother’s husband. In a weird, circular way, the prophecy that set in motion the series of events is fulfilled. Sophocle’s play is considered one of the seminal texts of the Western canon. It raises critical questions about fate, free will, ethics, and the nature of moral responsibility.

The term “Oedipal complex” has entered the modern lexicon and is commonly used in daily speech. If a teenager is unduly attached to his parent, we call it an “oedipal complex,” or if an adult behaves and craves like a child, we again give it this label. While in the last hundred years or so of the study of the human mind and the brain, it has been disproved that all aberrant behavior can be traced back to one’s relationship with one’s parents, one cannot take away from Freud his central thesis that who we become as an adult is largely dependent on our formative childhood experiences. As Ernest Becker writes in his explosive book ” The Denial of Death,” It is not so much of an “Oedipal complex” as it is of an “Oedipal project” whether the child views himself as a passive object of fate or an appendage of others, a plaything of the world or whether he will be an active center within himself who can control his own destiny with his powers. The early relationship of a child with their parents – the only refuge they have for ten to fifteen years, at least – is crucial to how the child will perceive the world. This is not to say that we always have a one-to-one correspondence between childhood experiences and how we turn out as adults. That is not the point. The point is those early contacts, a sense of individuality, safety, comfort, and well-being – shape what we could become. Of all of the species, Man needs the maximum time for caring and bringing up. His instincts don’t equip him to deal with the world the moment he is born, unlike a crab, for instance, which will start crawling towards the water the moment it is out of the shell. For man, those formative years of parenting are crucial in many ways – most notably, emotionally. The process of “individuation,” according to Carl Jung – Freud’s contemporary – can only happen from the crucible of early experiences. To be a grown-up is to have a healthy persona that has evolved and ripened successfully and can meet the world as a place of great adventure without being caught in the stranglehold of one’s infantile memories. Like a butterfly emerging out of a pupa, we have to leave behind our childhood cocoon to establish our identity.

Sandeep Reddy Vahga’s 2023 movie “Animal” is a disquieting film. That is my impression. I don’t know if the movie was meant to be a tribute to Freud’s oedipal complex; if it was, it was a blood-filled tribute and nothing more. Sandeep’s previous effort, ” Arjun Reddy,” also had this streak of unbridled rage and violence in it. Perhaps he has had a rough childhood himself and, therefore, makes movies like these to redeem himself. Well, doing it once was ok, but the second time around, it was sickening. “Animal” is three hours and seventeen minutes long, with as much blood as one can show on screen, and the bloodiness continues even when the titles scroll over at the end. After the movie ended, a feeling of disgust washed over me. The story of the film can be summarized in a few sentences. A boy obsesses ( I wouldn’t call this love) over his wealthy, busy father who has no time for him. Despite the neglect, the disregard, and the alienation, the boy continues to worship his father. He grows up to be a handsome young man, abrasive, arrogant, and narcissistic, carrying his deranged obsession over his father well into adulthood. Ranbir Kapoor plays the role of Vijay, and Anil Kapoor plays Balbir Singh, his father. Balbir Singh’s rivals shoot him one day at a gold club, and this event triggers the collapse of Vijay’s moral boundaries. He goes on a killing rampage with utter disregard for anything that comes his way. The blood bath shown on the screen makes one dizzy. If Sandeep wishes to make more movies with so much bloodshed, he will do well by taking a leaf or two out of Quentin Tarantino’s book on how to present it aesthetically on screen.

Is this the film that grossed over 700 crores of Indian rupees with families flocking to the theaters? If so, I am worried. There is something awfully wrong about the turn our cultural tastes are taking. There is nothing in this film that is even remotely classifiable as decent or reasonably decent. Discussions on pubic, genital, and other kinds of hair on the body happen quite a few times. I am not sure why this obsession with the penis is without any context to it. There is a scene where Vijay finds that an incorrect detergent has spoilt his undergarments. Angry, he romps up to the maid’s chambers to give them a lecture on the texture and design of underwear. He proudly proclaims to them that the ones he usually wears fit the shape of his scrotum perfectly ( surprise! surprise), and now, with the application of this incorrect detergent, the shape of his undergarment is messed up. Such a discussion happens in front of the maids and his wife, who look at our hero in awe and assure him that he will be a hundred more tomorrow for his use. Wow!. Such portrayal is vulgar narcissism at its extreme and for no reason at all. It’s just for the shock value, the audacity that anything can be shown, and nothing else. I wonder what parents would have had to do in the theaters to explain all this to their children.

I will be surprised if women’s organizations are yet to speak against the depiction of their sex in this film. They ought to. At so many levels, this movie is so regressive, demeaning to women, and so toxic in its portrayal of male chauvinism. There is not a single female character of strength – even a little – in the movie. Every woman characterized in the film is either an object to be used/abused or someone who bows to the will of a dominant male. I put my head down in shame during one particular scene when Vijay demands that Zoya ( a woman he sleeps with, played by Triptii Dimri), lick his shoes to prove that she loves him. Worse still, she hesitantly starts moving towards Vijay, ready to do it, but thankfully, we are spared the rest of the humiliation. It is time we gave some thought to how we portray women on screen. We all know there is still a deep gender bias inherent in society, but in films like these, we see a deliberate vindictiveness, a perverse pleasure in portraying women in the least respectable light. And that is deplorable. Even the character of Geetanjali ( played by the talented Rasmika Mandana), wife of Vijay, is, in the end, a submissive wife, fully taken in by the macho image of her husband, the fairy tale she believes about how a man should sweep a woman off her feet. When she confronts her husband about his infidelity with Zoya, Vijay explains it away as a means to an end, and it has nothing to do with her. Geetanjali threatens to leave him. She points out to Vijay that he suffers from oedipal problems, and until he gets over it, there is no redemption for him. In response, all that Vijay does is bring a double-barrel gun and fire a round close to her face. The dutiful wife swoons into submission; so much for equality.

Ranbir is a good actor. He has the range and style that few contemporary actors do. But Ranbir has to choose the right movies, and that right choice has been eluding him for a long time. Like Kamalhassan, Ranbir is unafraid of putting on masks and makeovers, and he carries them well, too. “Animal” projects him in a new light as the angry, violent, narcissistic, complex-driven young man. He succeeds to an extent in giving life to the role of Vijay, but in the midst of the mayhem and overwhelming bloodshed on screen, there is little chance for him to do anything more. With guns and knives in hand, all the time, and bodies to shoot or slash, acting takes a backseat. It is time that Ranbir gets a good, meaningful film to give him that push, a recognition that he is a good actor. “Barfi” gave him critical acclaim a decade or so ago, but since then, it has all been mediocre fare. Animal hasn’t changed that trajectory, at least, not in my books. Anil Kapoor, on the other hand, has been around for a long time. I don’t remember when the last time I saw him as a Hero was. It must be decades. He has become adept at playing Fatherly roles. Even in “Lamhe,” a 1990s Yash Chopra film, Anil played the role of a father whose adopted daughter ( played by Sri Devi) falls in love with him. So, Anil is not new to playing twisted relationships in cinema. But what is surprising is how trim he still looks. Age hasn’t diminished her physical presence on screen. However, in “Animal,” he has nothing much to do except remain perpetually cross with his son, call him a criminal on occasions, and keep a stoic face throughout his screen time. For whatever it is worth, he brings some modicum of authenticity to the role. Rasmika is improving as an actor. Widely known as the “Puspa” girl, she is trying to break free of that image. This film does offer her scope, and in a few scenes, she comes out good. I better not talk about Bobby Deol and his role. His character is dumb ( really dumb, I mean, he cannot speak), and I am glad I didn’t have to suffer his dialogues when his bloody actions were enough to make me nauseous.

I didn’t mean to be unduly judgemental about this film. If my words are harsh, then so be it because these are my first impressions. I can’t undo what I feel. I do believe Sandeep had a good story here to tell, but it doesn’t shine through in the midst of mindless violence, sex, and gore with which he splashes the screen. There are slivers of some dark humor here and there in the film, but overall, I am stunned at the poor taste of this movie. Over the last decade or so, the meaning of the word entertainment in Indian commercial cinema has undergone a radical metamorphosis: big Budgets, mindless heroism, futile storylines, and an underlying assumption that audiences are basically idiots who don’t deserve better. And the tragedy is we are proving such movie-makers right by pouring money into their coffers and applauding them with awards and recognition. Beautiful movies like “Three of Us” ( which I reviewed a few weeks back) that exalt the beauty of cinema as an artistic medium are pushed to the background, and films like Animal, Pathan, and the rest of it are given prime-time. And more than anything else, the depiction of violence in Indian cinema has broken all ceilings. Brutality on screen without an underlying sense of narrative or meaning can desensitize people. Yes, I agree that Hollywood makes violent movies, but violence of this magnitude without substance is never mainstream. Audiences will reject it. But in India, such violent films are the only mainstream movies talked about. That is concerning to me. I would be fine if Animal had just been another movie that made a few dollars and disappeared. But when such low-grade movies rake in so much money, far beyond their value or art, it is a warning sign of deeply disturbing conditions all around.

“Animal” is now streaming on Netflix. Please watch it, if you can, if not for anything else, but to observe what kind of movies are hailed as blockbusters in India these days and whether you feel right about them or not.

For me, this was a disquieting movie and a great disappointment.