Salaar, KGF: Exploring Promise And Power In Prashanth Neel’s Epics

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep." Robert Frost might have written the words above in a different context, but the essence of these words resonates and encapsulates the heroes in Prashanth Neel’s films. Both Raja Krishnappa Bairya aka ‘Rocky Bhai’ in KGF, and Devaratha Raisaar aka Deva in Salaar are a product of the promises they must fulfil. Quite rarely have filmmakers in recent years elicited the effect words have on people as effectively as Prashanth Neel has done through his films. And, in doing so, the filmmaker has charted a different path for himself, setting him apart from his contemporaries.

A closer look at how Neel mounts the journeys of his protagonists through the lens of words will reveal how the respective journeys of both Rocky in KGF and Deva in Salaar are defined by the promises they make to people close to them. While Rocky sets off to fulfil his mother’s dying wish that ‘when he dies, he’ll be the richest man around’, Deva’s life hinges on the promise he makes to his childhood friend Varadha that he’ll either be ‘the bait or the shark’ for his friend. Both the characters are aged around 8-9 when they make these promises, and even though their lives are completely different, Prashanth Neel uses similar tropes to trace their lives as time unfolds. 

In KGF, Rocky has to survive in the streets of Bombay before he becomes its most charismatic and ruthless gangster, who’s then hired by Bangalore-based gangsters to kill Garuda, the heir to the conglomerate which controls Kolar Gold Fields. Whereas in Salaar, Prashanth Neel turns our attention to Deva’s normal life far away from Khansaar, a city-state ruled by warlords, before Varadha comes seeking his help to win a civil-war kind of situation for the throne. For Varadha, Deva is nothing short of a one-man army. Thematically, it’s no different from the situation which Rocky finds himself in when he enters Narachi, a mine where thousands of people are oppressed and subjected to an insufferable amount of cruelty by Garuda’s henchmen. 

Both Rocky and Deva are liberators for a sect of people who look upon them as demigods. It’s little wonder that the song ‘Dheera Dheera’ from KGF and the entire sequence of Deva slaying an evil Dora Vishnu in front of Kateramma, a local deity, worshipped by the women in Mahara in Khansaar, presents these two protagonists as saviours. Surabhi, a young girl, whom Deva rescues from Vishnu in the process, remarks, “Kateramma didn’t come, but she sent her son.” This is also why Prashanth Neel soaks his stories in blood and violence, because the setting is no less than an epic in itself. The demigods are meant to slay the evil men and their countless minions for the greater good. It’s easy to lose track of the body count in both KGF and Salaar, but every moment is part of the process which elevates the heroes into mythic figures. The hands of Rocky and Deva are drenched in blood and soil drawing inspiration from Hindu mythology of Gods coming to the rescue of people when evil reigns supreme. 

One could argue that Prashanth Neel is so emboldened by the universe he created in the respective films that he doesn’t feel the need to turn his stories into a mish-mash of genres. Salaar, in particular, is focused in its approach to present a gritty action-packed drama. There’s no comedy, no romance, and no song which looks out of context. Part of the reason lies in how much drama the filmmaker packs in the story, and the conflicts that arise between characters in their quest for power. 

If promises are the defining factor in the hero’s quest, then rewriting the rules of an institution the hero knowingly enters into is projected as the ultimate aim. Incidentally, when it comes to the respective films’ anti-heroes, both Rocky and Deva don’t intend to wipe out the existence of Narachi (or KGF) or Khansaar - they rewrite rules which either makes them the new lord or, as is the case in Salaar, makes his friend the new lord. It’s dramatic to the degree that you are transported to a different world filled with politics, tyranny, and countless greedy men vying for power.

When most films choose to focus on a direct conflict between a hero and a central villain, Neel turns it into a battle between a hero and an army of villains. The latter, in turn, have an agenda of their own where each one of them aims to be the most powerful of them all. In terms of structure, Prashanth Neel uses this aspect of the story to create ‘levels’ that the hero has to cross before he can ascend higher up the ranks. It’s a trope often used in quest-based video games, where players are required to complete a task to gain access to the next level. Instead of gaining more ‘powers’, here the hero’s zeal to succeed and uphold the promise he once made becomes stronger and stronger. The cherry on the top is how well Prashanth Neel coats the more superior villains with power and tyranny that seems improbable to vanquish. 

If the fear of the unknown is what gives people anxiety, in Prashanth Neel’s universe, this fear comes in the form of the hero. No wonder, you root for the hero right from the beginning. They don’t become heroes in the process. They know what they are capable of doing and the destruction they will cause to bring order in the jungle. This is best encapsulated in the scene from Salaar where Varadha brings Deva into Khansaar and the latter says, “People build big walls because they fear who might come inside.” In the end, not only are those walls broken, but myths are turned into legends which echo through time and space. 

With the KGF series and Salaar, Prashanth Neel has already made a promise to the audience and he’s keeping them one at a time.