Sangharsha Ghadana Review | The Politics of War Told Through an Oddly Satisfying, Wacky Film

Sangharsha Ghadana, The Art of Warfare from Krishand follows the unconventional signature style of the director that has wacky visual sensibilities and satirical digs at certain cinematic and societal stereotypes. Even though the driving factor of the movie is the sarcastic humor, the emphasis on the warfare and also the way it intercuts into details of the various war crimes happening around the world, somehow makes it a political film where the overall outcome is the victory of those with power. 

Associates of a goon named Suni got attacked by unknown people, and the police are investigating this incident that led to multiple deaths. In the meantime, people in Suni’s gang are also clueless about who could be behind this vicious attack. What we find out through the film is the people and the reasons behind the unprecedented attack. 

Krishand is using the skeleton of Sun Tzu’s Art of War to structure his grounded gangster flick. Much like his other films, the medium he has used here is humor. From social critique to improvised spoofing of cinematic cliches, Krishand is using wit to keep the audience engaged. Since the politics of the movie has this anti-war stance, this mockery of everyone who has a certain level of rage or even lack of rage fits the tone of the Story. The jumbling of events that happens in the script and the partial mockumentary nature of the narrative complement the movie’s intentions. 

What makes Krishand different from his contemporaries is that he has a certain precision and absurdity in visualizing his stories. In almost all his movies, he has used unconventional frames with extremely huge and evident negative space to show the wacky setting in which those movies happen.  When it comes to Sangharsha Ghadana, his love for colors and neon lights is still there, but the framing is a bit more on the conventional side with symmetric shots. But even the symmetric ones are kind of precise, and it gives the visuals a peculiarity.  The writing is spoofy in every possible way, and there are some outrageously funny moments where the character Sethumadhavan apologizes for ordering a porotta made the day before yesterday. 

Sanup Padaveedan plays the role of Suni. It is that monotonous, poker-faced, gang leader kind of character for a larger part. However, there are these slight tweaks happening to that characterization that give way to a lot of laughter. Vishnu Agasthya, who has been doing only these angry characters, gets a character where he gets to portray the backstory behind that rage, and it offered the actor a space to show a less explored shade of emotion, and he was good in it. Zhins Shan, as the negotiator of the gang, is fun to watch. It seems like Krishand will never give Rahul Rajagopal a character that someone typically would imagine for him, considering his physique. The character of Rafeeq belongs to the unconventional casting choices of Krishand and Rahul, yet again, gets it perfectly.  Sreenath Babu as the mediator police officer, Mrudula Murali as the investigative officer with that motherly tenderness, and the impulsive gang member performed by Silesh K Lakshmi were some of the memorable faces in the cast of the film. 

If you enjoy the kind of cliche-mocking, absurd storytelling style Krishand follows in his movies, Sangharsha Ghadana, The Art of Warfare, is one more of those out-of-the-box films that wraps the text with craft. Using a narrative that has abundant humor in it, Krishand makes a film with a solid and subtle political subtext.