Kantara Ending Explained: A Blend of Folklore & Action intertwined together has been presented to us in the form of Kantara which has made its way to the theatres near us. Not only it is a visual stunner with a brilliant take on native folklore.
it has a beautiful story in it about two deities that are still being followed. The ending of the film is quite interesting to look at but for that, we would need to understand what is the film actually about and how does Shiva play by Rishabh Shetty fit in there.
Kantara is about a large piece of land that belongs to a King/Landlord who has everything other than peace of mind and searching for that, the king finds a deity so full of warmth and inviting that he wants to keep it to himself and take it away but it is a villagers/commonfolk’s deity and upon heartfelt request, the deity agrees to come with the king on one condition that when the deity screams, the land until where the screams go shall be given to the villagers/commonfolk and in future if that promise is broken, there will be revenge.
The two deities Panjurli & Guliga are the ones that go with the king but if the promise is broken, Panjurli being the forgiving one and a part of Lord Vishnu will forgive him but Guliga wouldn’t and would come for revenge.
The deities come to only a specific person in a ceremony called “Bhootha Kola” and the story revolves around the landlord’s family and the family of the person to who the deity comes. Shiva played by Rishabh Shetty is one of the two brothers whose father had disappeared after getting possessed by the deity and then running off to the forest. Shiva’s older brother gets killed and that leaves him to do the ceremony of “Bhootha Kola” and call the deity inside him.
READ: Kantara Review: Brilliant Blend of Folklore & Action
In the end, after the landlord comes with his goons and starts to murder the villagers, Shiva is finally possessed by Guliga and takes his revenge for the exploitation that he has done and for killing innocent people for the land.
In the end, Shiva is doing another ceremony of “Bhootha Kola” and is possessed by Panjurli who seems to be very with the Forest Department Officers who have been doing everything to keep the forest & reserved land safe and takes their hands and embraces them and leaves the ceremony to go into the forest where he meets with his father or Guliga and they both look at each other smiling and disappear again.
Before Shiva disappears, we see that his wife is pregnant and in the last scene, we find his son asking if the disappeared person came back or not and Shiva’s friend softly smiles being proud of Shiva and the film ends.
The film ends by showing us that the rituals have been there long before and they will stay for a long time and Shiva’s father and brother did, and his son would be doing the exact same thing, doing the ceremony of “Bhootha Kola”.