'More than meets the eye: early films about invisibility
Most of Bollywood's first few sci-fi outings revolved around the limitless potential that invisibility could unlock for a single person, and the unintended consequences that could follow. Nanabhai Bhatt's Mr. X (1957), considered to be the first Indian science-fiction film, follows a lab assistant who accidentally drinks an invisibility potion. Bad news: there's no antidote that will make him reappear. When there's a spate of crimes in the city, he's the obvious suspect and must prove his innocence. In Mr. X in Bombay (1964), the protagonist gets his hands on an invisibility potion and uses it to solve a problem more pressing than world hunger - his lack of a love life. (...) In 1965 film Aadhi Raat Ke Baad (...) director Nanabhai Bhatt (...) attempts to answer one question: how much harder would it be to solve a murder mystery if the main suspect could turn invisible at will? (...) It's a plot similar to Bhatt's earlier vanishing man film Mr. X. These early films adopted a myopic attitude towards invisibility, with the protagonists often using their newfound powers for selfish reasons rather than the greater good. It took till 1971 for invisibility to serve more altruistic purposes. In K. Ramanlal's Elaan. (...) Mr. India (1987), [is] the first mainstream Bollywood sci-fi film. (...) Another film (...) explored the more nefarious consequences of scientific advancement. In Mr. X [1984], written and directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas. (...) In Malayalam film Jaithra Yaathra (1987) (...) invisibility is used to create chaos and for comic ends. (...) Invisibility, unlike immortality, appears to excite no moral questions. A person who lives forever can probably cause a lot of harm, but how bad can a brief disappearance be?
A whole new world: sci-fi set in space
Director A. Kasilingam's Kalai Arasi (1963) has aliens from another galaxy visit Earth and Mohan (M.G. Ramachandran) follow them back to their home. They look like us except for their sartorial preferences. They like tight shorts and safari helmets. Their spaceship has a distinct steampunk sensibility - levers and crankshafts everywhere. You even hear the periodic puff of escaping steam that apparently powers its cross-galaxy travel. (...) There is, however, one fundamental difference between us and them: the aliens are lovers of art to a fault. They've come to abduct talented artists from Earth and make them better ones. Their spaceship has a tiny screen that's a precursor to Google Earth. (...) What's surprising, especially since this is the first science-fiction film in Tamil, is how people react to a UFO. Mohan is with his friends when a spaceship flies overhead. He practically yawns an explanation, saying that experts believe that aliens from other galaxies would visit Earth at some point in time. His blasé friends are instantly convinced, feeling as much awe upon seeing a spaceship as an odd-looking cow. (...) Hindi film Chand Par Chadayee (1967) released two years before the first manned mission to the Moon, which is perhaps what emboldened director T.P. Sundaram to take creative liberties with the subject. (...) For a film that includes ridiculous scenes such as (...) parachute-wearing Moon women dancing above the clouds, the film was astonishingly prescient in terms of technological advancements. A high-ranking Moon citizen and the king of Mars videochat, and even communicate through a Google Glass-like device in which a real-time video of the caller appears on the lens of a pair of sunglasses. (...) The same year as Chand Par Chadayee's release, Martians visited Earth in Nisar Ahmad Ansari's Wahan Ke Log. (...)
Caution, side effects: medical science-fiction
Just as the vastness of space can be liberating, so can the invention of certain drugs that give their users powers. In P. Subramaniam's Malayalam classic Karutha Rathrikal (1967), the soft-spoken Santhan (Madhu) invents a drug that changes his appearance and gives him the ability to kill people. He's unable to make an antidote (perhaps, because of impure ingredients) which leads to his own death. An adaptation of R.L. Stevenson's Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, KR has an ambivalent stance towards the morality of science. We don't actually see much science, except in a comedy track that explains the concept of an antidote. The idea of an antidote becomes extraordinarily important in this subgenre, in which a scientist (typically out of hubris) invents a drug that gives him superpowers. In Naalai Manithan (1989) [tamil] the fate of the world hangs on Dr. Shankar (Jaishankar). After winning the Nobel Prize for inventing an AIDS drug, he creates another one that wakes the dead. Shankar's hubris prevents him from acknowledging the side effects of his immortality pill: violent and anti-social behaviour. Just as in Karutha Rathrikal, a scientist's individual choices shape how science plays out. By taking moral responsibility for his out-of-control inventions, the scientist ends up as the villain in these films. Both Santhan from KR and Shankar from NM die as a result of pushing the limits of human potential. This, however, isn't the case for the Professor (Anant Nag) from Kannada film Hollywood (2002), which claims to be India's first robot film. If the Professor's humanoid robot US-47 goes rogue, it's the robots fault, not his. (...) The Professor simply dismantles the malfunctioning robot. A rogue invention is only a technical problem, not a moral one. The film doesn't ask, like Naalai Manithan does, whether science leads to progress. Why embargo an invention when you could simply dismantle if it's not useful? Not quite human, not quite machine is the vehicle at the center of Ajantrik (1958), considered to be one of the earliest Bengali sci-fi movies. Director Ritwik Ghatak explores the relationship between a small-town driver, Bimal (Kali Banerjee) and his battered taxi by humanizing the vehicle through a combination of visual and sound effects. (...) Is the taxi sentient, or is Bimal projecting his emotions onto it?
Back to the future: films about time travel
In Aditya 369 [1991, telugu], written and directed by Singeetam Srinivasa Rao, Professor Ramdas (Tinnu Anand) (...) invents a time machine. (...) What's interesting is when he [Nandamuri Balakrishna's Krisha Kumar] ends up in an apocalyptic-looking 2504 AD. We see a post-World War 3 Earth, where a radiation from nuclear weapons has made the surface unfit for living. It's practically a desert, and humans live underground in hermetic forts. (...) 'Stomach computers' tell people when to eat. But (...) this isn't interpreted cynically. (...) People in 2504 AD are merely amused that their lives are run by machines.
Science fiction is still an underserved genre in our films. Films like Rahul Sadasivan's Red Rain (2013) [malayalam] explore the instinctive terror we feel for something from beyond Earth, but recent films have continued earlier templates, with a bit more realism. Arati Kadav's Cargo (2019), Tik Tik Tik (2018) [tamil] and Antariksham 9000KMPH (2018) [telugu] are space operas but the science is believable. Fifty years after Karutha Rathrikal, Maayavan (2017) [tamil] explores the question of who we really are if we swap brains with someone else. 24 (2016) [tamil] and Indru Netru Naalai (2015) [tamil] are entertaining time travel films that take us to the past and, hesitantly, to the future of science fiction films'.
