The Liminal Shades of ‘Monkey Man’
by Aayushi A.
The Hindu god with the body of a human and the face of an animal. An intersection of civilization, the wild, and the divine. Hanuman. The monkey god.
Dev Patel’s Monkey Man (2024) constantly harkens back to the legends of Hanuman, the stories that the film’s protagonist—Kid (Dev Patel)—is raised with and draws strength from, that set the foundation for this film. When Kid dons his monkey mask, he becomes Hanuman—the contradiction that is the monkey man. Neither animal nor human, he is something beyond.
In an interview with Letterboxd, Dev Patel describes the Indian musical tradition of jugalbandi, that is, in his words, “a call and answer.” The literal translation of jugalbandi is “entwined twins”—the term refers to a duet of two solo musicians. The musicians can be vocalists or instrumentalists, and even be trained in different traditions, but what is important is that both are on equal footing, “twins.” In the same vein as this tradition, Monkey Man often grapples with different ideas coming together, a third existence born of dialogue and contention.
From the onset of the film, Patel’s character is placed in the context of the animal-human-god trichotomy. We’re introduced to Kid through a flashback of his mother narrating to his child self the story of how Hanuman’s powers were taken by the gods as punishment for eating the sun. When Kid asks what happens next, the screen goes black. The concept of the monkey man is reintroduced with a grown Kid wearing a monkey mask and falling to the floor of an underground fighting ring, as audience members jeer and shout at him. This story of a god shifts from a didactic childhood memory to a dirty and violent reality.
In the same way that Hanuman was stripped of his powers by gods, Kid was stripped of his childhood because of a god. In the name of their theocratic movement, spiritual guru Baba Shakti (Makarand Deshpande) and police chief Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher) had taken Kid’s village and his mother’s life. This religious nationalist movement is rooted in the reality of the modern Indian political climate, where Hindutva—a political ideology advocating for a Hindu hegemony—is the official platform of the ruling party. Our protagonist is a Hindu god but our antagonist is Hinduism itself—simultaneously the friend and enemy.
As the film goes on and Kid is forced to seek refuge after a failed assassination attempt, he finds sanctuary with Yatana’s hijra (India’s third gender) community. Based in a local temple dedicated to Ardhanarishvara, a deity that is half male and half female (“half devotion, half destruction”), they were also being targeted by Baba. Neither male nor female, neither devotion nor destruction, the hijras embrace Kid as part of their liminal world. They guide his recovery, both physical and mental: an acceptance of his third-place existence.
Kid’s story comes to an end much like it starts. As he finally avenges the death of his mother, scenes from his childhood are interspersed with close-up shots of his face, backdropped by a haunting whispered devotional promise – “Oh God, I worship you. I only worship you. You are the most powerful one.” Though recurring in the film, this time, rather than addressing his god, it seems like he’s addressing his mother. With the shifting morality of his humanity and their God, it’s fitting that he finds his purpose in something beyond—his mother’s love.
Patel’s film constantly treads the border of the dichotomy: good/bad, male/female, human/god. Rather than make a play for any absolute answers, the film is comfortable creating a place for itself in the in-between. Monkey Man finds its place in the liminal, one that is neither black nor white, but rather embraces the gray.
