Kick- Telugu Cinema Gets Cheeky

Ok so what do we usually expect from a Telugu movie these days, especially when it stars a popular hero? That the hero will play to the gallery and work on his strengths. That the movie will contain the typical mass elements like action, around 6 songs which includes an item number, loud villains who are more or less caricatures, nearly all the well known comedians doing some kind of inane stuff in the name of comedy, one or more heroines trying to give their share of glamour quotient, some ‘punch’ dialogues powerful enough to disturb our ear drums and so on & so forth.

So it comes as a pleasant surprise to watch Kick- the latest Telugu release which has Ravi Teja and Ileana and also introduces the Tamil actor- Shaam to Telugu Cinema. So am I saying that this movie is a trendsetter and it breaks conventional traditions? Is this movie going to be looked upon as the movie to emulate in the years to come? Oh! No, not at all. Surendar Reddy the director has tried to experiment albeit a little within the limits of commercial Telugu potboilers keeping the image of Ravi Teja in mind and at the same time trying to avoid a lot of the mandatory requirements associated with such films.

So the plot is all about Kalyan (Ravi Teja ), an engineering graduate for whom getting a ‘kick’ out of anything is the sole mantra to keep him hooked to any activity. Hence he keeps moving in & out of jobs whenever he feels the job has no kick to offer him. He is supported in this by his father ( Sayaji Shinde ) who believes that he couldn’t do what his son is doing i.e unwind and take life easy. In a very entertaining encounter Kalyan comes across Naina (Ileana) and they start liking each other. One day when Naina gets to know that Kalyan has quit yet another job, she decides she’s had enough of him & decides to get out of the relationship.

And then Naina and her family move to Malaysia where one day she meets Kalyan Krishna (Shaam) a cop from Hyderabad who has come to Malaysia to meet her formally before getting engaged. After Naina tells Kalyan Krishna her story, he too opens up and says his biggest mission currently is to catch a guy who has been doing some high value robberies of late and playing a cat & mouse game with him. Apparently the thief is also now in Malaysia and that’s the main reason for Kalyan Krishna’s visit to Malaysia.

Of course the audience need not have to be smarter than a 5th grade student to know that the thief is none other than Kalyan. So how does the cat and mouse game carry on from there? Who gets Ileana in the end & what’s the reason behind Kalyan becoming a thief is what the rest of the movie is all about. The cinematography by Rasool Ellore and the music by Thaman.S have nothing special to contribute to the film. The movie has an ensemble supporting cast which includes Brahmanandam,Venu Madhav,Ali,Jayaprakash Reddy,Kota etc. And it’s certainly nice to see Jayaprakash Reddy and Kota in comic roles and not having any fiery dialogues as usual.

Brahmanandam raises a few laughs in what is a cakewalk of a role for him. Ali and Venu Madhav are o.k. Shaam is quite decent for his 1st Telugu movie and yes it’s nice to see Ileana after a long hiatus. We all know that the lady is not just pretty but can also act given a chance (remember Pokiri?). So after virtually seeing only Tamannah & Anushka this year it’s nice to see Ileana finally who does justice to her role whenever she appears on screen – of course towards the end she just disappears. Is it a matter of convenience, Surendar Reddy garu?

Coming to Ravi Teja or motor mouth as some of the media in A.P calls him, he seems to be relishing every bit of his time in the movie. He does get to do a lot of comedy which he is good at and also does well overall. But of course this is certainly not in the same league of some of his other films like Vikramarkudu or Dubai Seenu, but certainly not a bad attempt. Watch out for the scene where he does an imitation of Amitabh Bachchan- quite hilarious. All said and done it takes some time before one gets hooked to the movie, after which it’s a reasonably decent ride.

Talking about the usual stereotypes that I mentioned in the beginning of the article let me tell you all that Kick is a movie with popular stars but it has no item numbers, no loud villains ( in fact no villain at all ) , has no powerful ‘punch’ dialogues and nothing untoward in the name of glamour. Considering that the movie seems to have steered clear of these typical stereotypes associated with a big star Telugu movie and at the same time still decently entertains, the movie is to be credited. For the Telugu movie audience in A.P, with the scorching summer in full peak there is at least something to watch and cool themselves.

Originally published in PFC-check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/kick-telugu-cinema-gets-cheeky/

My thoughts on ‘Frozen’- A brilliant celluloid dream

March 13th, 2009 will remain a special day for me. That’s the day when I had a very interesting experience of watching 2 interesting movies. Before anybody asks me what’s so special about watching 2 movies in a day, after all most of have us grown up watching multiple movies in a day-let me tell you that the day was unique for me due to the films watched and the person with whom I watched the movies alongside. The movies were Gulaal and Frozen and the person I saw the movies together with was Shivajee Chandrabhushan-the director and producer of Frozen.
I had started knowing Shivajee through PFC just a short while before this day in March. When I realized that Frozen had already made the rounds of some 30 odd festivals worldwide and that in spite of having won some 18 awards it was yet to find a release, I was really shocked and surprised. Looking back I still remember telling Shivajee (before watching the movie) that for the sake of Ladakh,Danny & Shivajee I would like to watch the movie at the 1st given opportunity. Yes what also attracted me to the movie apart from the fact that it was well received in so many film festivals was that it was a black & white film shot in Ladakh & it had Danny Denzongpa as the main lead.

Having been to Ladakh myself I was more than curious to know how Shivajee has captured the harsh terrain of Ladakh on screen. Also it had been a while since I had seen Danny in a performance befitting him (his recent few roles being not so noteworthy). Interestingly I had a lot of questions even before I had seen the movie, but kept it to myself till I saw the movie. At first I had a plan of meeting Shivajee in Bangalore (prefer this over Bengaluru) and watch the movie as he had been invited to come over &showcase his movie by a reputed institution there. But thanks to the Feb screening by Enlighten Film Society in Mumbai the theatrical release finally began to look like a reality and so the Bangalore program was dropped.

So when I was wondering when I would be getting to watch the movie I had a trip to Mumbai scheduled in March and that was when Shivajee and I decided to meet up and he promised to show me his film. Since March 13th happened to be the release date of Gulaal, we decided to watch Gulaal before we saw Frozen. Shivajee was quite apprehensive of my response towards Frozen as we were going to watch it after Gulaal- which in Shivajee’s words was a very colorful film. But I asked him to relax and told him that I will still be able to watch it distinctly and give him my honest opinion after the movie is over.

So after the luxury of watching Anurag Kashyap’s Gulaal in Gold class at Fame- Malad, off we went to Shivajee’s home cum studio where to my surprise we watched the movie straight from his editing table. To my mind it looked like the next best thing to watching it on the big screen. And for the next 107 minutes or so I was glued to the film and nothing else. In between Shivajee kept disappearing so that I could watch the movie in peace. After the movie I had a fairly long discussion with Shivajee over some red wine regarding the movie. And yes the discussion was made even more meaningful by the presence of Gauri- the female lead of Frozen (who plays Lasya the daughter of Karma- Danny Denzongpa ) and Triparna- the director’s assistant who’s been on the project from the 2nd festival ( of the 30 odd ) till this date and who is the livewire of the team.

The ‘story’ is all about Karma (Danny) who lives with his daughter Lasya ( Gauri ) and son Chomo ( Angchuk ) in the high reaches of Ladakh. It’s about the day to day struggle for existence that Karma and his family goes through and how their life undergoes a series of changes due to some incidents. Now more than the story per se what struck me was the way the story unfolds and the narrative that keeps you spellbound.

As the movie got over I was in a state of shock as it looked like what I had witnessed was poetry on screen. The use of monochrome brilliantly helps in capturing the harsh landscape and one often tends to get lost in the landscape while watching the movie. So is it the beauty of Ladakh or the cinematography of Shankar Raman which deserves the credit? Well I give the credit to both. Shivajee has been able to extract brilliant performances from his cast- be it the main cast of Danny,Gauri and Angchuk or the supporting cast which includes known names like Raj Zutshi,Yashpal Sharma, Aamir Bashir,Shakeel Khan,Shilpa Shukla etc.

What is certainly praise worthy is the level of detailing that Shivajee has gone into with this film. Not one character or a situation looks out of place. Nowadays one comes across the use of metaphors in a lot of movies, but let me tell you that Shivajee uses them subtly and very effectively in this movie. In fact it was difficult to digest that this was all the work of a first time director and producer. So much so that my admiration for Shivajee and his work has only increased after I saw the movie.

The movie finally has released today, the 8th of May 2009 and it’s a great moral victory not only for Shivajee and the team of Frozen but for all who support good cinema.What is amazing about the release is that the distributors – Enlighten Film Society – run by Pranav Ashar and Jimmy Mistry are first timers themselves in terms of film distribution. I wish to certainly appreciate their efforts which have finally helped in the film’s release in India. Also Frozen might probably the first Indian movie to have a staggered release as it releases today in Mumbai first which will be followed by other cities like Delhi,Kolkata,Bangalore etc. This date- 8th May 2009 will always go in history as Frozen will be the only Hindi film to find a release in this date and that too in the multiplexes when the on going stand off between the producers/distributors combine and the multiplexes continues.

Originally published in PFC-check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/my-thoughts-on-%e2%80%98frozen%e2%80%99-a-brilliant-celluloid-dream/

Stereotyping in Indian Films- How long will it continue?

By now its common knowledge that RGV and Vivek Oberoi are re-uniting for Rakta Charitra, a biopic on Paritala Ravi, the dreaded factionalist leader of A.P who was shot down a few years ago. But what is making me look forward to the project is to see if RGV is able to carry off the transition of factional A.P politics and associated violence conveniently into a mainstream Hindi movie. After all it’s not easy to make a transition of this sort without avoiding the typical stereotypes seen in Indian cinema. And no the stereotyping is not a prerogative of Bollywood or any particular regional language cinema; it can be seen usually across Indian cinema. India is growing, developing, changing for the better as a country so why should we still allow the kind of stereotyping that has existed in Indian cinema for ages?
To drive across my point I would definitely look at some of the more common stereotypes seen in Indian cinema with some relevant examples wherever possible.

1.Most South Indian characters are just ‘Madrasis’ who keep saying ‘ayyayyo ayyayyo’- Well right from Mehmood in Padosan to Satish Kaushik in Saajan Chale Sasural or Shreyas Talpade in Golmaal Returns, South Indian characters are mainly shown as caricatures who speak pathetic Hindi and there is very poor detailing done by the director/writer. When Rohit Shetty, a South Indian himself cannot differentiate between a Tamilian & a Telugu personality, what more should I say? In case you do not understand what I say- just watch Golmaal Returns. Shreyas Talpade and Celina Jaitley play Tamilian characters in the movie, but whenever Shreyas is excited- he starts singing- ‘Aa Ante Amalapuram’ a popular song from the Telugu hit movie-Arya, now why would you show it this way, unless you don’t have an eye for detailing?
2.Most North Indian characters have to be a ‘sethji’ in a typical South Indian movie and the character is supposed to directly/indirectly elicit laughter from the audience. You can check out countless Tamil movies in particular for the same. Why can’t a North Indian be shown in a regular capacity instead of being shown as a caricature.
3.It’s ok to show the female lead as a North Indian but not the male lead in South Indian movies. Sure it’s fine to show a typical hero falling sometimes in love with the heroine who happens to be from the North, but the reverse hardly happens. I was very happy to see a recent Tamil movie- Abhiyum Naanum (Akasamantha-Telugu) where Trisha the heroine falls in love with a sardar (Ganesh Venkatraman), at least someone is trying to change things being depicted on screen.
4.Regionalism taking precedence over authenticity- In a recent Tamil movie- Arasangam, the protagonist, Vijaykanth speaks in Tamil to all & sundry in places like Assam & even Canada. Since when did everyone start speaking Tamil all over? Or take a recent Telugu movie- Shouryam- a major part of the movie is shot in Kolkata but no body is seen speaking in Bengali or even Hindi for that matter. It looks like everybody speaks in Telugu in Kolkata. Now can’t this be avoided?
5.Shooting abroad- is it necessary every time for every movie? What started off as an attempt to offer something new to the Indian audiences by shooting mainly songs abroad in exotic locations, later gave way to even the whole movie being shot abroad. But now I think the phenomenon has become a joke & in a lot of cases you actually wonder as to why was the movie shot abroad. Some recent examples of the same include- Yuvvraj and Tasveer 8*10.Did the story in these movies actually have anything compelling for the makers to shoot it overseas instead of basing it in India & shooting it here?

The above given stereotypes are just some of the more commonly seen ones. But the list is definitely not exhaustive. I feel that the issue of stereotyping is avoided as far as possible by people who believe in detailing to the best extent possible. Here I’m referring to people like a Manirathnam,Vishal Bharadwaj,Cheran,Anurag Kashyap etc.These are the people who can by way of getting into detailing take care and avoid stereotypes to the best extent possible.On a parting note let me remind you all about one of one of my favorite scenes from Indian cinema which shows how detailing can really heighten a scene and virtually avoid any type of stereotyping.

The scene is from Roja (Tamil) after Arvind Swamy has been captured by the militants and he finds himself face to face with their leader, Pankaj Kapur. When Pankaj Kapur questions Arvind in Tamil, he is very much intrigued and wants to know how Pankaj knows Tamil. To this Pankaj Kapur calmly replies that he studied (B.SC) Agriculture from Tamilnadu Agricultural University,Coimbatore and learnt Tamil during those days in college. A great scene conceived and developed by a master story teller/director.
So when do we get to see more and more of the stereotypes being given a farewell in Indian cinema?

Note- My attempt here has been to generally look at stereotyping in Indian films & comment on why we cannot bid goodbye to them. It’s not an attempt to talk about any particular movie or personality over here. Feel free to write on some of the other stereotypes that you feel exist in Indian cinema, after all the list is rather long.

Originally published in PFC- check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/stereotyping-in-indian-films-how-long-will-it-continue/

Producers/Distributors Vs Multiplexes Standoff- the 3rd Dimension

I was planning to write the 3rd part of my traditional single screen theatre experience series ( check out the 2nd part- http://passionforcinema.com/the-traditional-single-screen-experience-series-%e2%80%93-apsara-theatrecoimbatore/)this morning when something took me by surprise. I was reading the Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad edition) and saw that the major part of Page 2 was devoted to articles on cinema. This definitely looked unnatural to me & so I spent some time reading the articles. While the major space was devoted to how the bigger stars in A.P are of late doing fewer projects and so the effect of this on business in the industry, I was more intrigued by another article. This article was all about how single screen theatres mainly screening Bollywood movies in a lot of cities in A.P are now struggling for survival due to lack of content and playing old Hindi & English movies to keep the theatres occupied.

The article goes on to describe the plight of these theatres and said that if lack of content continues, then some of these theatres are likely to close down for survival. This article made me immediately think about the on going strike in Bollywood from a totally different angle. By now its common knowledge that there is an ongoing strike in Bollywood called by the Producers/Distributors combine against the Multiplexes in order to ensure 50: 50 ratio of revenue sharing (read this -http://passionforcinema.com/next-month-at-the-movies-money-saved-joy-lost/). What was initially expected to last for a month has now entered into its 2nd month and there still doesn’t seem to be any improvement in the anvil apart from a meeting held between the 2 sides earlier this week & another such meeting planned for the next week.
In fact more or less all the Bollywood releases that were scheduled for May have already been pushed to June or later. As of now the only movies likely to release in May are – Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s Frozen,99and Vashu Bhagnani’s Kal Kissne Dekha. All of us including myself have been wondering as to how the strike will benefit either side. We feel this very strongly as we know that the strike doesn’t help the producers/distributors since prolonged delay of projects can lead to a lot of problems like interest rates of money borrowed going up , promotion not possible, confusion regarding release dates etc. Also for the multiplexes lack of content is a sure thing to happen and so this has a direct impact on footfalls and hence the collection.

In the midst of all this is a totally different phenomenon that is being witnessed in a lot of places across the country – the traditional single screen theatres and cineplexes are now struggling for survival. It’s amazing that all the industry leaders or opinion makers have completely ignored this entity altogether in situation. How many of us have heard of anybody standing up for these temples of cinema which are already dying slowly? While I know the strike would make an impact on the 2 warring sections of Bollywood, I think we should be more concerned for the single screens and the cineplexes who have been caught in the middle of the strike for no fault of theirs.

Most of the multiplexes are chains and run in various locations across the country/in one or more states. And these chain multiplexes are usually run by fairly significant corporate houses for whom though there is a loss of revenue right now, they can make it up in due course of time because they have bigger pockets and in a lot of cases they enjoy tax benefit etc. This phenomenon does not hold true in case of the single screen theatres and multiplexes except in exceptional cases. What I mean is that except some theatres run by individuals/business houses for whom this is just another business venture, most of the other theatres are run by people who have been associated with the business for a long time and who have a deep dependence on it for revenue and other reasons.

It is these people who are getting affected and hit hard the most. Already across the country more and more of these traditional theatres are closing down for various reasons. And such a situation where lack of content to play in the theatres makes it even more difficult for them to survive. If there are quite a few Hindi release theatres in A.P & Karnataka which are affected by the strike, then the situation is even more serious when you look at theatres outside South India where the dependence on Hindi cinema is much much more. For those who would want to say why cannot these theatres look towards regional cinema in the interim period- I have a few things to say.

I am sure all of us would agree that in the typical Hindi belt it would be difficult to think of regional cinema of any kind substituting Hindi cinema. Also there have not been too many typical big Hollywood movies releasing recently to make up for some of the gap. Marathi cinema has a blockbuster now (Me Shivajiraje Bhosale Boltoy)which would help the theatres screening it, but do we have more such movies in the pipeline? It would be great if the answer is a resounding yes. Going down south the situation is not too impressive either except for Kerala. Kerala is yet to embrace the multiplex culture and this summer it has 2 movies which are doing well- To Harihar Nagar and Bhagyadevatha. Ayan is the only Tamil movie which has been doing well of late and lack of competition has ensured that the Telugu version of Billa do a reasonable business.

So again there are a lot of theatres screening regional movies but not all of them are doing too well. So it’s not just that the Bollywood strike which is impacting the survival of these traditional single screens but it’s a coincidence that while the strike is meant to be a face off between two warring sections of the sector, silently a 3rd section is getting affected. So for the survival of these temples of cinema I sincerely hope the strike is called off soon and we see the flow of releases happening shortly.

Note- In no way am I talking about the quality of movies here. I am trying to cover the vital issue of survival and viability of the traditional single screen theatres/cineplexes over here.

Originally published in PFC-check it out here-http://passionforcinema.com/producersdistributors-vs-multiplexes-standoff-the-3rd-dimension/