Telugu Cinema: Variety Entertainment

Pursuant to my rant about maturity in Telugu films, I've come to a realization about the Telugu film industry. Calling most Telugu movies a "Film" or the industry "Cinema" is not consistent with the way the term is normally used in other film industries.

Usually a film refers to a coherent piece of work, an invention that is internally uniform and distinguishable from other pieces of work in its ethos, not just because it is on the same physical tape or disc. The story, plot, screenplay, cinematography, or a combination of these and other elements serve to give it a distinct character. You can't take a piece of one film and put it into a different film and have it make sense in the new context.

Movies in the Hindi and Telugu film industries often aim at a different ideal. When people from abroad stare in amazement at Indian cinema and wonder why there is a song-and-dance sequence all of a sudden, what they are missing is this: an Indian film is essentially variety entertainment. This kind of entertainment has been popular traditionally in India for centuries; a troupe of entertainers traveling from town to town putting on stage shows, with music, dance, acrobatics, a bit of drama, clowns and buffoonery, all thrown in.

The Indian movie is often a simple migration of this centuries-old motif to a different medium. The plot or story, if anything, only serves to hold the audience's interest and to give the movie a natural ending. The main offering is the song-and-dance routines, the music, the fights. Indeed, many Telugu movies are reviewed this way: not holistically, but as separate departments: songs, fights, comedy, dialogues, photography. A review might read: "Dialogues in this film are very good. First half has non-stop comedy. Fights by Peter Hynes are excellent. Photography is terrific. Dancing by hero and heroine is very well choreographed. The hero's style is terrific, he lives up to his image of Prince Charming with his mesmerizing looks (sic). The heroine is in her element with traditional costumes and cute mannerisms." And so on. "She is sensuality personified," says one review about the lead actress in a movie. "Her wardrobe in this film includes dresses ranging from traditional sarees to mini skirts." Hmm.

Telugu Movies to Avoid

I've come to the conclusion that it is as important to document bad movies as good. I often forget that I've watched a movie before, or forget what my reaction to a particular movie was. This post will help keep things organized. It will have Telugu movies which I would rate 1 or 2 stars (out of 5). 1 star means I hated this film and it was an effort to sit through it; 2 stars means I could sit through it but disliked it. I guess I'll keep adding films as I come across them.

Of course, these are to be contrasted to my post on good Telugu movies.

I recognize that many of these movies will be very popular ones. Nevertheless, these are poor movies. Hackneyed, shark-jumping plotting (or a total lack or a plot), cringe-inducing humour and dialogue, and lead actors who take their own shenanigans too seriously are the main problems with most of these movies.

These star ratings are not on the same scale as the ratings on the "movies to watch" page. The worst movie on that page is better than any of these.

1. Classmates. (2 stars)
   
2. Athadu. (2 stars)
3. Boys. (2 stars) Starts off interesting (albeit crude), about adolescent boys, but turns into a hackneyed love story after a bit.
   
4. Stalin. (1 star) Way too Rajnikant-ish for my taste.
   
5. Jalsa. (2 stars)
   
6. Nuvve Nuvve. (2 stars) The girl liked the guy because he sprayed cheap perfume on her. It also subscribes to a common Indian movie mantra: to impress the girl, treat her real badly. 'Nuff said.
7. Pokiri. (2 stars) Full of bloody, senseless violence.
8. Okkadunnadu. (2 stars) I really wish I could've put this in the "movies to watch" list, it had great promise. See brief review.
   

More as I watch.

Johnny Gaddar

There's been a spate of new movies coming my way lately. What's surprising is many of them are good. After Dor, Manorama Six Feet Under and Dharm, I got my hands on Johnny Gaddar.

Soon after watching the movie, I re-read Jabberwock's brief review of that movie, and checked out director Sriram Raghavan's Rediff slide show on his inspirations for the film. (I'm guessing this film isn't inspired in the usual Bollywood sense of lifting scene ideas directly from other films; to put it pompously, it pays homage to those films.) I must say I Sriram Raghavan sounds very learned on films; I hadn't even heard of 8 out of the 10 films he cites. So, unfortunately, I might be missing out on several homage elements and similarities that I could otherwise have drawn. I'm not too upset about this, because I enjoyed the film tremendously for what it is.

Johnny Gaddar is the story of five crooks who are about to pull off some sort of deal brokered by a corrupt policeman; the deal isn't made clear but it doesn't matter to the film. They have to invest 50 lakhs each and are supposed to get back 100 lakhs after the deal. The five have a sort of "coalition dharma": they're in it together. But one of them plots to decamp alone with all of the money as well as the wife of one of the others, with whom he is having an affair.

I was struck by how carefully thought out the plot was. The plot is the weak point in most Indian movies. It usually lacks innovation, or if it has innovation, lacks coherence. On the rare occasions when it has both, there are still many other ways for the filmmaker to mess things up: Johnny Gaddar has a great (though uncomplicated) plot and manages to keep all the other things together as well. The sequence of events is carefully thought out, and though some discussions online point to seeming inconsistencies, I didn't agree with those discussions and wasn't able to find any inconsistencies of my own.

Building on the foundation of a good plot, Raghavan handles the various turns and characters deftly. He avoids some common pitfalls such as pacing or detail erraticism. The film moves along at a good clip, and the pace doesn't flag disappointingly anywhere. As well, the level of detail is consistent throughout the film; unlike so many other directors, Raghavan doesn't get tired and take shortcuts in some chunks of the movie. This doesn't mean the level of detail is exactly the same throughout the film; that would just be boring. Rather, detail is added when a certain emotional effect is sought, but not arbitrarily reduced. The viewer is kept engaged right until the end.

Apropos of which, the ending is a grouch that I often have on many Indian (and even foreign) films. If the sequels to The Matrix had displayed any signs of above-invertebrate intelligence, the world would be a different place today. If Anurag Kashyap hadn't gone berserk in the second half of No Smoking, we'd have a true modern masterpiece to boast of in Hindi cinema. I think this inability to think through a great ending is a natural human failing: it's easier to create a mystery (which just requires you to think up something out of the ordinary) than to solve it satisfyingly (which requires you to logically reconcile that extraordinary invention with the ordinary). Even Arthur C. Clarke came up against this wall when he tried to write sequels to Rendezvous with Rama. Raghavan, of course, isn't quite as ambitious in this film; nevertheless it doesn't diminish the satisfying ending he was able to create. What struck me was that you know what's going to happen, but the suspense stays with you until the director chooses to reveal it, to the very second. You don't guess it a minute before, 10 seconds before or even a nanosecond before Raghavan tells you about it.

The tone of the film is dark, in keeping with the incidents in its plot; but visually it runs the gamut from traditional noir chiaroscuro to bright bubblegum tones. One thing I was really impressed with was Raghavan's ability to create a mood. It reminded me of Anurag Kashyap's evocative visual brilliance in No Smoking. Johnny Gaddar isn't quite as superlatively evocative, but it's halfway there, and its medium is screen movement rather than visual style per se. Two memorable scenes are the train scene where elements that every Indian is familiar with are brushed onto the viewer's senses: the peculiar carriage movement of the Indian train, the flashes of light and dark out the window, the small railway platforms quickly passed, the sudden rushing onset of bridge trusses and other trains. Many movies have this scene, but the elements picked out in this movie are best-of-class. An excellent demonstration of Raghavan's abilities is the tension created by the approach of the ticket collector during the train sequence. Another scene is the apartment search by Zakir Hussain's character (identified by Jabberwock). Again, it is a scene familiar through firsthand experience for most of us viewers: the frustration of futilely searching for something you know must be there, the racking of brains to think of another place it might be, the brief flare of hope when a previously overlooked spot is identified, and the crashing despair of a dashed hope.

Now while this film has many things going for it, it is a low key film. "Exciting" would be a wrong word to use, though "gripping" is right. In other words, while you feel with the protagonist, it doesn't evoke emotional highs from the viewer. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I'm just trying to explain what type of movie it is.

The performances by the entire cast are very competent. Dharmendra seems to have drawn a lot of flak online for his dialogue delivery and his English, but I actually thought his way of talking was pretty natural. The interestingly named Neil Mukesh, in his first film, does a great job of depicting both his fear and determination.

Overall, it's one of those films I would put in the "must watch" category.

Dor

Nagesh Kukunoor is an interesting director. He has made some very relevant and beautifully directed movies, like his debut Hyderabad Blues and the tight and complex 3 Deewarein. But he has also directed some absolute disasters like the forgettable Hyderabad Blues 2 and the truly odious Bombay to Bangkok, upon watching which you wonder how it could possibly be the same director. Luckily Dor falls unequivocally in the first category.

Dor is a story of two women, Meera (Ayesha Takia) and Zeenat (Gul Panag), whose lives and outlooks are opposites, though not quite diametrical. Meera lives in a stark desert landscape of sun-bleached sands in Rajasthan while Zeenat lives in a lush green mountain town in Himachal Pradesh. Meera is the bahu of a traditional Hindu family, constrained to live austerely under a ghoonghat serving her in-laws. Zeenat is a progessive, independent, forward looking Muslim woman, living in a house of her own, dismissive of her in-laws' misgivings about her. While Meera is childlike and young at heart, Zeenat is worldly-wise and mature for her age. There is no conflict between Meera and her in-laws, but they view her almost as property. Zeenat has a conflicted relationship with her in-laws, but they come to love and respect her.

Meera's and Zeenat's fates become intertwined when their husbands set off for Saudi Arabia in search of better financial prospects; an incident there has Zeenat traveling across the country to find Meera. The relationship between the two women and secret conflict underlying that relationship form the basis for the rest of the movie.

This movie is all about connecting with the viewer emotionally, but it is hard to summarize its emotional tone in a sentence. Kukunoor handles the various changes, from bliss to tragedy, and the various moments of joy and despair, deftly. The pall that is cast over the two women is lifted occasionally in various bursts of joy, with some comic relief mixed in. The underlying tension and unhappiness disappear and reappear intermittently throughout the movie, but return poignantly towards the end. A major focus of the movie is the problems faced by women in overly traditional settings, and it manages to convey these travails to the viewer very well.

The completeness of the movie is quite impressive. It grabs your interest and doesn't let go. The pacing is a bit uneven, but this doesn't diminish the viewing experience much. The cinematography is great and serves to both emphasize the beauty of and the differences between the two types of landscape in the film. Both the lead actresses, as well as the supporting cast do excellent jobs; the only lacklustre performance in this movie is that of Kukunoor himself in his cameo role as a businessman. Gul Panag does well in picking meaningful roles and is a good actress. Ayesha Takia does very well in her role as Meera. A minor grouch that I had was with the casting: while their acting was great, neither Gul Panag nor Ayesha Takia were quite able to capture the rustic personalities required of their characters. Takia is just a tad too glamorous; Panag is just a bit too assertive. Shreyas Talpade is adequate in his role as a thief-turned-good-samaritan.

I would categorize this as a must-watch movie: it has a message, is a study of certain situations, and at the same time manages to be entertaining.

Manorama Six Feet Under

Falling vaguely between a Western and a moody detective thriller (those in the know call it 'Noir'), Manorama Six Feet Under is a gripping and suspenseful movie. It is the story of a struggling writer/bureaucrat named Satyaveer (played by Abhay Deol) who meets a woman named Manorama, who gives him a mysterious message and then disappears. Satyaveer spends most of the movie trying to figure out what was going on and getting involved in crime, politics, and much more than he bargained for.

Abhay Deol seems to make better movie choices than his cousins Sunny and Bobby (another memorable one was his role in Ahista Ahista). Unfortunately, the intelligence of these roles is in inverse proportion to the performance of his movies at the box office. I hope he doesn't get scared off doing good movies. He carries off his role in this movie quite well, that of a jaded government servant bored by everything in his life. The dryness of his life mirrors that of the desert. Gul Panag, who plays his wife in this movie, is very good as well -- although her personality is a little too strong for the role she plays. She doesn't quite fit the small-town housewife mould. The director managed to extract a pretty good performance from all of the other actors as well; there isn't a bad performance in this film.

Manorama is an atmospheric movie, mirroring the dry, slow, soporific desert in which the story is set. The movie does a great job of holding its suspense right until the end. The main problem, as I see it, is with the ending itself. A good mystery unravels in front of the audience like a multiply-wrapped gift as the movie progresses. But Manorama fails in this: while a few tidbits are thrown at the audience throughout the movie, the main mystery is simply explained verbally by Satyaveer at the end.

Nevertheless, the bad ending and sedate pace don't diminish this film much. It is a gripping, highly watchable, well-directed thriller.

Telugu Movie Reviews

Here are sites that do Telugu movie reviews:

1. http://www.idlebrain.com/movie/archive/
   
   The reviews aren't very uniform, not always informative, and I disagree with many of them. But the site seems comprehensive for recent movies.
2. http://www.cinegoer.com/reviews/
   
   The reviews on this one are as uneven as those on Idlebrain; again, it has most recent releases. Careful with this site; it includes extreme spoilers. It reveals not just general plot elements, but the final solution to a suspense or mystery. (Think "the butler did it".)
3. http://www.telugucinema.com/c/publish/cat_index_33.php
   
   This site seems to have better reviews than the previous ones. They still have the style peculiar to Telugu movie reviews: divided up into "Analysis", "Cast", "Performances", and other peculiar categories. The writing is still average. But at least they seem to recognize a hackneyed plot when they see it. A very interesting feature: they list Hollywood movies that inspired each movie!
   

Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na

Watched this movie at the local 'plex yesterday. Jaane Tu... is the story of two friends, just friends, very close friends, who decide to help each other find the ideal partner after graduating from college. The movie is supposed to be post-college, but it's actually reminiscent of the Freddie Prince Jr. type high-school comedies that come out of Hollywood. The flavour of the movie is romantic, escapist fun, and it succeeds very well. It's set in and around Bombay: an airbrushed, extra colourful, attractive Bombay, with attractive, chic people. The humour throughout the movie is nice. You laugh because situations are funny, not because the actors are going out of their way to make fools of themselves. The jokes occur naturally at various points in the movie. There's a lot of romance, and the good-looking, positive-attitude cast draw you in. The flashback narrative style jars occasionally, with focus shifting between the people who are telling the story and the dramatization of the story itself -- but it's not too bad.

The story does need some suspension of analytics. The events, characters and settings are recognizable rip-offs from various Hollywood movies; there's very little innovation going on here. But the director does a great job of blending the elements together: within the universe of the movie, the elements are natural and not jarring. One thing that really struck me was Imran Khan's Freddie Prince Jr. act -- his clothes, hair, behaviour, everything seemed to be a copy! And what's with the wimpy guy KOing a 2nd degree black belt?

Still, nothing is too over the top, and you can immerse yourself in this movie for a good couple of hours of fun, without cringing at some unself-conscious, unintended directorial gaffe like in many other similarly targetted movies.

Dharm

I just watched a very interesting and thoughtful film, "Dharm", directed by Bhavna Talwar and starring Pankaj Kapoor as an orthodox pundit in Varanasi. He is forced to re-examine his orthodoxy as a result of the incidents in the film. The movie is great - nice cinematography, great acting and direction.

I first heard of the film when Talwar filed suit against the board selecting India's entry to the foreign film category in the Oscars, for passing over Dharm and choosing Eklavya instead. Having watched both films, one can see why. Dharm certainly had a better chance than Eklavya of winning that award. There is really no comparison: Dharm is a good film, Eklavya is an embarrassment to watch.

One thing that struck me about the character played by Pankaj Kapoor is his resemblance to the central character in the Telugu film "Shankarabharanam". The stern visage, the absoluteness of belief and action, the act of lighting an aarti in his palm -- are all echoes of J. V. Somayajulu's role in Shankarabharanam. I wonder whether Talwar - and Pankaj Kapoor as well - was influenced by that film?

Hail Rajni!

Hail to Rajnikant! He should be elected Prime Minister of the Cosmos... Some of his powers are listed here (http://www.indianpad.com/story/84375). Check it out. I'm NOT the originator of this. Just in case that disappears, I'm copying it here...

1. There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Rajnikant has allowed to live.

2. Outer space exists because it’s afraid to be on the same planet with Rajnikant.

3. Rajnikant counted to infinity – twice.

4. When Rajnikant does a pushup, he isn’t lifting himself up, he’s pushing the Earth down.

5. Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.

6. Rajnikant doesn’t wear a watch; HE decides what time it is.

7. Rajnikant gave Mona Lisa that smile.

8. Rajnikant can slam a revolving door.

9. There are no races, only countries of people Rajnikant has beaten to different shades of black and blue.

10. Rajnikant’s house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.

11. Rajnikant can divide by zero.

12. Newton’s Third Law is wrong: Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Rajnikant turnaround kick.

13. When taking the GRE, write “Rajnikant” for every answer. You will score over 1600.

14. Rajnikant has 12 moons. One of those moons is the Earth.

15. Rajnikant grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.

16. Archeologists unearthed an old English dictionary dating back to the year 1236. It defined “victim” as “one who has encountered Rajnikant”

17. If you Google search “Rajnikant getting kicked” you will generate zero results. It just doesn’t happen.

18. Rajnikant can drink an entire gallon of milk in thirty-seven seconds.

19. Rajnikant doesn’t bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.

20. It takes Rajnikant 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.

21. The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.

22. There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Rajnikant lives in Chennai.

23. Rajnikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.

24. James Cameron wanted Rajnikant to play the Terminator. However, upon reflection, he realized that would have turned his movie into a documentary, so he went with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

25. Thousands of years ago Rajnikant came across a bear. It was so terrified that it fled north into the arctic. It was also so terrified that all of its decedents now have white hair

What's Wrong With Juhi?

Juhi Chawla used to be a decent actress... or so I thought. When I saw Bhootnath last week (a lacklustre movie), I was shocked at how silly her acting was. It's as though her hiatus has erased her ability to act. Humorous scenes were especially hard for her; her laughter and generally upbeat chirpiness sounded and looked completely forced.

Certainly it has to do with the quality of direction. Juhi scintillates in 3 Deewarein by Nagesh Kukunoor with a restrained performance in which there is not a nuance out of place. 3 Deewarein is a fairly recent film as well. There's nothing surprising in this phenomenon; another example that comes to mind is Manisha Koirala's great performance in Bombay, directed by Mani Ratnam. She was an ordinary actress throughout the rest of her career, but pulled off a quality performance in that film. Juhi must be facing the same problem.

I think it may also have something to do with losing momentum -- Juhi's been out of touch with acting for quite a while now. Maybe it takes some doing to get back into the swing of things.

A final thought: did Juhi actually get worse, or is 1990s acting generally silly by today's standards? Hindi cinema was vibrant and inventive through the 60s and 70s, but took a terrible dip for the worse in the 80s and early 90s. The drought lasted until the mid-90s, after which cinema came alive again. (Some credit this to the government classification as an industry, leading to much easier financing and less underworld involvement.) I can't really compare though, because I don't have any popular early 90s movies at hand.