far-right masculinity

I'm supremely happy to report Sandeep Reddy Vanga has shot himself in the foot crotch with Animal. It is a staggeringly poor film and the one line review of the film has to be what Dheeraj said yesterday, "Hope Vanga will not vangabettudu." Well, mate, he's done exactly that. For starters, I went in assuming that it was going to be problematic. But I kept telling Sravani, who was convinced that it was going to be a complete shit, that for all its faults Arjun Reddy was a very well-made film and that Animal was going to be the same too. I absolutely had no clue that the filmmaking would be as sub-par as this. Where do I start? 

Okay, broadly, there are three major problems: the story, the sex and the violence, and, ofcourse, the misogyny. 

The story is ostensibly of a son who loves his father so much that he's willing to burn the world for his attention and love, and does indeed kill and maul many in the film in a quest to protect and avenge. Which isn't a bad story to explore but there is so little focus or justification on that aspect that for long durations I couldn't really understand why he was wrecking all this havoc. Or like the father himself puts it towards the end, "You are a criminal and use this love for me as an excuse for indulging in those tendencies"; I think a bunch of us in the theatre realised that hours before he did (and with a running time of about 3 hours 21 minutes, I mean hours). The tone is all over the place, veering madly from scene to scene, and I was hard-pressed to understand what emotional register I was supposed to access this on. Its actually a fairly common Telugu film practice, which I find more reflective of incompetence than inspiration (the full meals excuse), and with the large number of Telugu directors making films in Bollywood over the past few years, I think its catching up there too. Ofcourse, it is not necessary that all characters behave in a 'realistic' way in a film, even if it can be precisely defined, but isn't it important that the filmmaker communicate the emotional contours of the film initially and then play within those rules? For instance, even if you are the son of the richest man in the country, can you get away with firing a gun in a college or killing "hundreds" of people in your hotel with a custom-made machine gun? Not one character's actions or reactions seem plausible, even within that context, and they convey nothing about the human condition. All they do is exist as stick characters for Vanga to give his hero an excuse to go behave as selfishly and recklessly as possible, and get away with it.

Towards the beginning of the film, the hero tells the heroine that in an earlier time Alpha males ruled the world and all the womenfolk chose to procreate with them. That made the other men jealous and so they invented poetry. I laughed at the gambit because I felt that it was a provacative statement that would lead onto interesting arcs. But Vanga has nothing interesting to say either about the alphas or the others. His alpha is such a juvenile creation that he can't think of anything except sex, guns or, in a couple of instances, fucking pubes (I never thought I'd have to write that word on this blog, damn!). Take the most alpha obsessed male animals in the entire kingdom, and they'd cringe at the cartoon depictions of sex and violence if you showed them this film. Even those bloody rams would go, "Bro, please, we're more than this". For a second forget the misogyny, this is misandry. He has reduced all men to the occassional fantasies of a 13-year old boy- sex, guns, fast cars, conquest. I found it instructive that the word empire was thrown around a couple of times in the film. I think the portrayal of males in the film is based on medieval myth. This is how I think Vanga believes, say, Genghis Khan's army behaved. With this level of bloodlust, impunity, absence of any morality or thought subtler than the basest of our instincts. Not even medieval fact but myth, because I think even 700 years ago, being a powerful, successful ruler (alpha!) had to be more than being physically strong or rich. Even from a filmmaking perspective, while I suppose he intended the violence to be shocking, it came across more as irritating. I mean you can lift the axe-corridor fight scene from Oldboy but without the commensurate depth in writing, it never goes beyond being a cool, stylistic choice. This is a film that's constantly shouting without having anything interesting to say, that's provacative without being subversive. 

Finally, let's get to the misogyny. Having seen his responses to the flak against Kabir Singh, I expected Vanga to double down on his initial forays towards portrayal of women. I was reluctant to call them his convictions because I didn't know if he genuinely thinks that about women, but after watching this film I'm fairly convinced that even if he thinks that way its not probably a thought-through position. He feels that this kind of characterisation provokes people, gives his film the attention and him the reputation of being an enfant terrible, and he's happy with that arrangement. What Srikanth Srinivasan said so perceptively about Kantara is applicable here; To treat this film "as the expression of a comprehensive worldview is to mischaracterize the work". All women are treated like second-class citizens, sex is conquest and only a reflection of the man's prowess, the patriarchy is unrelenting, there's a pervasive sense of "bros before hoes" and, worst of all, the women embrace and celebrate their position. There were a couple of instances in the film when Bhajji turned to me and laughingly said, "You should've brought Sravani yaar, she'd have loved this scene." Well, she'd have probably flung a slipper at the screen and her action would've been justified. For all this bravado posturing, at some level I think Vanga was quite intimidated by the angry response from feminists to Kabir Singh, because in Animal it is the heroine who slaps the hero, and elevates her husband for being with her in the labour room and subsequently acting as her "nurse, mother, father, gynaecologist.." Having said that though, the heroine, not to mention the hero's sisters or the second heroine or the villain's wives, is treated with such disdain and lack of any importance to her agency that I couldn't help but be repulsed by everyone involved in the making of the film. Like Bhajji, again, so strikingly asked, "What would the director's wife have said after seeing this?"

That's about the film. Now, let's talk about its social ramifications. Instructively, when I wrote about Arjun Reddy 5 years ago, I was keen to get away with the social questions first and trip on the film itself. It is a tribute to all my discussions with Sravani that I'm now capable of looking away from the 'art as art' lens, and see films in a wider context. For all its failings as a film, judging by the responses in the housefull theatre I saw it in, the film will become a hit. The target demographic for this film is 15-30 year old men, and I think they'll be impressed and energised, if not inspired, by a few strong scenes. And as much as I'd like for it to be left at the exit, atleast a few guys will carry some of these thoughts out into the world to act on. While I'm more or less a free speech absolutist, on this point though I must concur with Sravani that this filth is not good for our society and probably shouldn't have been made. Not because it makes arguments that I don't agree with but because it doesn't make particularly interesting or useful arguments. Infact, it doesn't make any arguments except seek to shock and excite at a very shallow level. For all the progress Bollywood has made towards portraying more modern and metrosexual men since the turn of the millennium (thank god for the Farooq Sheikhs and the Amol Palekars, among others, before that), the turn towards an older, toxic form of masculinity is back with us, and it is shameful to see it is being promulgated by Telugu directors. Setting the moral lament aside, I wonder if it is simply an entertainment cyclical trend, with one existing as the mainstream and the other as a sub-stratum, or if it is part of the wider sociocultural milieu in which we extole the "56-inch chest", valorise the hyper-masculinity of the army, or proudly endorse a certain kind of Jat/ Rajput/ Reddy pride. 

Discussing these points with Amma a few minutes ago, I've come to the conclusion that there is no excuse for making this film- not the market, not this is what the audience wants, not artistic freedom, not if not us someone else will. Everyone involved is culpable, including myself which I hope to atone a bit by writing this post, and I really hope there is social pushback. All I can do is end by quoting Ebert, "I hated hated hated this movie".

..కలగలిపి సముద్రమంటారు

స్వధర్మే నిధనం శ్రేయః పరధర్మో భయావహః

చాలా ఏళ్ళ కింద ఫేస్బుక్‌లో స్వర్ణకమలం సినిమా మీద నేనొక పోస్ట్ చదివాను. మీనాక్షి సినిమా అంతా నా మానాన నన్నొదిలెయ్యి మొర్రో అంటున్నా చంద్రం మాత్రం తన వెంటపడుతూ, తను ఎలా బ్రతకాలో ఏం చేయాలో చెప్తూనే ఉంటాడు. చెప్పడమే కాదు తన ప్రమేయం లేకుండా తన జీవితంలో చొరబడి మరీ తన చుట్టూ ఉన్నవాళ్ళని ప్రభావితం చేస్తూ ఆ అమ్మయి మీద కొన్ని చర్యలు impose చేస్తాడు. అలా మీనాక్షి individual rights ని, ఇష్టాయిష్టాలని బేఖాతరు చేసిన వాడిని మనం హీరో అంటున్నాము, ఆ అమ్మాయి చివర్లో పరివర్తన చెందితే అది చూసి చెప్పట్లు కొడుతున్నాం. ఇదెక్కడి న్యాయం? అన్నది ఆ పోస్ట్ సారాంశం. అది చదివి కరెక్టే కదా ఇతను చెబుతున్నది అనిపించింది. చాలా ఏళ్ళ తరవాత మళ్ళీ ఆ ప్రశ్నని ఎదురుకొనేంత ధైర్యము, intellectual tools సమకూరాయి అనుకుంటూ..

మన modern, liberal sensibility నుండి చూస్తే ఆ ఆలోచన నూటికి నూరుపాళ్ళూ సమంజసమే. ఆ అమ్మాయి తన మానాన తనుంటే ఆ అబ్బాయి అలా కాదు, నీలో ఉన్నది నువ్వు గుర్తించలేక పోతున్నావు అని వెంబడిస్తూనే ఉంటాడు. Infact, కాస్త provacativeగా చెప్పాలంటే మనం ఇప్పుడు ఏకిపారేసే ఇడియట్, అర్జున్ రెడ్డీ లాంటి సినిమాలు ఎంత anti-feminist ఓ, ఎంత హీరోయిన్లకు ఏజెన్సీ లేకుండా చేస్తారో ఇదీ అంతే. (ఇక్కడొక counter-factual: ఒకవేళ విశ్వనాథ్‌ గారు పాత్రలు switch చేసి హీరోయిన్ హీరో వెంబడి పడేట్టు చేసుంటే అప్పుడు కూడా మన reception ఇలానే ఉండెదా? లేక ప్రకృతిని పురుషుడు అదుపు చేయాలి అన్న remnant thought మనలో ఉండి మనం చంద్రంలోని righteousnessని సులువుగా అర్థంచేసుకుంటున్నామా?). కానీ దీంట్లో హీరో హీరోయిన్‌తో నాకు నువ్వు కావాలి, నీ ప్రేమ కావాలి అనడు. నీలో అపారమైన విద్వత్తుంది, అది బయటకి తీసుకొచ్చే బాధ్యతుంది అంటాడు.  

అయినా కూడా ఆ విద్వత్తుతో ఏం చేసుకుంటుందో ఆమె విజ్ఞానానికి, more importantly, ఆమె ఇష్టానికి సంబంధించిన విషయం. ఒకటో రెండో సార్లు చెప్పే హక్కు కుటుంబసభ్యులకో, స్నేహితులకో ఉంది కానీ, ముక్కు మొహం తెలియని పరాయివాడికి ఏమాత్రం హక్కు లేదు అన్నది వాదన. "నాకు ఈ కూచిపూళ్ళు, భరతనాట్యాల మీద అస్సలు మక్కువ లేదు. వాటి నుండి నాకు దమ్మిడీ ఆదాయం లేదు, ఎందుకూ పనికిరాని చెప్పట్లు, బిరుదులు తప్ప. దానికన్నా ఒక హోటల్లో concierge లా ఉద్యోగం చేస్తే నాలుగు రాళ్ళు సంపాదించుకోవచ్చు, మంచి బట్టలు కట్టుకొని ముస్తాబవచ్చు, అన్నింటినీ మించి సెలెబ్రిటీస్‌ని దెగ్గరి నుండి చూడొచ్చు. అదే నా ఇష్టం, నా కోరిక." (ఈ పాత్ర సాగర సంగమంలోని బాలకృష్ణకి సరిగ్గా 180°). ఇది చాలా ఆసక్తికరమైన dramatic setup.

ఎమియ శ్రీనివాసన్ అనే తత్వవేత్త The right to sex అనే పుస్తకంలో కోరికలు (desires) గురించి ప్రస్తావిస్తూ ఇలా అంటారు: అవును, liberal society లో ప్రతి వ్యక్తికీ తనకి నచ్చినట్టు బ్రతికే హక్కు ఉంటుంది. అది inalienable right. ఆ హక్కు ఇంకొక మనిషి హక్కులకి అంతరం కలిగించనంతటి వరకు ఎవరైన వాళ్ళకి నచ్చినట్టు ఉండొచ్చు, వాళ్ళ జీవితాన్ని వాళ్ళకి నచ్చినట్టు గడపొచ్చు, వాళ్ళ కోరికలని తీర్చుకోవచ్చు. కానీ మనం అంతటితో ఆగిపోకూడదు. మనం అడగాల్సిన మరి ప్రశ్న: ఆ మనిషికి ఆ కొరిక ఎలా పుట్టింది, ఒక పని చేయాలన్న, ఒకలా ఉండాలన్న, ఒక వస్తువు కావలన్న వాంఛ ఎక్కడినుండి వస్తుంది? అది కూడ తెలుసుకోవాలి.

ఇదే ప్రశ్న మనం మీనక్షిని, "ఏమ్మా నీకెందుకు హోటల్లో concierge గా చేయలనుంది" అనడిగితే ఆమె బహుషా తను చూసి ప్రభావితం అవుతున్న సినిమాలనో, టీవీనో, బయట షోకుగా తిరిగే శ్రీమంతుల వల్లనో అని చెబుతుంది. ఇక్కడ ఒక విషయం స్పష్టం చేయాలి. తనకి డబ్బు సంపాదించి దరిద్రం తప్ప ఇంకేమివన్ని కళల నుండి బయట పడాలి అన్న కోరిక ఎంతుందో, గ్లామరస్‌గా బ్రతకాలి అన్న కోరికా అంతే ఉంది. ఈ ఫీలింగ్స్‌కి diagnosis ఎంతో మంది Marxist thinkers ఇచ్చారు. అందులో ఒకరయిన మార్క్ ఫిషర్ Capitalist Realism అనే పుస్తకంలో ఈ టాపిక్‌ని గాఢంగా పరిశీలిస్తూ Consumerist societies లో desires ని manufacture చేసి images ద్వారా disseminate చేస్తారు అంటారు. అంటే తిండి-గుడ్డ-గూడు-basic మానవ సంబంధాలు కుదిరిన మనుషులు, నెక్స్ట్ ఏంటి? అనే టైంకి అడ్వర్టైస్మెంట్లు ఇది నీకు నెక్స్ట్ కావాల్సింది, ఇది నీ కోరిక, దీనికోసం నువ్వు పరితపించాలి అని వాడి మెదడులో గూడు కట్టుకుంటాయి. అలాంటి కొత్త కోరికలు పుట్టించక పోతే Capitalist Economy చట్రం తిరగడం ఆగిపోతుంది అని వాళ్ళ వాదన.

ఇప్పుడు తను ఎంతగానో పరితపించి పోతున్న concierge ఉద్యోగం దూరం కొండల తీరు; దాంట్లోనూ కష్టాలు లేకపోలేవు అన్న జ్ఞానోదయం మీనాక్షికి ఇప్పుడు కాకపోయినా ఇంకొన్నేళ్ళల్లో తెలుస్తుంది. దాన్నే మనం mid-life crisis అంటాము. అది సహజం. అది తెలియపర్చటానికి చంద్రం అక్కర్లేదు. కానీ ఆ అమ్మయికి ప్రస్తుతం అర్థమయ్యే పరిభాష అదే. అందుకే ఘల్లుఘల్లు పాటలో తన సంతోషం గురించే మాట్లాడతాడు- ఈ చవకైన ఆకర్షణలకు లొంగిపోకు దీనికి ఎన్నో రెట్లు ఆనందం పొందగలిగే మాధ్యమం నీలో ఉంది, దానివైపు దృష్టి పెట్టు అని వాదిస్తాడు. కానీ తన నిజ సంకల్పాన్ని శివపూజకు చిగురించిన పాటలో వెల్లడిస్తాడు. నీ self-fulfillment equation లో సగభాగమే. ఇంకో సగం నువ్వు నిర్వర్తించాల్సిన ధర్మం.  చంద్రం పరితపించేదల్లా ఆ అమ్మయిలో ఉన్న అపారమైన నాట్యసంపత్తి సమాజానికి, దేశానికి అందకుండా పోతుందని. Which raises the more interesting question- What do we owe the world?

ప్రతి సమాజంలో పౌరురాలికి హక్కులెలా ఉంటాయో, బాధ్యతలూ అలానే ఉంటాయి. Traditional Indian thought లో దాన్ని ధర్మం అంటాము. రామాయణం వినేప్పుడు నాకు చాలా ఏళ్ళు ఒక విషయం అర్థం కాలేదు. రాముడు సులువుగా పరిష్కారించ గలిగిన సమస్యలను కూడా ఎందుకు ధర్మం పేరుతో కష్టతరమైన మార్గాన్ని ఎన్నుకున్నాడని. ప్రతి మనిషికీ తన శక్తిని బట్టి, తన అవసరాల బట్టి తనకి నచ్చినట్టుంటూ, కష్టాన్ని తగ్గించుకొని సుఖాన్ని పెంచుకోవాలన్న కోరిక, హక్కు, స్వేఛ్ఛ ఉంటాయన్నది మన core assumption. కానీ దానికన్నా ఇంకో higher ideal కి aspire అయ్యేవాళ్ళ చర్యలు మనకి rational అనిపించవు. ఇది ఎక్కడో పురాణాల్లోని విషయమే కాదు, మన చుట్టూనే ఎంతో మంది ఉంటారు: భారతదేశ సంరక్షణ అన్న abstract concept కోసం యుద్ధంలో పాల్గొనే సైనికుడు, కోవిడ్ వార్డ్లో పనిచేస్తే జబ్బు చేస్తుందని తెలిసినా తన బాధ్యతని నిర్వర్తించే డాక్టారు, తన ప్రాణాన్ని పణంగా పెట్టి ప్రభుత్వానికి వ్యతిరెకమైన ఒక న్యూస్‌ని బయటపెట్టే జర్నలిస్ట్- వీళ్ళందరూ వాళ్ళ ధర్మాన్ని ఫాలో అవుతున్న వాళ్ళే. అంతెందుకు, మన సినిమాల్లో ప్రతీ హీరో చుట్టుపక్కన వాళ్ళ ఆలోచనలని, సూచనలని పక్కన పెట్టి వాడికి కరెక్ట్ అనిపినంచిదే చేస్తాడు. అందుకే వాడు హీరో. ఈ సినిమాలో ఒక తేడా ఏంటంటే ఆలోచన-చర్య అనే రెండు dimensions ఉండేది ఒక మనిషికి కాదు, అవి రెండు పాత్రల్లో చీల్చబడ్డాయి.

మీనాక్షి ప్రపంచానికి ఏం ఋణపడుందని చంద్రం వాదన? Especially, ప్రపంచం తనకి ఏమివ్వలేదని మీనాక్షి అస్తమానం సణుగుతున్నప్పుడు. ఆ అభిప్రాయాన్ని మార్చే ప్రయత్నమే చంద్రం చేస్తూ వస్తాడు. ప్రపంచం/ జీవితం నీకు కావాల్సింది ఇవ్వలేదేమో, కానీ అది ఇచ్చిన ప్రత్యేకమైన బహుమానాన్ని నువ్వు గుర్తించటం లేదు అంటాడు. నీకు కావలసిన దాని పట్ల నీకు వాంఛే కాదు, నీ దగ్గర ఉన్నదాని పట్ల నీకు భక్తి, కృతజ్ఞత ఉండాలి అన్న అభిప్రాయం అతనిది. తను material మాత్రమే చూడగలుగుతోంది, అతను ఆమెకు spiritual చూపించే ప్రయత్నం చేస్తున్నాడు. పద్దెనిమిదేళ్ళు దాటాయి కాబట్టి నా హక్కులు నావీ అన్నది ఆమె సిద్ధాంతం, వయసుతో నిమిత్తం లేదు ఆధ్యాత్మిక పరంగా తను ఇంకా చిన్న పిల్లేనని అతని అభిప్రాయం. ఆ రెండు worldviews మధ్య సంభాషణే సిరివెన్నెల గారి పాటలు కూడా. ప్రేక్షకులుగా మనకి ఆ అమ్మాయి అసహనం, స్వేఛ్ఛాకాంక్ష ఎలా అర్థం అవుతాయో, మీనాక్షికి తన నటవిశ్వరూప సాక్షాత్కారం కలిగించాలనే చంద్రం ఉన్నతమైన అభిలాష మీద కూడా అభిమానం ఏర్పడుతుంది. ఎవరు ఎక్కువ correct?  

And there lies the brilliance of the film. ఇది ఇన్నేళ్ళుగా relevant గా ఉండటానికి కారణం. ఒక good old hero's journey format లో విశ్వనాథ్‌ గారు రెండు competing worldviews యొక్క clash ని ఇమడ్చారు. సినిమా చివర్లో ఒక judgement call చేస్తుంది కానీ దానితో మనం అంగీకరించాల్సిన అవసరం లేదు. (ఇంకో counter-factual: ఒకవేళ భానుప్రియ ధనవంతుల కుటుంబంలో పుట్టుండి, ఇంతే ప్రతిభ ఉండి కూడా నాట్యం చేయటానికి నిరాకరించుంటే? అప్పుడూ చంద్రానికి తన కుటుంబం అంత చనువిచ్చుండేదా?) 

మీనాక్షిలో జన్మతహ (పూర్వ జన్మ సుకృతం అనేవాళ్ళూ ఉండకపోరు) అపారమైన ప్రతిభ ఉంది. తన అక్కకి క్రమశిక్షణ, కళ పట్ల భక్తి, పరిపక్వత ఉన్నా తనకి నాట్యం అబ్బలేదు, సంగీతమే. కానీ తనకి తన ధర్మాన్ని గుర్తించి దానికి తగ్గట్టు బ్రతకాలన్న జ్ఞానం (acceptance అంటారు కొందరు) ఉంది. ఒక చోట, ఒకలా పుట్టినందుకు ఒక పని చేయాలి అన్న నియమాన్ని caste అంటామని, అభినవ సమాజంలో దానికి చోటు లేదని నేనే వాదించాను. కనీ ఇది caste కాదు; అదే అయితే అక్క కూడా నర్తకే అయ్యుండాలి. ఇది purely individual.

అవును మనమందరం individuals ఏ, మన వ్యక్తిగత స్వేఛ్ఛ చాలా ముఖ్యం. కానీ self అనేది ఒక concrete, static entity కాదు; అది porous, dynamic, reflexive. ఇంకో కోణం నుండి చూస్తే మీనాక్షి purely emotional id అయితే, చంద్రం సాక్షాత్కరించిన superego. రెండూ మనలోని కోణాలే. మన కోరికలకీ బాధ్యతలకీ, ఇష్టాలకీ కష్టాలకీ, easy కి right కి మధ్య అనుబంధం అంత తేలిగ్గా తేలదు. ఆ జుగల్బందీయే మానవ తత్వమేమో? 

a porous between : the outside and the inside

What a film watching spree it's been. Starting 05-Jun, Sunday, till 17-Jun, Friday, I watched 15 films in a theatre. 11 of those 15 as part of the Sydney Film Festival, which will hopefully shape up into a nice tradition. Here's a brief write-up on all those films in chronological order:

1. Major (Event Marion, Adelaide) - I walked into Major with a sense of dread. I thought I knew what was coming and while that may have influenced my experience of watching the movie, I believe I did try to give it a chance. I'll be succinct about my reservations- I don't particularly like to watch films about patriots especially in the current Indian political climate. From experience, I've come to believe that most of these mainstream films do less to investigate and enquire the phenomenon than to celebrate unthinkingly in jingiosm. Major wasn't as bad as, say, URI, but it nevertheless tried to isolate an individual from the army and celebrate his achievements which is a major (lol, accidental pun) problem in itself. The reason Indian Army is possibly the most celebrated and respected public institution in India is owed to the fact that the armymen are seen to be apolitical and willing to fight for a cause larger than their individual recognition/ ambition. When a particular individual is pulled out of the collective and glorified, notwithstanding the size of his achievements, it seems like an insult to the greater ideal. 

While this admittedly is a problem with the 'what' of the film, I would still have respected the effort if it had done a good job of portraying what it seemingly set out to do: portray the life of this particular military man. And in that respect too the film failed for two reasons: 1. The film turned the major into a standard Telugu film hero. We know all those attributes- confident, heroic, courageous, sacrificing, self-righteous etc. The problem with writing your hero like that is it becomes imperative to turn everyone around him into enthralled fans or nefarious scoundrels. It is hardly palatable in a normal Telugu hero, unbearable when he's talking down to superiors and colleagues in the army. 2. If Prakash Raj's speech in the climax is any indication, the film wanted "not to remember the way He died but to celebrate the way He lived". The film fails in this attempt too as extending the previous point, what you have is not an individual, with specific desires, talents, idiosyncracies and weaknesses, but a type who exists only to be admired and worshipped. The only bit in the entire movie that piqued by interest was a sequence in the Military Academy where he tries to answer what it means to be a soldier. But instead of working towards an answer, the filmmakers are content to provide a stock response and move on. With due respect to the real Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, the film does no justice to his life and sacrifice.

2. Vikram (Event Marion, Adelaide) - Arambikalama. Now we're talking. When I got into an argument with Shoury about why RRR sucked, he told me that I ought to watch it like a pucca commercial film. Well, Vikram is one way to make one helluva mass film. To take on-board three juggernauts, Fahadh, Sethupathi and Kamal sir, and manage to come out with flying colours is no mean feat. And to do it with such high technical skill and panache is a terrific achievement. Ofcourse, I saw a lot of Nolan influences and Sravani mentioned Lokesh Kangaraj citing Tarantino as an influence (I suppose I now see it in the way Sethupathi's personaility and associates were designed) but it's also very good pucca South Indian masala.

SFF

 3. Uttama (State Theatre) - Amma was keen to watch this Spanish/ Quechua film and I'm glad I accompanied her. I've come to recognise the type - langurous, portraying a larger phenomenon by concentrating on local subjects, long static shots in a village, a tiff between the modern and the traditional, mostly local actors etc. - from my little art film experience but it worked. While the film's a loving portrayal, what deeply stuck were the two lead actors, apparently a real-life couple the director discovered while scouting for the film, who were breathtakingly gorgeous - especially the old lady Sisa. I couldn't stop thinking of Ammamma when looking at her.

4. The Forgiven (Hayden Orpheum) - The first film I booked in this year's festival the moment I saw it directed by John Michael McDonagh. How could I not after The Guard and Calvary. I had to take Sravani as well, telling her since years to watch Calvary ("It's set in Ireland, deals with a murder and has Mad-Eye Moody play the lead - I'm telling you girl, you'll love it"), and we had a 'great fockin time' (channeling my inner McDonagh character). It reminded us how much we seem to enjoy the locale, cultures and foods of the middle-east, and I especially liked the film for its scathing portrayal of the decadent (neo-)colonial elite. While I'd definitely rank his first two films higher, David Henninger is another gobsmackingly brilliant character. Ralph Fiennes is the man.

5. As in Heaven (Hayden Orpheum) - Another one of Amma's picks which I seem to have enjoyed more than she did. Shot in glorious 16mm, the film portrayed one important day in the life of a young girl in a Danish village in the 1880s. One of the film's themes, albeit minor, dealt with the changing social narratives and how science and rationality were slowly taking root in the minds of, atleast, the gentry. I've been thinking on and off about the notion of modernity, the European-kind post-Renaissance/Englightenment, for a couple of years now, thanks primarily to my ACT course, Dr. Velcheru Narayana Rao et al, Dr. Stephen Greenblatt, and reading about/ around Charles Darwin, and the film hinted at some of those preoccupations. I asked the director in the Q&A to shed some light on the larger society which led to one particular character try and make a rational argument but I wasn't satisfied with the answer probably because her film wasn't primary about those ideas.

6. The Music Room (The Art Gallery of New South Wales) - After dropping Amma off at her screeing of Commitment Hasan, I rushed to the Art Gallery to watch a film I was particularly excited about ever since I learnt SFF was doing a Satyajit Ray retrospective. The film was spellbinding in large sections and slightly irritating (owing mostly to the over-the-top acting which I suppose hasn't aged well) in some bits. If I'd seen the film 10, even 5, years ago, I guess Id've been completely enthralled. The story of a decadent zamindar, pawning jewellery to maintain a facade of opulence, would've been right up my alley. I think Ray does a phenomenal job of portraying both the melancholy and the inevitability of a passing age but I couldn't stop asking the question every few minutes - "Why am I watching a film about a character like this"? Yet, I couldn't turn away. I, of all people, don't want to argue that just because something is ugly, or repugnant, a film shouldn't be made about it. If anything, it only highlights the level of Ray's crasftsmanship. And what music, what music, by Ustad Vilayat Khan. I was transported.

7. All that breathes (Event George Street) - I read about all that breathes many months ago in, I think, David Ehrlich's column and was intrigued by it. I'm generally a sucker for anything resembling an Indian ethnographic study and the story of a pair of muslim brothers, Saud and Nadeem, working out of their home clinic in Delhi treating and saving birds seemed too fascinating to be missed. Add to that, when I saw clips from the director Shounak Sen's previous film, Cities of Sleep, I was reminded, for some unclear reason, of Amit Dutta's work and I really wanted to watch the film. So it was a no brainer to book tickets when it showed up in the SFF catalog and the film truly lived upto its hype. We later learned, as part of the Q&A with Nadeem, that it took over 3 years to shoot the film. True to its title, the subject of the film isn't limited to the kites or the clinic, but all living thing that are adapting and trying to survive in the new urban spaces which have encroached on and destroyed traditional wildlands. Its a stunning technical achievement and showed me what the word Anthropocene truly entrails.

"Aasman se panchi tapak rahe hain aur logon ko lagta hain ki sab kuch normal hain" -Mohammad Saud

Also, we spotted Nadeem multiple times in the next few days in one or another of SFF venues and Sravani was keen to ask him to join us for dinner but I thought it would've been a bit too much.

8. Fire of Love (State Theatre) - Rama pointed me to this film when I'd met him for lunch a few weeks ago, and he was so intrigued by the subject that he was planning to come down from Woollongong (where he was set to go for a couple of weeks to babysit a friend's pet rabbit) just to watch it. So I checked it out and both Sravani and I liked the trailer enough to watch it. I liked it but Sravani loved it, the story of a volcanologist couple who worked, and eventually died, together on/ around active volcanoes. Since a large part of  film was put together from the footage they'd shot in the 70s and 80s, the film had that lovely home video aesthetic.

9. The Phantom of the Open (Hayden Orpheum) - One of those feel-good true-but-hardly-believeable stories of individuals who take-on-the-system-with-pluck-and-ingenuity that make for good telefilms to be telecast on weekday afternoons, the movie was funny in parts. The screening was filled with many grey heads, probably from British ancestry, who had a great time.

10. Godland (State Theatre) - A fairly stereotypical European art film dealing topics like colonisation, proselytisation, god's silence, monotheism vs nature worship, Godland nonetheless is an interesting and immersive film. 

(to be continued)

living on the outside

I've tried a few times over the years to try and post more polished work here on the blog. I don't think it has happened even once. Last night I was talking to Amma about wanting to blog of my experience of the Sydney Film Festival (which I'll write about subsequently) and she told me to try and write in a simpler, more accessible form. While I told her I'd try, I also knew that it was unlikely that it'd happen. Primarily, it is because of a problem I have with redrafts. Many of the writing tips I've read stress the importance of editing and redrafting. I understand its importance, I just can't get myself to do it. Probably because I'm too lazy but I'm reluctant to admit that's a big factor here. It seems to be about two different things:

1. Almost none of what I express here is original or beautiful or important or any of the like. I don't mean it with false humility or embarrassment. I feel it in my bones, it is evident to me. The blog is, and has been, a place for me to regularly keep posting on the thoughts and experiences I've had. It is a journal. But then why not just write in a personal diary? I've wrestled with this question quite a bit and have tried writing 'first drafts' in a notebook or a Google Doc to later edit and put up here. That never happens because the piece doesn't seem worthy enough on a second look. Also, if I seem to go off on flights of fancy here, what I write in my notebooks goes beyond the stratosphere. They're just words following words that, more often than not, create a swirl of incoherence. While I, more or less, write the blog for myself, I'm aware that this is a public forum and I must try and be a little more thoughtful. It is the possibility of an audience, of another individual going through this that keeps me conscious enough to try and make sense. By way of analogy, if the notebook is my bedroom, where anything goes and there's no audience, writing here is like sitting in a friend's house after dinner and making conversation. It is not a big social setting for me to feel the expanse of my ignorance and futility acutely but a place I'm comfortable in that also demands a certain social decorum. Then why not make it more accessible like Amma says? That brings it to my second point.

2. Part of it is arrogance, a (misplaced) sense of individuality; A desire to leave behind my most 'authentic' being as if anyone cared. Part of it is the fear of requiring to say something more useful if I expect an audience to pay attention; This way I can say, defensively, that these are idiosyncratic ramblings and I didn't ask for a readership. Part of it is the incredibly stupid desire to preserve anything that comes out of my head because of its 'uniqueness'. Part of it are the mottos from half-remembered writing manifestos I used to read years ago- that Form is Content, that it is a writer's duty to expand the realm of what's possible and acceptable etc. Ultimately though, this blog is my first version of my history. And in that sense, it is an attempt to capture as closely as possible what's going on inside me when I'm writing it. I both care and not care about a readership. I care because I don't want to be trapped in my solipsism, become a madman who's intelligible only to himself. I sometimes do feel happy when I get appreciation for something I've written (including from a surprised future me). And I don't care because I don't think I know enough to address a public, have enough 'content' in me to 'communicate effectively' to others, I don't want to see myself as a sellout especially with how I write. I don't care too much about an audience because I live in a Post-Modern world where the notion of the self has grown so large that people are only thinking of their stories no matter who's they are reading. And in such a world, the notion of writing for an audience disintegrates. Occassionally, I convince myself that what I'm doing here is like a Platonic Dialogue, an act of thinking in public. If anything of value can be gleaned off all this, it is not at the level of the post but at the level of the entire blog. I've tried to explore where a thought comes from and what shapes it takes before leaving my orbit.

I've long dreamt of being a writer and filmmaker. It's my greatest fantasy. Over the years, I've learned that I don't have the talent nor the perseverance to achieve it. Which is fine. Truth be told I was enamoured more by the glamour and celebrity of those identities than the craft and the art themselves. I can't seem to redraft and tinker and improve because I'm no writer. I'm a blogger and that is the process I enjoy, that I think about regularly, that I am happy about. My talent, whatever little I may possess, is not a writerly intelligence but articulation. I'd like to believe I have the ability to think fairly comfortably in words and be able to transcribe them unadulterated. It is the art of conversation, especially with the self, that comes naturally to me. And I'm more than happy to cherish that gift and explore the possibilities it offers. 

The blog like is a little space in a corner in Lamakaan where I'm having a conversation with myself. And if a few people who're going past want to stop and listen in for a few minutes, I'm happy with that. If not, then atleast it gives me a chance to perform in a public space outside of the confines of my own head, almost like an improv actor on stage, and for those minutes and hours, I'm a happy man. I'm content with that arrangement. 

--

I seem to have a thing for seminars and festivals. They give me immense joy. Specifically if they're offline, in the real world. I feel like a kid in numaish. Traversing that physical environment among groups of people, the excitement at the prospect of learning and experiencing something new, and a sense of community (albeit briefly) make me feel extremely alive and invigorated. I'll try to write brief notes on the 9 films I saw, in chronological order, as part of SFF 2021.

1. Memoria - There is a long scene in the first third of the film which I think is filmmaking of the highest order. The Tilda Swinton character is talking with a sound engineer, trying to get him to recreate the deep, booming sound she's been hearing. Weerasethakul handles it with such assured steadiness that I was drawn in so completely into the act of listening to a series of sounds, noticing subtle variations and trying to match it with the original sound. It is an incredible scene. 

I really enjoyed the film despite dozing off for a couple of minutes during its extremely slow third act. It brought a certain calmness to my mind and pushed me to observe and collaborate with the happenings on the screen. Equally importantly, I think it also helped me learn how to watch 'art' cinema. I'd always assumed that when you're deeply involved in a film, you forget the passage of time. Memoria forced me to pass consciously through the thick, viscous texture of time, almost like passing through a wall of jelly. And I felt refreshed at the end of it. There is only one way I can rationalise the enjoyment of Slow Cinema: To live in the modern world is to compulsively seek entertainment and distraction. It is hard to be truly, deeply, relaxingly bored because your smartphone keeps interrupting it. The antidote to intrusive cinema then is involving cinema. And watching Memoria taught me that.

2. The Drover's Wife The Legend of Molly Johnson - I picked this film because it seemed to deal with Australia's colonial past. It wasn't a bad film but I don't think I can recommend it. It was also the most mainstream of the films I saw in the festival. 

3. Mandabi - This 1968 Senegalese film was a conscious choice. Most of the films I generally watch are American, European or Indian, and a film festival seemed like the right place to expand my horizons and try something I won't watch otherwise. I enjoyed the film, mostly its bright, colourful images and Makhouredia Gueye's performance in the lead role. I have immense affection for a certain kind of tropic, sunny landscape (especially Caribbean) and Mandabi had many shots, particularly because they weren't self-consciously reaching out to me for compliments, that cheered me up.

4. Quo Vadis, Aida? - Sravani really wanted to watch this film after she discovered it was about the Srebrenica Massacre which she'd read a bit about a few months ago. I think its an important film, an interesting film and Jasna Duricic was incredible in the lead role. I also have a thing for erstwhile Soviet countries (maybe that also explains my abstract affection for townships) and the physical structures in the film were captivating.

5. Cow - Andreas Arnold's non-narrative documentary on Luma, a cow somewhere in a dairy farm in Britain, was the dare of the festival for me. A large portion of the film (a bit of the time is spent with one of her calves) is either focused on Luma or show us her subjective gaze with no context or voiceover and not even background music in the first half. It was a really good experience, including the queasiness I felt multiple times because of the jerky, intrusive camera angles. Setting aside its political and economic messages, which interestingly the film doesn't tell you and we fill in from our knowledge of news reports, what the film does wonderfully well is not let you avert your gaze away from another being. It forces you to see Luma and to imagine what she must be thinking and feeling. Apart from a shot of the fireworks, that in my opinion was misplaced, the film is a great achievement for keeping you engrossed in the life of a cow for 90 minutes.

6. Where is the friend's house? - Probably my favourite film of the festival. This 1987 Abbas Kiarostami film, my first time actually watching a Kiarostami, is gold. And what a find Babak Ahmadpour is! An incredible film and one I think every kid should be shown. The fable-like quality of the film, its gentle rhythms, the gorgeous score, the characters - just the pleasure of being in the cinema with a couple of hundred others, laughing and gasping together, entranced by the film while also being aware that you're sharing with experience with others, and feeling grateful for the innocence and sense of justice that children seem to possess. The last shot is a work of genius and probably one of the very few instances in my experience as an audience where I felt the entire theatre gasp, cheer and applaud instantaneously.

7. Drive my car - A film I picked because it was based on a Haruki Murakami story. I really enjoyed the film. I thought Ryusuke Hamaguchi was able to capture the psychosexual texture of Murakami's stories really well, especially in the long prologue. Even now, thinking of Oto's scenes is giving me a tingling pleasure. Later the film expanded into a lot more and went places far and wide. I especially loved the segment with the mute artist. While coming out, I felt like having taken a long, fruitful journey. We live our little lives, with our little social circles and assume that that is what the world is like. Good journeys and artworks bring us out of that self-confined space and give us a glimpse of the much, much larger world that we are a part of. And I felt that at the end of this film. 

8. River - Easily the worst film of the list. Probably one of the worst films I've seen in a while. Being the self-proclaimed climate change conscious liberal signaller that I am, it was a no brainer to watch this film that's ostensibly about rivers and how they're being impacted by our actions. The decision was made even easier when I learned that it was written by Robert Macfarlane and narrated by William Defoe. What a waste it was. I came out of the theatre not having learnt one new thing (except one fact about sediments), not felt one genuine emotion (except that of intense irritation) and was left underwhelmed by every one of those desperate-to-awe images. Not one memorable image in a film about nature. The bland, postcardish aesthetic of the images worked only to reinforce my belief that it is not the size or the scale of the spectacle that makes things great or epic but the breadth of the ideas that are being conveyed. Macfarlane's words were so flat, so devoid of feeling, so unimaginative that all of Defoe's pregnant pauses only underscored their triviality. 

9. The Hand of God - The first Paolo Sorrentino film I saw was The Great Beauty in the 2013 edition of the Chennai Film Festival. It was probably the best film I saw there. Most of my favourite artists are my favourites because they seem to be creating art that no one else is. It isn't that they are the best at something; It is that no one else can even comprehend that 'something'. Sorrentino's incredible ability to portray the effervescence of deeply moving aesthetic experience and the melancholy accompanying it is on show again in The Hand of God. This coming-of-age is less a portrayal of that phase in real-time than a middle-aged man's recollections of his last childhood summer with all the accompanying golden hues and deep, heartful laughs. The glorious visuals brought to mind our Italy trip and how the nature of light itself seemed to be so different, so sensuous there.

I've had a great, great ten days, and thanks to Sravani's encouragement watched a couple more films than planned, and I'm still surprised at the unalloyed pleasure I feel at having gone to the theatre and watched so many films. Ah, how fortunate it is to be able to watch, feel, think and discuss art cinema.

AK/DB

My head contains a few fascinating dichotomies- Dravid/Laxman, Federer/Nadal, Anurag/Dibakar etc. Ofcourse, like some mental models, they are less accurate depictions of the world than arbitrary placeholders to interpret and communicate better. Deekshith and I spent hours discussing Dravid/Laxman. We love both of them but it is more interesting, and revealing, to ascribe to them select characteristics and debate on which are more valuable/cool. So, Dravid's the architect, the spine, the selfless, disciplined monk; Laxman's the artist, the lifeblood, the impulsive, imaginative artist. Similarly, Federed/Nadal is the distinction between a gifted genius and a never-say-die hustler¹. Invariably, the approach is reductive. Humans, probably achievers of that level even more so, are way more complex and adaptive than these characters. Yet, narratives need characters and we need narratives to not only understand the world but even build our personalities.

In the world of cinema, we have, say, Nolan/Fincher or Truffaut/Godard or Ray/Ghatak. Let me reiterate: the classifications are almost arbitrary and generally speaking the folks who are discussing like both people but are trying to convince the other, while simultaneously trying to tell themselves, why one is better than the other². My favourite point of departure, and I suspect to a lot of Indian film aficianados of my generation, is Anurag Kashyap/Dibakar Banerjee³. I could spend, and infact have, hours going through their filmographies with an equally passionate friend. 

To set out the rules of the game, let me sketch their personalities from my understanding of their films:

AK is the prodigy, the angry, driven artist. Someone so immensely talented and so in love with films that he managed to crack, and infact reshape, Indian cinema despite being immensely sensitive and genuinely naive in many aspects. It is hard to imagine Anurag being anything other than the filmmaker that he is, someone who learnt films organically and operates intuitively.

DB is the smartass, someone who's always carried a chip on his shoulder for being the cleverest person in the room. His approach to cinema is scientific, almost clinical, mixed with a dash of whimsy and genuine whackiness. He could've earned success in any field, and to a certain extent did, with his fierce intellect and ease of expression. I suspect the primary reason he ended up being a filmmaker was because it afforded him an opportunity to fiddle with his myriad interests.

Both are unarguably immense talents and it is my pleasure and privilege that I've been able to watch their artistic journeys evolve. 

Sandeep aur Pinky faraar is a terrific watch. It gave me a lot to think about, both while watching and later too. There, lies for me, the essence of DB's filmography. I love every one his film's I've watched because they appeal to my intellect, to my aesthetic taste, to my sensibility. I believe I understand his worldview. I respect his craft and am stunned by some imaginative leaps. But I don't really feel anything for the characters. Again, let me be clear, I don't mean it as a complaint. I'm very happy for what he makes. I'm just making an observation. I felt nothing when the lovers are butchered in the masterful first segment of LSD, not when Dr. Ahmadi is killed, not when Salman learns about Reena's affair with Sudhir, and not when Sandeep miscarries⁴. I clearly, indelibly, am aware of the artist behind these machinations. They are almost scientific observations of characters⁵. He works with types to tease out human behaviour and so characters, despite being interesting in themselves, work as part, and only as part, of the narrative.

AK is a master storyteller and while I don't particularly feel much for his characters too, probably because of his total immersion and love for 'mainstream' cinema I feel that his characters frequently exceed their brief and pull the narrative in their directions. Which is why his characters seem so real and emphatic. I'm thinking right now of Badshah Khan in Black Friday and how I genuinely felt for him. Even larger-than-life, seemingly unreal characters like Faizal Khan can't help but reveal their humanity. That is probably why his observations of small-town India seem more sincere than DB's scientific curiosity. AK genuinely seems interested in people for their own sake; DB is happier interpreting them as nodes in much larger social structures. 

Before I let you go, I want to spend a little time comparing AK's short from Bombay Talkies and DB's short from Lust Stories (my favourite film from each anthology)⁶. The ambition of AK's short is so immense, and his cinematic grammar, including the delicious use of songs and slo-mo is so exhilarating, that it felt like a perfect encapsulation of what it means to spend sometime inside his head. This is gutsy, instinctive filmmaking- a small town guide having the courage, and the naivety, to dream that he could meet Amitabh Bachchan. AK thinks of the world as an immense movie theatre. There are so many interesting characters, so many larger-than-life dreams, so many quirks and anxieties and ambitions that it must be extremely hard to choose one story and travel with it long enough to transcribe it into a movie⁷. DB's Lust Stories short film on the other hand is a very intimate, and immensely tragic, story of a man having an affair with his best friend's wife. These are extremely rich, privileged people and yet they are sad, lonely, cynical. DB does not treat the story by amping up the pain, confusion, frustration. They are all self-contained (almost always), intelligent, articulate, yet not smart enough to truly understand, or even attempt to learn, what it is that they're truly feeling and want from life. One way of narrating this story is to turn it into a heightened drama. Another would be to turn it into a bleak, despairing account of a cold, cruel world. Maybe there are other interpretations but I can think of only these two now. DB does neither. He goes the matter-of-fact route. The characters don't transform, they don't learn something about themselves, they don't really evolve, there is no new knowledge being conferred on their beings. They remain who they are- bitter adults living in self-denial. But they're not depressives, they're like many adults. And when they think of their past, they remember it with longing and nostalgia. They laugh easy. The scene of them talking, Sanjay Kapoor eating, Jaideep Ahlawat cutting mangoes when a dead-serious conversations suddenly takes a turn into sheer absurdity ("half-fry, half-fry, half-fry") and they burst out laughing is cinematic gold. Not only does it tell me about those two, and about many men I know including myself, it also tells us how easily we navigate the multitudes of our selves.

A part of me also understands that reducing each movie to its 'essential' scenes or trying to unpack what 'core ideas' the filmmaker is trying to convey in this cinematic contraption is ridiculous. And I hope this doesn't really come off like that. But I use these specific scenes/tropes to interpret and communicate my thoughts and feelings.

Like I said, I love these artists and I'm so grateful to them for their work. Thinking and talking about cinema is one of my life's greatest pleasures.

¹Sportswriters are enviably good at painting characters with a few broad strokes. Rohit Brijnath's essay on Fab Five is a brilliant illustration of that type of writing. The Architect/Artist label comes from, if I remember rightly, Rahul Bhattacharya

²It goes without saying, and yet I feel compelled to spell it out, that this is not similar to guys fighting over who is the bigger star or the more popular politician

³I've been meaning to do this post for years now but this sudden drive comes from having just returned home after watching Sandeep aur Pinky faraar

⁴I'm thinking where this expectation to empathise and feel for/as characters comes from? That's the grammar of mainstream cinema, right?

⁵There's something Kubrickian about his work

⁶I want to spend sometime later thinking about the similarities and differences between the opening, long shots of Mukkabaaz and Sandeep aur Pinky. I don't understand how but if someone had showed me these two shots in isolation, I have a feeling I would've been able to easily point out which was made by DB and which one by AK

⁷To be fair, this insight is not very original. It seems to come largely from what Zoya Akhtar spoke about him in a Rajeev Masand interview before the release of Bombay Talkies

entertainment for the easily contented

I will set aside the many structural and creative problems with Ala Vaikunthapuramulo. Honestly, they are the more forgivable issues. I have, and did have even while watching the film last night, two major problems with its philosophy.

1. OGLING IS NOT ROMANCE. Maybe women who enjoy it exist but I have never known any woman who would want to be with any man who creeps her out. Maybe Pooja Hegde enjoys it or she thinks the character Amulya is the type who finds it flirtatious. Many women won't. Trivikram has always written crappy heroines, usually bimbos, who don't need any reasons to fall in love with his heroes. Infact the one strong woman I can think of in his oeuvre is the Parvathi Melton character in Jalsa who expresses her interest in the hero but is turned down because he accuses her of being intelligent. One argument I can see coming is that these are just characters and he does it to bring out the humour but if he keeps doing it and if it's the only thing he seems to be capable of, it gives an indication that he doesn't see anything beyond it. Even the ostensibly progressive strong heroine in Ala, who built up her own business, needs the hero to help her refuse offers she does not want to accept, cannot tell her father that she does not want to marry the person he chooses, and falls head over heels with one of her new employees who introduces himself by salivating at the sight of her uncovered legs. Telugu film heroes and heroines don't need to talk to her each, don't need to share interests or spar ideas, don't need to bond emotionally to fall in love. Their bonding is expedited by the need for a duet.

2. A person's birth deciding his fate is what we call Casteism. We call a society modern if it tries to negate what we believe is the accident of birth by giving every individual an opportunity to realise their fullest potential. I understand Valmiki who is so filled with jealousy that he wants to torture the kid who is his boss's son. What I don't understand is the pride with which Ramachandra claims Bantu. He is overjoyed to realize and take credit for begetting the hero. What he does not realize that he has failed as a father. To be a father is not to complete the biological requirement but raise the kid to be the person you are proud of. And in that respect Ramachandra is a colossal failure because he is repulsed by the person he raised, his true son. This argument holds if you believe that kids are who we raise them to be, atleast to a large extent. By that account both Ramachandra and his wife have failed and Valmiki, despite his best efforts, and his wife have succeeded.

But if you think that we are who we are born as, choosing nature over nurture, then Ramachandra has a reason to be proud, Bantu is the ordained king and Raj will never be anything but a servant. This is what we call caste. Trivikram could have this viewpoint, and I have no problems with that but that raises the question of why did ARK pick Ramachandra from his 'lowly' state and hand him over the kingship?

I've been told many times earlier that I overthink these things, that a 'commercial' film does not have to or need to get into any discussion of competing ideas, that a large section of the audience comes to a theatre not to think but to 'not think' about their problems. Maybe, but no cultural artefact is created in vacuum. It is, consciously or otherwise, a certain way and those thoughts follow structures. And many things we find problematic, inconsistent or unacceptable also come from those structures. And it is those structures that I want to understand and question.

--

In this wonderful interview with Kunal Karma, Anubhav Sinha compares two different riffs on the concept of societal hierarchy. There is a line in Super 30 that goes, "Raja ka beta raja nahin banega. Raja wohi banega jo haqdaar hain." In Article 15, one character questions the other by asking, "Agar sab log samaan hojayega, toh raja kaun banega" to which the other character replies, "Raja ki zaroorat hi kya hain?".

"Middle class predominant గా తయారవ్వటం అంటే అది భయంకరమైన situation. Middle class is dangerous.. for many things" -కె. శివారెడ్డి గారు

trailer talk

Few things, in my experience, are more euphoric than a well cut trailer. An average film is about 2 hours long. A good filmmaker concentrates years of thought and craft into those 2 hours, which is probably why walking out of a good film can be so impactful. It feels like we've lived a long time in those two hours. But imagine the power of those two hours packed further into a 2-3 minute trailer. Do it well and it gives a high like no other¹.

I grew up on Web 2.0 and had the fortune of accessing film, books and music from across the world, mostly via peer-to-peer networks, for free. The flipside of having access to those enormous mountains of information is that there's the constant background feeling of missing out on something more awesome while doing what I want to do now. As the pile of 'acclaimed' films in my hard disk kept mounting, I felt more and more conflicted between wanting to start watching what I already had and keep looking for more awesome stuff. The method I discovered to ease this anxiety was to watch trailers and read reviews of undiscovered films as a substitute for watching the film. And as I got more addicted to trailers, the less entertaining films themselves seemed. Although as a consequence of all that trailer-watching, I got really good at appreciating well-made trailers and conjecturing the quality of the films²

.
The reason for this discussion right now are a couple of recent trailers that I really liked. So I thought I'd jot down a list of some of my favourite trailers, with explanations of why I like them and what I think of the film, in no particular order. I also hope to keep adding to the list occasionally.

• The two popes
• Top Gun: Maverick
• La Grande Bellezza
• Arjun Reddy
• Haider
• Mukkabaaz
• Skyfall
• Falaknuma Das
• Isle of Dogs
• Marriage Story
• Call my by your name
• The Meyerowitz Stories (New & Updated)
• The King (2019 Netflix)
• Once upon a time in Hollywood
• Vice
• Haraamkhor

I picked these from my YouTube Liked Videos list and looks like the number of films is too long, and just listing them out is quite boring. 

Abandonus indefinitus.

¹ Two quotes come to mind, and I will paraphrase here, when I come across a well made trailer. Ofcourse the quotes themselves maybe imaginary but I remember reading/ hearing something like from the attributed sources: 1. "A novel is to be structured like a musical piece." -Milan Kundera; 2. "Don't make a habit of cutting with the beat, that's boring. Keep it out of sync for as long as you can." -Quentin Tarantino
2 On the other end of the spectrum are people like my friend Ram who, when he knows a film of a favourite director is coming up, refuses to see the poster or trailer of the film lest it be adulterated by the expectation

in the business of making movies

I should've known this before I went. Maybe I did know but didn't want to acknowledge it. Because acknowledging it would've punctured the romance of the thing that's held my fascination for a very long time. Mainstream filmmaking is a business and like any business it is motivated by money. That is its primary consideration, sometimes the only consideration. That doesn't mean the industry is filled with people who're in it only for the money. Compared to other industries, and I'm conjecturing based on my experiences in only a few industries, it probably has a disproportionately large percentage of people wanting to do great work but rules of economics state that where there is an opportunity, albeit very thin, to get rich and famous, a very large number of people with only those motivations will be attracted to it.

Again, it's important for me not to forget the fact that I only spent about a month in one production house in the industry, and hadn't even stepped onto a film set, and that raises a very interesting epistemological question. I know that my assumptions and opinions are based on very limited experience¹ and yet I must make them to function in the world and make decisions. If 'one month and one production house and partial pre-production and maybe ten long conversations on the nature of the business' is too less to pass non-definitive statements on the industry as a whole, how much is enough? I worked with people there who spent 12, 16 and 22 years in the industry respectively and are still waiting for their first break. I heard stories of filmmakers who got an opportunity within 6 months and are now making their third or seventh mediocre movie. I'm not saying this is how it is. I'm just saying this is what I saw and heard and learnt and imagined².

-Filmmaking is hard work. You might say what isn't but this seems harder than average. To make even a fuckall film, a lot of people have to be brought on board and made to do their part. And because the per day cost of production and the chance of losing it all are so high, tempers run high. Mind you I've seen instances of this even in pre-prod which is supposed to be the rosiest phase
-Logistics is 80% of the work³. I don't know how hard it is to act and shoot a scene but the behind-the-scenes work that needs to happen for a team to reach that stage is so much. I spent days just creating Google sheets for locations, actors, properties and then when there's a change in the script, all this has to be verified and edited manually. I was surprised with the amount of manual work of copying and reorganizing data people were doing when a basic web app could've made the organization easier but if the ulterior motive ("Wax on, wax off") is for the assistants to get very comfortable with the script, it works.
-Movies are made for an audience; A paying audience. And the producer never lets anyone forget that. This seems obvious especially if you ask, "Why are so many movies crap?" Over the years, I've been asking a few writer friends if they write for an audience. The answer is an unequivocal no. Maybe there are more mainstream writers (those who live off their publications) who consciously write for an audience but the few people I know write because they enjoy reading and writing, and publishing is almost like sharing with friends. Movies are stories specifically made for an audience. Which is probably why so many filmmakers and producers get it catastrophically wrong yet they continue doing it. Yes, you can't spend crores of rupees (on second thoughts, aren't you already?) making something you want to watch and hope the audience will pay money to watch it but who really knows what the audience wants especially if the audience doesn't know it until she sees it. I'm not saying artists must be elitist snobs who act as tastemakers (though a few do that) but isn't it also arrogance to assume you know what the "audience" wants?
-I write because I like the unspooling of my thoughts. Some write because they are enamoured by their imagination, by their ability to chart character journeys. After the first draft is over, it becomes hard to revisit it not just because of the loss of sheen⁴ but because now something more flashy has caught your attention. To make a film, and maybe to write a novel, demands perseverance and an almost pedantic ability to keep hanging onto and ironing the creass it until it's over. Maybe there is fulfillment in that and there are people who enjoy the process⁵ but it seemed like too much of a rote to me
-At some point, anyone who is serious about his work must sit by himself and face the blank screen. I've been trying to evade this all my life, jumping across boats in the hope that one of them will take me to the place where inspiration will use me as a scribe and I'll find fulfillment but it has been proved to be a vain hope again. Yes, I know that the journey is the reward and art is formed when perspiration meets inspiration and all that. Doesn't make it easier to be reminded once again that you can't run away from yourself⁶.

So yeah, how was my one month working in Tollywood? Now for the facts.

We were setup in First Frame Entertainments office- Krish's company. I saw Krish garu a few times, smiled and greeted and at one point even replied to his question by saying, "లేదు సర్, ఈరోజు శ్రీనీ సర్ రాలేదు". I had brief conversations with Srinivas Avasarala garu, who is quite funny and surprisingly approachable, a few times. I also met the actor Amit Tiwari and other lesser known actors who'd come to the office to meet with other teams. I also shook hands with Sweekar Agasthi but couldn't tell him that I thought C/o Kancharapalem's music was incredible because it seemed inappropriate then. I also lobbied hard (unsucessfully) to cast Abhinav Gomatam in a role and proposed Maanvi Gagroo⁸ when we were discussing prospective heroines and was given horrified looks after quick Google searches. I laughed uncontrollably at some of the production fiascoes when I spent hours listening to stories from the finance manager and assistant directors. Yes, film crew episodes make for phenomenal anecdotes by their nature though the effect is still amplified by the narrative talent and the personas of celebrities we have in our heads. I was aghast on learning of Balakrishna's behaviour during the shoot of Gautamiputra Shatakarni and asked why the industry still cast him if he was that difficult to manage on set. "He has a big market", was the answer. Sagar garu, the director, and I had a few conversations on foreign cinema and he gave me a long list of filmmakers he loves- Rohmer, Fellini, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Billy Wilder are the ones I can recall now. I listened to a one and half hour narration of the script Mahesh Anna has been trying to get produced and had a firsthand experience of how powerful movie narrations can be⁹.

I also saw firsthand how fast time flies when you're trying to get your break and how hard it becomes to go back to normal jobs after you've spent a few years in the industry. I heard a phenomenal short-film story by a Nanda Kishore Emani which he proposed for (sneak peak) Lust Stories in Telugu but  was rejected because it was deemed too scandalous for the Telugu audience. I also met a multi-hyphenate artist, Gautham Bhavaraju, who spent years in the US working on, wait for it, SAP Fiori, which apparently his brother created, and is now writing for a web series. Mealtimes, where quite tasty curry point made full meals was lunch, were a great time to listen to different conversations and make acquaintances. Seemingly, a surprisingly large amount of crew is selected based on reputations, and I was part of a couple of funny scenarios where we threw around names of films which had good 'art direction' and then tried to find the contact number of the art director/ production designer and could not.

It's been a good experience and I had a lot of fun listening to people talk. The work was monotonous especially since they thought I was good with 'Telugu DTP' but I'm also grateful for the fact that I had access to the work that I did, thanks to Bujjimama, because otherwise it'dve taken five years of scrapping around to be sitting where I was. Did I leave too early? Yes, I would've liked to stay till the end of the project but it was getting postponed indefinitely (which seems like the norm in the industry) and I wanted to be back with Sravani. The one month stint has calmed the demons in my head, the romance around the industry is gone and I've realised that even if I want to be making films, I would like to do it on my own terms. That would mean writing stories I wish made and finding a producer who is willing to take the risk. The only positive of working in/ around the industry is access to the network of cast and crew. Given a choice though, I wouldn't spend too much time there because of the nature of the work environment that is erratic, hierarchical and atrociously low-paying probably because the workforce supply to so high. More than that, spending too much time there would mean losing the ability to take outside influences to the stories we tell and the maps of reality we share. Unless you are staggeringly original, it is very easy to be bastardized by the rotating cast of a limited number of worldviews. I think this is true of any industry, just more visible here because they are in the business of creating art and entertainment. 

I've realised that not everyone there is a mad genius teeming with original ideas and like any other work, the percentage of pioneers and originals is little. I think I can be in the business in some capacity thanks to my English skills and non-Telugu Cinema references. I don't think I want to be in the business though. I want to write what interests me and when I am in the mood to write. Is it my loss? Probably is but from what little I've seen, the Telugu film industry is not where I want to work and so the search resumes.

¹ What's funny is that my knowledge of my limited knowledge is also an assumption based on projecting the unknown unknowns based on the known unknowns
² Why then should you listen to me if my stories are neither authoritative nor qualified? I've been posing this question to myself, and a few others who've been asking me to write more often, over the years. I don't have an answer yet and maybe I should not share my thoughts until I find the answer but what if I never find it, or an answer to those questions doesn't exist, or if I'll never escape those questions. Or maybe if I stopped writing now and thought about it, I'll get the answer. But how will I prove, to myself, its veracity. Which brings us back to the main discussion
³ "80% of success is showing-up"
⁴ "No matter how diamond-bright your ideas are dancing in your brain, on paper they are earthbound" -William Goldman
⁵ "[Hitchcock] was often bored or distracted during the actual shooting of a film, because in his mind everything had already been done beforehand" - Jai Arjun Singh
⁶ "Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you"^7
7 Voila! Yet another faux coming-of-age blogpost with a quasi-insightful Rumi quote
⁸ Biswa's writing of the character and Gagroo's portrayal of Shreya have left such an indelible mark on me
⁹ Fun fact: Two people have remarked to me that, "బోయపాటి శ్రీనుగారి నరేషన్ మామూల్గా ఉండదు. నాలుగ్గంటలు చెప్తాడు. అది అయ్యే టయానికి  నీక్కూడా అనిపిస్తది, నీ అమ్మ ఫది కోట్లు అప్పు తెచ్చన్నా ఈనతో సినిమా తీయాలని" 

How do you like Pankaj Tripathi

I remember seeing Pankaj Tripathi for the first time in Gangs of Wasseypur as Sultan; How can I ever forget Nawaz's immortal rendition of "Sultan, M***", with that quiver in his voice, long before Arjun Reddy made the cuss word mainstream. Anyway, I noticed Tripathi in that film, and we know he was very good because if he was anything but he'd have gotten more popular with the thrashing he'd be received on social media for ruining a film that had Manoj Bajpai, Richcha Chaddha and Nawazuddan Siddiqui giving the performance of their lives. He shone brightly but, sadly, everyone else was more eye-catching. The next time I remember seeing him was in Masaan. I must've seen a couple of his other minor performances in the interim, because that was the period when I was truly obsessed with all movies coming from that UP-Bihar, and he is the sort of guy who inevitably is in those movies like Deepak Dobriyal or, during a short period, Pitobash Tripathy.

I was spellbound by his character in Masaan. I didn't like the movie very much but I fell in love with his character. Not just because he vocalized a dream I had since I was a kid, and which I later built on a 27 Down scenario, of just getting in and out of trains, traveling across India with no destination in mind - "Bas train mein chadhenge aur jahaan mann kiya utar jaayenge." - but also because he'd found the essence of what I think of when I think of a middle-aged male government employee from UP and found things in that stereotype to turn it into a living, throbbing being. Sadhya Ji doesn't seem like an easy character to inhabit and I was awestruck by the ease with which he played this gentle, romantic man who may have fought with life at some point but now has completely given up.

JM Coetzee, in his review of VS Naipaul's Half a life, writes that the thing Naipaul hates so much about the India psyche is the fatalistic view of life. The quintessential Indian man, according to him, does not want to take responsibility for his own betterment, does not dream because then he'd have to work towards it and to validate his inactions has invented the most convoluted of explanations in Hindu philosophies. I see some truth in that analysis and I see it manifest in Sathya Ji's character. He proclaims grand truths and poetic visions and yet he lives an unfulfilling life, timid and afraid of life itself. I realize that the previous statement is quite a turn from the earlier statement of him being a "gentle, romantic man" and it is because its hard to pin down his intentions or feelings. When you live long enough away from the core of your being, it becomes hard for you to really remember what it is like to be genuine. Sathya Ji could've had his reasons and maybe he did the noble thing by choosing to live with his father and stay unmarried but atleast part of it was fuelled by his fear and lethargy. The morality he follows is top-down, tradition-oriented, right simply because its socially approved.

It is a compliment to Tripathi's acting that he manages to turn this weakling into a character you care about, sympathise with, maybe even grudgingly admire. Then a few weeks ago I saw him in Barreily ki Barfi, and really was excited to see his performance, but he hardly had an inspiring moment. I really liked how Seema Pahwa infused a bit of charm in her equally small role but that film belonged to Rajkumar Rao. Man, what an actor! BR wrote that Tripathi was excellent in Gurgaon but I won't watch it because the trailer put me off. Talking of trailers though, Sriram Raghavan's Andhadhun's trailer is outstanding.

Off to more movies.

Arjun Reddy is Shiva for the post-millennials

Arjun Reddy is a bravura piece of filmmaking. First, let me get done with the social commentary. Yes, I believe the concerns about how he treats the heroine and the glamourization of alcohol and drugs having an impact on society are real. At 27, I was mesmerised by AR's lifestyle choices so I know there are many guys, kids, like me who'd set AR on their pedestal of role models. And after listening, from Sravani and Sravya, to firsthand stories of stalkers, I can only imagine how many more girls will now be followed and pestered by loons and junkies. Despite all my arguments about idiots always managing to find social proof of their conduct, I know this is yet another film that legitimizes that sort of psycho-lover behaviour. Having said that, it must be accepted that a film is also a reflection of the ways of the society. Based on the voice of my memory, I think I can point to the time when eve-teasing became a heroic thing gaining mainstream acceptance- On the release of Puri Jagannath's Idiot.

Okay, now that we're done with the business of adults, we can get back to talking about the film. Where were we? Yes, AR is ballsy filmmaking if not in its content then in its form. People who called the film realistic need better dictionaries. For some reason mainstream Indian moviegoers think calling a film realistic is paying it a compliment. No film is realistic simply because all art is subjective gaze and observation. Reality is objective, it doesn't give a hoot about your existence. To create art is to project your view onto the indifferent void of the universe. AR is fantasy and it is of a type more dangerous than your vanilla flavour fantasy with wizards and hobbits because it wears the cloak of normalcy. There are two Arjun Reddys in the film- One the filmmaker envies and the other he needs. In one avatar he is the alpha male, the arrogant genius, the charismatic outsider, the hyper confident man swaggering across life. The other is the attention-craving loner, the cranky child who wants his toy back, the egomaniac who needs to be constantly fawned upon. Arjun Reddy is Wake up Sid for the sexually awakened.

The scene where Arjun and Preethi walk into Amith's college has a long, single, steadicam shot that reminded me of Shiva. No wonder Ram Gopal Varma loved it; AR also has many similarities with the peak-Scorsese phase of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. The film Arjun Reddy, like its protagonist, is solipsistic, obsessed with a certain type of masculinity, feeds on the 'weaker' males around to reinforce its idea of masculinity, claims women and is too enthralled by its own image to see clearly that its not as free-spirited as it wants to be. Interestingly, I could also find an exploration of, what Ebert stresses is central to Scorsese's filmmaking, the Madonna-whore complex in Arjun Reddy's relationships with Preethi and Jia.

I love the way the football scene panned out. The sound design throughout the film was magnificent. A part of me questioned the reason for the love story being a flashback. Why couldn't the film just unfold linearly? Isn't the arc more 'complete' then? Self-content to devastated to searching and catharsis to salvation. I had a similar issue with Gamyam when it came out as to why there must be parallel tracks? Is the switching a writing gimmick to ensure the audience's engagement- What Orson Welles so memorably called, "Meanwhile back at the ranch". The dialogues are refreshingly original. Despite the claims of being a bold movie, you can clearly see that it's made for an audience not least because of the titillating cuss words and the obsessive kissing aimed for their shock value. Rahul Ramakrishna's digressions are entertaining but they come at the cost of narrative focus. The most novel thing about Ramu's Shiva was its unrelenting increase in intensity. AR squanders that for a few easy laughs.

Ultimately, Arjun Reddy works because self-destruction is a sight to behold. For the wingless, jumping off a cliff into the abyss can seem like flight. And you are never more fully alive than when you're wrecking your life with complete consciousness. Arjun Reddy is Shiva for the post-millennials. Shiva was relevant to those growing up in the 1980s because it created a reluctant hero who wears his power like a thorny crown, who understands that one cannot destroy the villain without turning into someone like him (what Nolan keeps trumpeting in The Dark Knight). AR is for the new generation of adolescents who don't need an external villain, who are so enamoured by themselves that all their suffering will be self-created; For those of us who feed ravenously from our support system without ever giving anything back.

I'm glad a film moved me so much that I was pushed out of languor to write about it. I'm beginning to believe that those who write about film or talk about books are the ones who are afraid to write down their own books and make their own films. Their life is not fertile enough for them (us?) to plant their imagination, to write a song. It is great that so many people had an objection with the explicit content of Arjun Reddy; That doesn't mean they have a right to stop it. If anything, it should motivate them to create something more powerful based on how they think the world ought to be. To create art is to be wonderfully alive, it is to wrestle and dance with life to create something beautiful, original, real, concrete.

We have been tuned by narrative art to expect epiphanies from life. By the end of a 3-hour film, the hero has gained enlightenment. And that sets him free. We want that, we need that, we crave for that liberation. So we emulate his actions and recreate those settings in the hope that we'll can escape the tyranny of our doubt-filled, cowardly brains. (Digression: I just realized that the protagonist of Tom McCarthy's Remainder is in the same quest, only the narrative comes for his previous life instead of an external source). See, this is what we want. Eureka moments. For everything to make sense. I don't know if humans desire certainty and control because we are wired that way or we have been rewired for insisting on walking in that direction, yet another chicken and egg problem, but I think we don't crave for clarity as much as the moment when Clarity springs up, when all molecules rearrange themselves to show you that what you thought was real, hoped was real, is indeed real. And then the high abates and we go back to being petty, cribbing beings. Until we're not. Wash, Rinse, Repeat. All enlightenment, then, is extraordinary delusion. Great movies are the ones that bypass our bullshit meters to trigger dopamine surges. And I will hold onto this thought until I encounter another beautiful piece of art that'll, if only temporarily, quell this belief.

To art.

ఆడెందుకు తీస్తాడో, నేనెందుకు చూస్తానో..

This post has been taking shape in my mind since the first minute of A.. Aa. It was supposed to be a longer, more elaborate criticism of everything I find fucked about Telugu Cinema, and specifically Trivikram's work, but this came more out of feeling than thought. So it's quite befuddling for the uninitiated but I guess I've done enough Trivikram ranting to expand further. As per Gattu's suggestion I sent it to ChaiBisket but after 36 hours of silence, I guess they don't care for it. So here's another post that finds place in my own little lamakaan.

-

అ..ఆ లో ఒక డైలాగ్ ఉంది- వాడికి సిగ్గు కి స్పెల్లింగ్ తెలీదు, మర్యాదకి మీనింగ్ తెలీదు, నవ్వు కి టైమింగ్ తెలీదు అని. అలానే త్రివిక్రం లేటెస్ట్ సినిమాలకు సెన్స్ తెలీదు. Structure ఉండదు, form అవసరంలేదు, tone అంటే అర్థం కూడా తెలీదు. అయినా మనం చూస్తాం. ఎందుకంటే మనకి బుద్ధిలేదు.

ఇదో సినిమా, మళ్ళీ దీనికొక హిట్ టాకు. ఒకప్పుడు నేను త్రివిక్రం వీరాభిమానిని. రచయిత అంటే ఇలా ఉండాల్రా అనిపించేవాడు. He was my generation's RGV. And then like RGV, he lost his way. కనీసం రాము ఏం చేసినా రాము మార్కుంటుంది. ఒరిజినలిటీ ఉంటుంది. రాము సినిమాల్లో, more often than not, నిజయితీ ఉంటుంది, they follow atleast his own fucked up logic. త్రివిక్రం, and ఈ మాట అనటం నాకు చాలా బాధాకలిగిస్తున్న విషయం, sellout అయిపోయాడు.

త్రివిక్రం కెరీర్ ని మూడు సెక్షన్లలో విభజించొచ్చు:

The breathtaking ascent- స్వయంవరం, చిరునవ్వుతో తో తెలుగు ప్రేక్షకులకి షాక్. ఇలా కూడా రాయొచ్చా అని. నువ్వు నాకు నచ్చావ్, మల్లీశ్వరి తో రాష్ట్రం లో ప్రతి కుటుంబంలో ఒక వ్యక్తి అయిపోయాడు. నువ్వే నువ్వే, అతడు తో దర్శకుడిగా సక్సెస్ సాధించాడు.

The surprising plateau- జల్సా, ఖలేజా, జులాయి. టి.వి. లో ఈ సినిమాలు ఎప్పుడొచ్చినా జనాలు టీ.వీ లకు అతుక్కుపోతారు. గొప్ప సినిమాలు కావు, కానీ self-sustained సీన్ల పరంగా చూస్తే stunningly accomplished. Despite his best attempts to undermine his own voice, his genius can't help but seep through.

The unsought decline- ఎవ్వడూ దిగజారాలని కోరడు. కానీ అది సృష్టి ధర్మం. పైకెళ్ళింది కిందికి రావాల్సిందే. But what's so surprising about Trivikram's disastrous last two films is the sheer lack of his essence. నిన్న నా ఫ్రెండు థియేటర్ నుండి బయటికొస్తునప్పుడన్నాడు, "అసలు త్రివిక్రం సినిమాలానే లేదు రా" అని. ఒప్పుకున్నా ఒప్పుకోకపోయినా, మన auteurs వీళ్ళే- పూరీ జగన్నాధ్, త్రివిక్రం శ్రీనివాస్, రవి బాబు, శ్రీను వైట్ల. వీళ్ళ సినిమాలు రెండు నిమిషాలు చుస్తే వీళ్ళది అని తెలిసిపోతుంది. There is a tonal consistency. ప్రపంచాన్ని చూసే ధోరణి ఇట్టే పట్టేయొచ్చు. త్రివిక్రం అనే వ్యక్తిని తన సినిమాల ద్వారా అర్థం చేసుకోవాలంటే ఇవి అలవోకగా కనబడే లక్షణాలు- Irreverence to authority, deep-rooted middle class values, hyper-confident protagonists, కోపాన్ని వ్యంగ్యం లో కి మార్చగలిగే పాత్రలు, మొండి తనానికీ- మూర్ఖత్వానికీ- అసమర్థత కి మధ్యలో కొట్టి మిట్టాడే హీరోయిన్లు. త్రివిక్రం బుర్రలోనుండి చూస్తే ప్రపంచం ఇలా కనిపిస్తుందెమో. s/o సత్యమూరి, అ..ఆ లో కొన్ని కోణాలు పరుధులు దాటుకు పోయాయి, కొన్ని మొత్తానికే మాయం అయిపోయాయ్.

ఒకప్పుడు త్రివిక్రం సినిమా అంటే దాని గురించి మాట్లాడీ, మాట్లాడీ అమ్మకీ, ఫ్రెండ్స్ కి పిచ్చి లేపేవాణ్ణి. జల్సా లో నక్సలైట్ కథకు చూపిన insensitivity తో కోపం మొదలైంది. ఖలేజాలో తన వేలితో తన కంట్లోనే పొడుచుకున్న చర్య కు చిరాకేసింది. జులాయి సబ్జెక్ట్ కాస్త frivolous గా ఉండటంతో పెద్దగా ఏమనిపించలేదు. కానీ s/o సత్యమూర్తి, అ..ఆ లతో "నీతి" సినిమాల్లోకి మళ్ళీ అడుగుపెట్టి నాశనం చేయటంతో థియేటర్ లో కూర్చున్నంత సేపు కచ్చ, కడుపుమంట తో గొణుగుతూ పక్కనున్న వాళ్ళని ఇబ్బంది పెట్టాను. ఇలాంటి సినిమా ఇంకోటి తీస్తే ఆ లెవెల్ కూడా దాటేసి పట్టించుకోవటం మానేస్తానేమొ.

ఎదో fantasy, escapist ప్రపంచాల్లో జరిగే తెలుగు సినిమా కథలను తిరిగి నిజమయిన పాత్రలతో, సన్నివేషాలతో, సంభాషణలతో నింపింది ఈ త్రివిక్రముడే. కానీ ఇప్పుడు తనే ఇలాంటి దిక్కుమాలిన సినిమాలు తీస్తూంటే బాధ ఆపుకోలేక పెడుతున్న ఘోష ఇదంతా. 

గురుగారూ, ఇది మీరు కాదు. ఇవి మీ సినిమాలు కావు. ఈ సినీ ప్రస్థానంలో మిమ్మల్ని మీరెక్కడో కోల్పోయారు. దయచేసి మీకోసం కాకపోయినా, తెలుగు ప్రజల కోసం ఆ అన్వేషణ ఆరంభించడి. మీరు చెత్త సినిమాలు తీసినా పర్లేదు, కానీ honest సినిమాలు తీయండి. మీరు మాకు ఎలా బ్రతకాలో చెప్పనవసరం లేదు (ఇప్పుడా భారం శ్రీకాంత్ అడ్డాల తన మీద వేసుకున్నాడుగా), ఎలా బ్రతుకుతున్నామో చెబితే చాలు.

-ఒకప్పటి అభిమాని
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The above post is, in a lot of ways, a spiritual successor to this facebook note published on Sept 27, 2013:

start chese mundu, okati dhruvikarinchali: nenu pawak kalyan hater ni kadu. panjaa flop talk ochinappudu i was one of it's most vocal supporters. ipudu matladadam. atharintiki daredi anedi, despite tollywood's low standards, is a bad film. star image ki thagattu commercial film rayali, fans ni satisfy cheyali antaru konthamandi.. i totally understand, nenu david lynch ni expect chesi vellaledu.. but naa uddesham lo, commercial formula ( hero-villain definitive characterization, 6 good songs, good looking heroine, first day fans expectation pulse telisina director, simple story ni dramatic ga cheppagalagadam and larger-than-life image unna hero comedians ni yedavalni cheyadam ) use chestu engaging cinema teeyagala samarthudu consistent ga rajamouli matrame..

and i loved gabbar singh, despite having watched dabangg.. simply because harish shankar ki telusu thanu elanti cinema teestunnado, fans expectation ento, and aa genre ki stick ayyadu.. again, gabbar singh tv lo bore kodathadi but strictly for theatre, its a very clever piece of work.. on the other hand, trivikram's forte has always been tv viewership.. even his best directorial ventures ( for me: athadu, khaleja ) are better when I'm watching them at home than at the theatre.. kishore indaka annatu, naaku trivikram meeda etuvanti paga ledu, and yes, naaku khaleja huge disappointment in the theatre but the reasons are not the same ( antha manchi story ni cheap comedy petti dilute chesadu ani baadha ).. and this is for all trivikram films, his biggest weakness is that he is a very, very clever dialogue writer. which is great but dialogue, no matter how good, should always stay subservient to the story. thana best writing till date are swayamvaram and chirunavvutho ( dialogue suits characters and keep the story moving forward ). as long as he was dealing with light-hearted comedies ( malleswari, manmadhudu, julayi ) , it was great.. but then the problem crept in when he started writing great stories ( nuvvu naku nachav, nuvve nuvve, khaleja ).. i love those films but sadly the dialogues are so awesome that people didn't even get below the surface to dig at the main story ( engagement taravata ammai preminchocha, prema ki possessiveness ki line ekkada, devudu antey enti ).. maybe adhi thana thappu kaademo, audience ki antha manchi story recognise chese capacity ledemo.. kaani jai chiranjeeva is inexcusable screenwriting ( oka chinna pilla chanipoindi ani paga teerchukovadaniki ochina mavayya sameera reddy tho romance cheyadam ento naaku artham kaledu).. of his other noteworthy films, athadu and jalsa are purely star-driven enterprises..

ee sodhi antha ipudu cheppindi oka context provide cheyadaniki.. ipudu atharintiki daaredi.. Pawan Kalyan's acting is unmentionworthy ( PK is not a great actor but a brilliant screen presence, very underutilised in this movie ).. unna comedy kuda extremely repetitive, annoying and lifeless.. inko actor gurinchi cheppalsina avasaram kuda ledu.. DSP music chaala bagundi, but paatala picturization redundant.. story- there's hardly a story, illu odilesina athaki kallu teripinchi intiki tevali, thatha kosam.. screenplay- trivikram's screenplays are usually very patchy but this is easily the worst.. scenes enduku unnayo, asalu vaativalla eam use undo naaku emi artham kaledu.. ( gabbar singh type comedy tevadaniki try chesadu, but asalu pandaledu.. srinu vaitla chethlo aa gauthama-indra-ahalya scene inka baga pandedi anipichindi ).. and direction.. i have nothing to say, but i can rate trivikram's directorials in the following descending order: Athadu, Nuvve Nuvve, Jalsa, Khaleja, Julayi, Atharintiki Daaredi..daani batti artham cheskondi.. a big, big disappointment from a writer i hugely admired once..

cinema antey entertaining ga undali antaru- antey ento naaku telidu. naa uddeshamlo cinema navvinchali, edipinchali, aalochimpacheyali, mana kalalaku fuel kavali.. but annitini minchi manalni involve cheyali.. cinema anteyney abadham.. manaki telusu thera meeda chupinchedi nijam kadani, natana ani.. jeevithanni theatre bayata suspend chesi kalala lokam loniki praveshinchedi jeevitha saaransham telusukodaniki.. like someone once said, art is a lie that leads us to the truth.. fans cinema chusi adirindi antunnaru, naaku enduko artham kavatledu.. gabbar singh definite ga goppa cinema kadu, kaani daanini theatre lo chudadam, fans madhyalo, pandaga laga anipichindi.. and nenu chaala enjoy chesanu.. panjaa is a superior film, and i liked it, though i understand why fans were disappointed... but AD is a failure either way.. PK ishtam antey, thanani oka laga chudadaniki ishtapadatharu fans.. adi sahajam.. kani i like that he's experimented, johnny, panjaa, puli ( shitty movie, but a try nevertheless ).. kani appudappudu anipistundu, tana stardom tanaki oka rakamaina prison emo ani..

mana desham lo problem enti antey manam politics ni cinema laga chustam, cinema ni political event ga marchestam.. anduke mana deggara politicians rockstars laga ishtam ochindi chestaru, kani mana heroes ki manam oka giri geesesi stars ani katti padestam.. politician ki ideology undali, artist ki conviction undali.. kala lo nijayithi untey, adi manani challenge chestundi, elevate chestundi, involve chestundi, inspire chestundi.. kaani ala cheyadaniki kalakarudiki chance ichey dammu manalo unda?

On Trivikram Srinivas, again

I was contacted a few months ago by a lady who was working with Trivikram to set up his official website. She had stumbled across this blog while searching for anyone who wrote on Trivikram and we had a couple of long telephonic conversations where she told me how there was more to Trivikram than was evident from his films and that that website was going to act as a two-way channel- for Trivikram to discuss things that were close to his heart and for his fans to approach him with their thoughts and opinions.

Given that I am excited with any serious discussion of Telugu Cinema and Literature, I loved the idea, especially since Trivikram has always been very vocal about his literary leanings and since this lady, Indira, was a journalist who seemed very passionate about Trivikram. I also introduced her to Neo, who I knew was as big a Trivikram fan as anyone. We had a few brain-storming discussions as to what sort of sections were to be included and I'd requested for a long Art of Fiction like conversation with the man himself.

For some reason the project fell apart, though the website is live now. She'd asked me to give her content for the About page, and I was sent quite some material and a deadline of two days. And the following is what I wrote. Admittedly, there are whiffs of sycophancy, particularly because I knew Trivikram was going to read and approve it, but most of the feelings were true; Atleast at one point in time. I still admire Trivikram for the work he's done and the image he's built, but mostly because he brought a certain respectability to intellect in an industry where oligarchic idiots rein. And for making writing sexy.

To Trivikram Srinivas: Maatala Mantrikudu, Sahitya Pipaasi, Gaddamunna Medhavi.

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About

Akella Naga Srinivas, popularly known as Trivikram, is among the most popular and acclaimed filmakers working in the Telugu Film Industry, Tollywood. Hailed by his legions of admirers as 'Maatala Mantrikudu', or the Wizard of Words, he started his career in the film industry as a dialogue and screenplay writer, and soon became the most sought after scriptwriter in the industry. Known for his famous 'punch dialogues', where the exchange of words between characters resembles a rapid chess match, his popularity as a writer was unprecedented to the extent where for the first time ever audience flocked to the theaters not because of the hero or the director, but because of the writer.

Hailing from a middle-class Brahmin family, he brought a certain literary sensibility to his films, and though for the most part he has made family entertainers, an undercurrent of social criticism runs beneath the surface and his films deal with important issues like marriage, tradition, social hierarchy, godhood, familial bonds among other things. For an audience becoming increasingly alienated with the characters portrayed on screen, his scripts have become life-affirming elixir. His characters are everyday people, their conversations real and their issues and conflicts are handled with deserving gravitas.

Not just as a writer, but as a director too, Trivikram has been in the forefront of the change that Tollywood has been seeing in the last decade-and-a-half. His films are technically superior, comparable to World Cinema which he deeply admires, and the action sequences in his films are equivalent to Hollywood films. Apart from his prolific output as a writer and a director, he is also a lyricist and a much sought after public speaker.

All of this, though, does not do justice to his immense talent and his influence on the Telugu culture, and it is not an exaggeration to say that people will talk about his work for decades to come. It is said that the most infallible indicator of the influence of an artist's work is the impact it has on the everyday lives of the people in the society. Trivikram's writing has seeped so deeply into Telugu people's lives that his most iconic lines are less film dialogues and more freestanding aphorisms. And he continues to do more inspiring work.

His legacy is already assured. The words will live on.

I review

Written on request.

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Shankar’s I has been one of the most anticipated films over the last two years. Apart from the promise of Shankar’s usual high-stakes drama, and the gargantuan budget, another primary reason for such high expectations from the cinema-loving crowd was the brilliant Aparichitudu, which garnered so much praise that it took Shankar and Vikram’s career to stratospheric heights. Though it’s another matter that Vikram wasn’t able to capitalize on the acclaim garnered by his three different performances in the film.

After the first look of the film was released, with Vikram made up as the disfigured hunchback, and news of his extreme physical transformations came to the fore, people started expecting Shankar’s return to form after his disastrous remake of 3 Idiots, Snehitudu. Both Shankar and Vikram needed a big hit to re-achieve their lost glory. And the buzz generated by the film before the release indicated a film that was world-class in every way- Music by AR Rahman, Cinematography by PC Sreeram, Make-up and special effects by Weta Workshop and add all that to Shankar’s reputation as the Indian James Cameron.

But eventually, it has to be said, the film ended up being a big disappointment. The great film critic Roger Ebert, talking about epic films, said that “the word ‘epic ‘ refers not to the cost of the elaborate production, but to the size of ideas and vision”. And big ideas is what I does not have. It is a reworking of the Beauty and the Beast tale, where if a woman who’s fallen in love with a handsome young man will still love him after his extreme disfigurement. And since that idea alone cannot be used to expand into a three-hour, patience draining film, Shankar decides to throw in a romantic track in China that is unimaginatively flat, a comedy sequence with a transgender that is handled with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, a sweet-talking pedophilic doctor and a bunch of villains who’s characterizations are so clichéd and their motivations so stupid that the director himself didn’t try to make them convincing. And for all of Vikram’s public announcements of the weight loss and other physical duress, his performance leaves one with nothing- Not pity, not admiration, not anger. For all the dedication an actor brings to a role, the pay-off has to be within the film, add an extra dimension of believability to the character. When Christian Bale lost all that weight for The Machinist, he didn’t do it just so that people could talk about his dedication as a Method actor, but because it was so central to his role as the insomniac. For a lot of actors now, going through that physical transformation is to gain admiration and some added publicity for the film. Sadly for Vikram, if his director had taken half that effort to shape out an interesting character in a better story, his efforts wouldn’t have had to go in vain- Point in case, Aparichitudu.

But still, despite the clichéd story, the first half with its non-linear screenplay keeps the viewer engaged in the hope of a better second half. But it is evident from the beginning of the second half that Shankar has nowhere to go. He’s exhausted of ideas, so he chooses to make us squirm with his overtly graphic portrayals of villains who’ve been grotesquely defaced by the hero’s ploys. If there was method to this madness, it might still have been palatable, but Shankar seems to take a perverse enjoyment in making the audience flinch. The gimmicks are an end in itself. Which is what makes the film so worthy of contempt. It is not a film that failed while reaching for great heights. It is a film so lacking in imagination and purpose that it wears its incompetence proudly.

The saving grace of the film is Amy Jackson’s revelatory performance which, though by no means nuanced, is surprisingly heartfelt. AR Rahman seems to have had a ball composing music and PC Sreeram framed some glorious shots. I can be recommended for those who find pleasure in watching gore but for everyone else, it’s better avoided. I is not a bad film as much as a film made in poor taste.

Karthikeya review

Written on request.

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As Telugu film viewers, we generally lament at the lack of innovation in our industry. Despite being one of the richest film industries in the country and having an extremely diverse cultural heritage, it is disappointing to admit that we hardly venture into new storytelling forms that reflect our changing times. Instead, we are content to stick to the same old stories, just dabbling with them at the surface level, despite knowing that there is no surefire formula to success. In times like these, Karthikeya comes as a whiff of fresh air.

Thriller, as a film genre, is a fantastic format to transport the viewer straightaway into the realm of the film because nothing piques human interest like the smell of an unsolved mystery. By giving the viewers the chance to play detective along with the protagonist, it makes us question the actions and motivations of the characters as well as our own biases and fixations. As alluring as that may sound, it also takes good craftsmanship and an intuitive ability to grasp the viewers’ thought process to shape a good thriller. If the director reveals too less until the end, the audience feels cheated; Reveal too much straightaway and the final revelation will not be as astonishing. Give too many red herrings and the process turns boring; Too few and the stakes won’t be high enough. Predictably, it is a tightrope walk.

Debutant director Chandoo Mondeti shows both confidence and control in the way Karthikeya unravels itself. The story deals with a thousand-year old temple, whose deity until recently had been considered very powerful, but after a series of deaths within its premises, is deemed cursed and closed down. Admittedly, a very novel premise and the film obligatorily opens with the death of a person who claims he has all the answers. The film then shifts to Karthikeya ( Nikhil Siddharth ), a rationalist who believes all mysteries can be solved and has enough courage to see through most of them. Throw in a pretty girl, two sidekicks, a little kid, experts in Mythology and Science, a madman, seedy characters, some brilliant digital paintings, within a running time of two hours, and you have a film that is fun and engrossing. It could have been much more, had the filmmaker stayed longer with his prime material and taken us deeper into that part of the story, but instead of playing as a full blown, edge-of-your-seat thriller, Karthikeya’s intention is to offer family entertainment, a la Full Meals, with portions of comedy, romance and suspense to cater to all sections of audience. And that it does very well. The comedy portions with Praveen and Sathya are fun, Swathi looks pretty and fits well into her role, Tanikella Bharani, Rao Ramesh and Kishore are competent, and special mention must be made of Nikhil who, after last year’s Swamy Ra Ra and now Karthikeya, is paving a niche path for himself.

Shekhar Chandra’s tunes are melodious as always and he does a good job using sound to induce suspense. Karthik Ghattamaneni’s cinematography uses interesting angles to arouse discomfort and Karthika Srinivas’s editing is brisk, though in the end one couldn’t help but feel the film rushing by. Karthikeya is a well-made film, and though it would be easy to nitpick its little faults, like a couple of loose strands and its choice not to dwell deeper into the main story, the filmmakers must also be appreciated for experimenting with a new concept and for making a film that is not only good, clean fun but also leaves the viewer something to ponder over after walking out of the theatre. Now, what could be a bigger compliment for any film.