Idi Katha Kaadu (1979)

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K Balachander’s 1979 movie is a remake of his own film, Avargal. Jayasudha and Kamal Hassan star and Chiranjeevi plays an important supporting role. It’s a sensitive and even handed look at relationships and standing up for yourself. The film is on YouTube without subtitles so bear with me as I have done my best to interpret what was going on.

Suhasini (Jayasudha) and Bharani (Sarath Babu) fall in love through a montage of the arts – he plays flute and she dances. They have a nice bond, he is laid back and she is very playful. But Bharani leaves town for work and he never replies to her letters. Sugunakar Rao (Chiranjeevi) moves in on Suhasini. He is superficially charming but once they are married he is controlling and abusive. In due course she leaves him and gets a divorce. He is clearly bitter but she leaves town to start her new life with their child. She finds an office job and makes new friends. Her coworker Janardhan/Johnny (Kamal Hassan) is particularly kind and considerate. He’s a ventriloquist so that set some alarm bells off because…just because. But Bharani is still on her mind. And now, he is just across the way as the apartment Johnny helps her find is right near his place. There is definite interest on both sides but she is more cautious and has a child now, and he lacks any sense of urgency and he has his friend Gayatri (Saritha) to consider too. And then Sugunakar Rao is back in the picture as Suhasini’s boss. He wants to reconcile and seems to have reformed. Suhasini has to decide what to do with her life.

I really enjoyed watching Jayasudha’s performance and Suhasini as a character. And on a very shallow note, her print sarees are wonderful too. She’s a lively young woman with a passion for dance and music, but she’s quite happy to get married sensibly because that’s what you do. When Sugunakar turns out to be a total arsehole, she does her best to tolerate him. But when he pushes her too far, she pushes back. In one scene she fantasises about stabbing him in the groin with his darts, and she does tell him to his face what she thinks of his behaviour. When she moves back to Chennai she seems to be accepted and liked in her new circles. Having a child isn’t a barrier to her getting a job and she makes the most of her new start. I got the impression Suhasini is not completely open about her situation but she certainly isn’t hanging on to her past. People, especially women, help each other in both big and small ways. Suhasini acquires a mysterious new maid (Leelavathi), actually her mother-in-law who had never met her.

Chiranjeevi is impressive as the horrible Sugunakar Rao. I think Chiru got on the bad side of the wardrobe team because those pants…He is charming but only as long as he gets his own way. He criticises Suhasini constantly and threatens her, smiling as he throws darts at her head or snarling as he tells her to give up dancing. One thing I always appreciate in these negative roles that Chiru took in his early career is that he doesn’t hold back on showing the full range of emotions, no matter how unlikeable or ugly. He is a fine dramatic actor under all the Megastar trappings. His mother (Leelavathi) finds out from a servant that the marriage was over and that Suhasini and their son were in another city. I couldn’t work out how he managed to keep everyone in the dark but I think he might have told her Suhasini was dead. Anyway, despite the filmi tradition that demands a Ma must support her boy, she is firmly in Team Suhasini and keeps working secretly for her daughter-in-law. That is how bad Sugunakar Rao is. He recognises mild and indecisive Bharani as a threat so he plants a seed that Bharani and Gayatri should marry. He belittles Johnny as he doesn’t compute the nice poor guy could be a rival. When he tries to ingratiate himself with Suhasini again he is almost believable as he clucks over her health and sends her fresh fruits. Almost.

Johnny (Kamal Hassan) has taken a shine to Suhasini too, although she only seems to have eyes for Bharani. Personally I’d pick the one who didn’t have a ventriloqusist dummy as his housemate. But Johnny is sweet and does things to make Suhasini happy without expecting any repayment – he finds her a flat, gets her movie tickets to a house full show, helps with work. He can’t articulate his feelings so he uses Junior to talk about his love. Of course, Suhasini treats it as a joke rather than a heartfelt confession. He’s well liked at work but a lonely soul underneath it all. Kamal Hassan isn’t challenged by the character except that the ventriloquism shtick calls on his physicality and control as he manipulates the doll while appearing to be oblivious to Junior’s shenanigans.

That weird clown song is completely unnecessary but when you have Kamal Hassan I suppose you’d be mad not to. And it lets him work off some energy that might have lead to overacting. His farewell scene with Suhasini was also unintentionally funny as he ran beside her train faster and for much longer than seemed possible, speechifying all the while.

Leelavathi and Sarath Babu are both good in their roles. But Bharani is so mild and understanding to the point of not seeming to care that he doesn’t give Suhasini any confidence and he kind of fades compared to Chiru and Kamal Hassan. Leelavathi’s Ma is an interesting woman who is prepared to believe evidence rather than continue to idolise her son. She makes decisions that are about how she wants to live her life and what she thinks is important. She’s a crier, but she gets things done. And she is the one to finally free Suhasini from her connection to her son.

Balachander uses some camera gimmicks and the ping pong analogy, and some shots are a little too composed to be natural, but generally the style of storytelling is low key and credible. Even the final comeuppance. Although I wish I understood the symbolism of the lion mask and the Mona Lisa. Oh well.

See this for some early career Megastar, a pared back and heartfelt performance from Kamal Hassan and a lovely role for Jayasudha. 4 stars!

Mahira (2019)

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Mahesh Gowda’s debut film is an interesting take on the crime/thriller genre with a story about an undercover agent on the run. The twist here is that the agent is female and she’s on the run with her daughter who knows nothing of her mother’s previous life. Although the pacing is uneven and the story does occasionally falter, overall this is an entertaining watch and if not quite ‘edge of your seat’ it does keep your attention right to the end.

One of the downsides to the film is that the initial introduction to the characters fails to create enough interest. Adya (Chaithra Achar) is a perpetually angry schoolgirl, but there is no explanation as to why she picks a fight with one of her classmates, or why she has such an obstreperous attitude. One scene in particular where she insults a customer at her mother’s restaurant shows Adya as simply rude and obnoxious, which I don’t think was the writer’s intention. Certainly later, she seems to be characterised as more independent and capable, but at least at the start of the film she’s just a spoilt and irritating brat. Maya (Virginia Rodrigues) is better drawn and in just a few scenes we get that she runs a beach-side café, is generally happy and that her daughter is the centre of her world.

It’s quite a shock then when a group of armed men turn up to take her prisoner, just when the Indian Intelligence Department also has their sights set on capturing Maya. Her sudden metamorphosis into a kick-arse agent is reasonably believable and well portrayed on camera, although the reason for her unmasking is a little too trite.

Once Maya is off and running, the film gets much better, particularly as Adya is less feisty and more believably in awe of her mother’s kick-boxing talents. There is a good mix of drama and action as the reasons for Maya hiding away from her former colleagues are gradually revealed. Throughout it all, Virginia Rodrigues does well in the action sequences. After all, if we can believe that a hero can beat up endless gangs of hoodlums, then it’s not much of a stretch to think that a well-trained woman could fight her way out of the various situations Maya finds herself needing to escape. Chaithra Achar is also given greater depth here and truly becomes the emotional support that Maya needs to keep going.

I last saw Raj B. Shetty in Ondu Motteya Kathe where he was excellent as a man desperately in search of a wife. Here, he plays Intelligence Agent Pratap, the man charged with finding and bringing in Maya. Shetty uses his appearance for a few laughs since he doesn’t quite look the part of an agent, but there is little comedy in his dialogue and for the most part he plays Pratap fairly straight. Somehow though he never really fits well into the character despite some good interactions with his boss (Balaji Manohar) and fellow agent Apoorva Soma Saakre. Gopalkrishna Deshpande is excellent as Kashi, a previous colleague Maya turns to for help. He gets the geeky data specialist role spot on and provides just enough information to start the revelations about who Maya really is.

The background score is occasionally too intrusive, but the songs from Nilima Rao and Rakesh U.P. are lovely and fit well into the storyline. The first is beautifully set against the background of Maya and Adya at home by the beach and is a lovely introduction to their relationship, although it takes some time before Adya’s character mellows into the happy daughter seen in the song. What I enjoyed most about the film though was Chethan Dsouza’s excellent action sequences. The fights are well done and kept simple with basic moves that suit the characters. The only miss is a boat chase that doesn’t actually go anywhere and could easily have been skipped.

I love that Virginia Rodrigues isn’t a young, superfit model, but instead looks like she really could be an ex-agent with a teenage daughter. She is excellent in the role, mainly because she can be chillingly ruthless when she has to be, but that is nicely balanced by her maternal side as she takes care of her daughter. I presume that Adya’s belligerence in the opening scenes is meant to be a tribute to her mother’s ‘take no shit’ attitude, but while it doesn’t work for Chaithra Achar’s character, Virgina Rodrigues is able to pull it off easily with just a fleeting glance at whoever has raised her ire. She is just as good in the more emotional scenes too, and it’s her performance that pulls the audience into the otherwise fairly routine story.

Although the story follows a fairly standard path, there are just enough twists to keep things interesting and the eclectic mix of characters also produces a few surprises. There are a few plot holes – mainly around the 4 year timeframe when Maya disappeared which doesn’t seem long enough for Adya to have grown up quite so much – but this could possibly have been a translation error? (I suspect not though, since the subtitles were mostly very clear and easy to read, but sadly the credits didn’t mention who was responsible for subtitling). Overall Mahira is worth watching for excellent performances from the entire cast and Mahesh Gowda’s rather more unusual take on the thriller genre.

The Gentleman (1994)

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Bhatt’s remake of the Tamil film Gentleman had the opportunity to be excellent. Unfortunately despite having all the necessary ingredients – a solid central idea, an AR Rahman soundtrack ready for Anu Malik to put his name to, and of course Chiru! – it never quite hits the mark.

A note on the print quality. And by “note” I mean rant. It doesn’t seem to matter which VCD or DVD I tried, the quality is so awful so you may as well watch a dodgy YouTube copy. I never found subtitles for this so that wasn’t a factor. Nobody who owns the movie seems to care if it’s watchable. I ended up taking screencaps from Youtube because my disc had a strange pixellation along the edges of the picture.

Chiranjeevi is Vijay, a small business owner and gentleman thief. He steals from the rich to build a school for the poor, all explained in a tragic backstory flashback. Chiru is excellent and quite restrained, unless he is in a comedy disguise when all bets are off. How much do I love the bit where he rips off a grey moustache only to reveal his own moustache underneath? Gold.

I really liked his characterisation and his dramatic range got a workout as Vijay experiences both the highs and the lowest of lows. The action scenes are on a grand scale and Chiru gets to throw himself around. He even has to do a bit of home surgery on himself. The dubbing artist for Chiru (I think it was Shakti Singh) is pretty good but I always seem to struggle with hearing another voice come out of a familiar face. Since there were no subtitles, and I understand more Hindi than Telugu (still not much) it should have been easier but it just sounds Wrong. Chiranjeevi did his own dubbing for fights and crying scenes so it was both familiar and a bit jarring to hear. And there was a very good opportunity for a rousing “Bastards!” that never happened, and you know how much I look forward to that. Especially when Paresh Rawal is playing one of the bastards in question. The cat and mouse with the police never quite hits high suspense. Vijay’s elaborate schemes and disguises always fail but for some reason the police always fail to capitalise on his mistakes. Even when they know about the Significant Ring.

The styling for the songs is largely standard filmi 90s hideousness but I did like seeing Chiru work his way through all the dressy-uppy options. From European prince to ye olden warrior to biker aerobics gear to a cross between a pharaonic headdress and a doo-rag, he made it his own.

Of course all the ladies love Vijay and while none of the female characters contribute much, the threat of romance does make it easier to fit the songs into the movie. And allows for an extra number featuring Roja. Most of the songs were lifted from the original soundtrack so while they look terribly dated they still sound quite good. The one song Anu Malik actually contributed (by nicking it from Haddaway), “What is Love?” is terrible and yet it is hard to stop watching no matter what your ears are telling you.

The female characters get the rough end of the pineapple. From honka-honka comedy horns when Roshni (Juhi Chawla) and Babli (Heera Rajagopal) hugged (because boobs), to writing that aspires to be tissue thin, and a costume department out for some kind of vengeance on Heera, it is a mess. Juhi spends approximately 83% of the film grimacing in the background as Roshni makes eyes at Vijay and hates anyone who appears to get in her way. There is no chemistry between her and Chiranjeevi, so the few scenes of Roshni’s jealous rage seemed silly rather than anything else.

I am pretty sure Juhi only signed on to be in Roop Suhana Lagta Hain because that is her moment to shine.

Heera Rajagopal plays a character who is dangerously stupid, a bit of a kleptomaniac, and extremely shrill. Only Babli could find herself in an attempted rape scenario by being lured into a ball pit. Yes. I know. And she was wearing heels when she went in. It is really hard not to victim blame when a character has absolutely no ability to learn from experience and apply those learnings to future situations. She still didn’t deserve the whole “be a decent girl like Roshni who is always covered up and in the kitchen” speech. But she moved on straight into a song fantasy so I assume no lasting harm was done to her self-esteem.

Paresh Rawal and Deepak Tijori play the two police most likely to catch the elusive Vijay. There are no surprises in either performance, but they largely avoided going over the top on the comedy. I like Paresh Rawal more as a villain than as an angry but honest cop, I have to say. It felt like a waste of his abilities but I appreciated the intensity he brought to the confrontation.

The tone wanders from slapstick to deep tragedy and grief, and while the actors seem to have a handle on what they are doing I can’t say the same for the direction. Rather than give Vijay’s backstory as things unfolded, the film ground to a halt while we found out what had happened to his mother and brother and why he became a thief. Then back to a long and talky court scene as Vijay attempted to show that society and greedy rich people were to blame for his crimes before a jump to 6 years later.

Of course this is one for the Chiranjeevi fans, but it is not a bad film. Just an uneven one. 3 ½ stars! (Points off for badly written female characters, points on for the songs, points off again for trying to pass the songs off as Anu Malik’s)