Tag Archives: Anushka

Nagavalli

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Another adventure without subtitles and our first Venkatesh film on the big screen.  Not only that, but from the buzz surrounding the film we were expecting lots of dancing and a snake revenge film,  many of our favourite things!

The basic story is a sequel to the hit Chandramukhi, advertised with the tagline ‘She’s back!’. And she is – or is she? Venkatesh is Dr Vijay, the student of Dr Saravanan who vanquished the vengeful spirit last time. He is called in his mentor’s stead to deal with a suspected possession which may be linked to some sudden deaths in a remote household.

Vijay, when not  pursued by all the ladies of the house, debates the role of science versus religion with the family’s guru Ramachandra Siddhanti (Avinash) who had actually called him in on the case. The cure for mental illness or possession that is demonstrated by Ramachandra consists of hitting his patient with a stick and demanding they speak. Vijay’s scientific method is letting her have a good cry, and telling her she is cured. Neither really filled us with confidence especially as both men consistently failed to identify the right person who was nuts or possessed (depending on your view). The question of god or science did keep coming up in the film, and both men seemed to be somewhat persuaded of the merits of the other side. So they tried to do something intellectual – but the giant snake detracted from any serious philosophy going on.

Vijay is, at times, insufferably superior as he uses his psychiatric training to read the household members and tell them all about themselves. For an academic who represents the side of science in this story, he has some very dubious reference materials. Every book he read looked like it had been bought from an airport book kiosk and hardly gave us any confidence in his ability to diagnose anything.

There are many inexplicable plot elements. For no apparent reason there is also an absolutely huge cobra-python-anaconda monster lurking around the house and grounds.  Which the family find mysterious, although they found a giant snake skin, which really should have been enough of a clue that there was something rather strange going on.

In the course of his investigations, while wandering around the grounds on the trail of Chandramukhi (whose real name was Nagavalli), Dr Vijay is jumped on by a gang of men who leap down from the trees. This is never explained and is possibly just a way to make sure there was at least one group fight scene in the movie. Despite one of our fellow audience assuring us it would somehow be cleared up, it wasn’t. But that applies to so much else in this film it hardly matters.

As in Chandramukhi the story moves back into the past which gives Anushka the chance to strut her stuff as Nagavalli and explain the back story. Her performance was outstanding in terms of acting, but her dancing suffered by comparison to her predecessors in this role. Still, in one scene she perfectly expressed her fear, hatred, anger and will to survive purely through body language and facial expressions. She really is an impressive actress. Unfortunately she was way too tall for her olden days love interest, which added a lot to the unintentional comedy.  The olden days also provided an excuse for some sumptious costumes and rather dodgy hair extensions for Venkatesh in his role as the evil Nagabhairava Rajashekhara. He seemed to have discovered gold lame a long time before anyone else. Perhaps it was that which funded his extravagant lifestyle and blingy accessories.

Richa Gangopadhyay was given some memorable scenes towards the end, and almost stole the show. Shraddha Das and Kamalini Mukherjee were quite effective and it was interesting to see the ensemble cast working through the more thriller styled investigative scenes.

Sadly despite the prominence of dancing in the film, none of the leads were particularly good  dancers, so the story tended to fall a little flat in the execution of these scenes.  The later scenes where Chandramukhi/Nagavalli has her revenge were so totally over the top that it was impossible to take any of it seriously, and we don’t think we were meant to. Overall the film was held together by Venkatesh helped to some extent by Brahmi, who had a substantial role as Dr Vijay’s student. There was so much comedy in the rest of the film that a separate comedy subplot didn’t really seem necessary to us, but it was there anyway.

Venkatesh certainly seems to deliver what his fans wanted. The audience reaction to him was great and people cheered every time he swung into action. The dual characters let him show off his acting range, and the olden days allowed for the more physical scenes that the modern day setting lacked. His horse riding style was memorable to say the least, but we don’t think any horse would tolerate him for long.

The special effects are, in a word, terrible. The cut and paste of scenes against  green screen looked really amateurish and was surprising in such a big budget film. The overuse of coloured contact lenses was also a distraction throughout the close up scenes. We don’t think the audience was meant to laugh at so many of the historical scenes, but they just didn’t work.

The last half of the film was quite dialogue heavy and it was difficult to keep interested as the Dr Vijay slowly worked his way through the possible candidates for possession or insanity. However the beautiful costumes and fabrics did keep us somewhat entertained. Despite this being advertised as a horror film, it never reached those heights. The film is much more farcical than frightening, and seemed to play much more to the comedy of the situation. The thriller and mystery elements were good but the film seemed to shift from whodunnit to supernatural horror and back with some holes in the logic. The film descended into boring and bad territory for about twenty minutes, but was revived by Richa Gangopadhyay, Venkatesh and Anushka in the final scenes. This was our first chance to see Venkatesh on the big screen and he lived up to his reputation, although the story really didn’t.

Khaaleja

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Friday night and time for another expedition to India Talkies for the latest Telugu release.  Mahesh time!  Even though we’ve only been watching Telugu movies for 8 months, we were caught up in the excitement around his long-awaited return to the big screen .  We had with us a true Mahesh fan – someone who had been there for him right from the start – and despite her concern over the lack of subtitles, came along with us for our first look at Mahesh on the cinema screen.  So how did it go?

Although the plot was surprisingly easy to follow for the most, we won’t get too detailed or reveal too many spoilers in this review. We thought this appeared to be two separate films in one.  It starts out with a very funny story about Raju, a taxi driver who is jinxed by the stunningly beautiful and walking disaster Subbhasini, played by Anushka.   It detours into buddy film territory as Raju meets up with a documentary director, played by the very funny Sunil. And then becomes a story about corruption and environmental politics all tied together by Mahesh as the saviour of a village in Rajasthan. And we should probably mention that Raju somehow becomes identified as an incarnation of Shiva. Our friend the Mahesh fan spotted his godliness as soon as she saw his snake wrangling skills. It was very exciting!

Our hero starts off as the taxi driver who has a disaster every time he meets up with Subbhasini.  There are many excellent and very funny scenes set around the numerous ways in which it is possible to destroy a taxi. These are nicely illustrated by Mahesh in later discussions with his boss by the use of model cars – a technique which really should be used by all insurance agencies. The romance is played well by both leads. They are worlds apart, don’t speak the same language (he is pure street, she is more the college girl) and of course, she seems to be an omen of doom for Raju. Their meetings are usually capped off with Raju’s taxi being totalled so it was always going to be a rocky relationship.

Anushka plays the daughter of a wealthy businessman who has some very undesirable associates, and an eye for marrying her off to his own advantage. She is smart, well off, a really bad driver but seems to be a decent human being. She does have terrible taste in get well gifts though (and Mahesh would seem to agree with us).  Her father is involved in some dealings with GK – the evil Prakash Raj. We were perturbed by the wardrobe chosen for the multi-billionaire GK as some of his suits looked to have been designed for a schoolboy not a magnate.

Through a series of typically filmi coincidences, arguments and relationships (no really you don’t need subtitles to work this bit out), our hero and heroine find themselves in Rajasthan and on the run. Raju is delivering or demanding an insurance payment relating to a deceased friend or colleague or the guy who died and landed on the cab  (we don’t know and it didn’t matter so much why he went). Subbhasini is running from her intended fiancee who turned up for a romantic dinner in the desert and in a fine public health announcement, dropped a packet of condoms. So she ran to her almost certain death rather than deal with an over eager boyfriend who planned to practice safe sex. Hmmmm.

Once Raju and Subbhu are together in the desert, the plot takes a turn.  Siddha (played by Shafi) has been searching for the saviour of his village, a man he will recognise by certain signs. Guess who? Yes. Raju was indeed the man. Anushka was then sidelined for the remainder of the film as it became the more familiar Mahesh style of action adventure.

The ending was both predictable and exciting in it’s epic scale and the grandeur of Trivikram’s vision. Mahesh fans will be delighted to see their hero in full flight, and dominating the action.  Prakash Raj was in total villain mode, and made the most of every second of his gore-splattered finale.

The songs were well filmed and the choreography suited the performers. They were also well placed in the story so actually helped enhance our understanding of the plot and the developing relationships. And the songs gave the costume designers the chance to see how many layers of clothes they could make Mahesh wear and still allow him to dance.  We did enjoy the occasional daring flash of an elbow or even a collarbone whenever the three shirts and a scarf permitted. The modesty singlet made several appearances too. Mahesh keeps himself well under wraps. It just adds to the allure according to our resident Mahesh fan.

None of us expected Mahesh Babu to have the comic flair and style to carry this off. We know the dialogues must have been hysterical as we could hear the crowd laughing and the boys sniggering like naughty kids at some of the colourful language. But to perform this role , and still keep us fully engaged, laughing and cheering along really takes something special  from an actor. Mahesh delivered that. In fact we found him funnier than comedy stalwarts Ali and Brahmi and he certainly kept up with Sunil who is one of our favourites. Khaaleja really is hilarious! We were never bored, it seemed to make sense despite our lack of language, and the time just flew by. We would have to give this 5 stars!

Arundhati

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Arundhati is a wonderful revenge story with plenty of melodrama, over the top action and what appears to have been an unlimited budget for blood.  Add in a heroine driven storyline with some excellent performances and it makes for a worthy  addition to the South Indian Cinema Induction Programme.

We learn through flash-back that Arundhati was a princess of Gadwal, trained in the arts of dance and war.  Her bravery even as a child was likened to the goddess Jejamma, so this was how she was known.

Her sweet and innocent older sister, Bhargavi was married off to Pasupathi, the evil and depraved nephew of the King, who enjoyed a protected status despite his raping and murdering ways.  After he attacked and killed Jejamma’s blind dancing teacher, Bhargavi killed herself.

In revenge the precocious young Arundhati beat Pasupathi, tied him to a horse and drove him from the kingdom.  Despite extensive injuries he didn’t die, but was rescued by a group of Agoras and learned to be even more evil, which we didn’t think was possible.

Having his vile talents augmented by the knowledge of tantric arts and by the possession of malevolent spirits, he returned to take revenge on Arundhati, fortuitously arriving on the day of her wedding.

Some excellent posturing and slashing later, including a take on the drum scene from House of Flying Daggers, Arundhati defeated him and imprisoned him in the palace, still alive but trapped in a fairly well constructed tomb.

Two generations later and there is a new Arundhati, who comes back to town for her marriage.  Pasupathi is now an evil spirit, confined in his grave in the ruined fort by various amulets and prayers which prevent his escape.  He uses the influx of naive newcomers to try and break free of his prison. He tricks a young couple into entering the fortress where one disappears and the other becomes insane.  Attempts by the mad man to break open the grave are thwarted, and he ends up being chained up in the village.  Pasupathi is able to lock doors and move objects to try and kill Arundhati’s father, but luckily can’t use the same tactics to escape.

Just as an aside to all heroines and disposable sidekicks – if you go into a building and have to break cobwebs which are thick enough to block your way, there is a very good chance that the friend you are looking for is not actually there, since otherwise there would already be a path of broken cobwebs – just a suggestion!

Eventually and inevitably Pasupathi manages to break free and torments Arundhati. She now has to come up with a way to vanquish this evil spirit for good, otherwise he will claim her as his wife and all of her family will die.   She has some help in the form of a Muslim fakir who seems to be pretty well unstoppable, which is just as well as there are many attempts on his life!  Sadly he is pretty inept at passing on the simple instructions he was given to stop Pasupathi or the second half might have ended much sooner. Everyone else who tries to help her dies – usually in very gruesome and bloody ways!  Did we mention this film had an exceptional gore and blood budget? The heavy-breathing Pasupathi manages get Arundhati exactly where he wants her – but will he succeed in his evil plans of rape and revenge? Will Arundhati remember her brave heritage and triumph over her immortal adversary?

Anushka excels in her double role as both the modern day Arundhati and the warrior princess.  In Jejamma mode she is masterful and determined, while in the modern day avatar Anushka manages very well to convey the despair and madness as Pasupathi torments Arundhati with images of her family’s fate.  She carries the film, and manages to be compelling, beautiful and convincing. However, there are some scenes later in the film that drag on for far too long. There is really only so much whimpering and scrambling that Anushka can do in her modern day character before the impact of her reactions fades. The young actress Divya Nagesh who played the young princess Arundhati was a delight to watch as she faced down the original Pasupathi.   Sonu Sood appeared to revel in his role and conveyed the total depravity of his character with great gusto and much eye twitching madness.  He seemed to be having such a great time as the completely evil Pasupathi and we just love him in this total manic mode! There is a downside to this wholehearted effort. He is just having too much fun and it detracts enormously from the characterisation. In some scenes he looks like he is barely restraining laughter and as a result Pasupathi just isn’t really evil enough to be truly frightening. As the second half was quite drawn out and hinged on Arundhati’s fear of Pasupathi, the lack of real menace did make the film feel overly long and the uneven pace was jarring.  Sayaji Shinde puts in a very credible performance as the knowledgeable fakir, and we loved seeing Manorama as the old servant who fills in the back story for modern day Arundhati and us.

The music is well integrated into the drama, and all songs serve a purpose. The cinematography is excellent and both the set and costume design really enhance the story. The special effects are for the most part used well, but there is a tendency to overdo things. The blood and gore team were especially enthusiastic!

The novel (to us) use of death by coconut was dramatic but repetitive and once again, key scenes dragged on a bit too long to sustain the drama. The climax of the film seems to stop and start. Modern day Arundhati had to scramble around crying and panicking for ages until the two storylines started to piece together for the conclusion. We theorised that the director still had a couple of days and half the blood budget left to use and decided to just go for it. The ending is bloody and violent and yet uplifting once it really gets going.

Heather says: I loved this film.  The two leads are fantastic and the child princess Arundhati does a really good job for such a young actress.  The story is very heavily focused on Anushka, and this is probably one of the film’s flaws in that the other characters don’t ever really engage us.  Sonu Sood is totally manic, which makes for some great viewing but not necessarily the best approach for his character. His Pasupathi was too cartoonish to ever be scary, particularly in the latter half of the film where the heavy breathing began to become wearing.  However, he was very watchable and certainly seemed to be making the most of his time in the film.  There were a few too many plot points clashing with each other at the end, and modern day Arundhati was just a little too wimpy. But still a very watchable film – I give this 4 ½ stars.

Temple says: I really enjoyed seeing a tough yet feminine heroine driving what is for the most part an action film. Anushka is stunning in this, and deserved the critical acclaim and awards. I like Sonu Sood but his hamming annoyed me. It wasn’t really the role for a lighthearted villain and would have benefited from a more menacing performance. As it was, he reminded me of a character from an old TV series – Catweazle. You can go look that up and see what I mean! The film really is the story of the bitter enmity between Arundhati and Pasupathi so that lack of serious venom detracted a bit from the overall impact. The pacing was all over the place too – some scenes dragged on far too long, while others rushed through interesting bits of the back story. The modern day avatar of Arundhati didn’t get much to do apart from crying and running until towards the end of the story.  But thanks to the amazing screen presence of Anushka the film is absolutely rivetting at times.  I give this 4 stars – it would  have been less except for her extraordinary performance.