Tag Archives: Kannada

Rama Rama Re (2016)

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D. Satya Prakash’s début film is a classic road movie about an escaped prisoner and the various characters he meets along this journey Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the film is the superb cinematography as each scene appears beautifully constructed with a keen eye for detail, despite most of the action occurring on a jeep travelling through a rather desolate countryside. Add a fascinating story with engaging characters in often surreal situations and Rama Rama Re becomes a road trip to remember.

The film starts with ‘Sandal’ Raja (Nataraj) escaping from prison. In a preview of how the film will unfold, the escape itself isn’t shown and instead the film shows us the prison guards arguing with some labourers about their pay for the day. When the alarm is raised, the prison commander is torn between watching his favourite soap opera on TV and rushing to start the hunt for the prisoner. The corruption of the jail is quickly replaced by hysterical news reports showing interviews with the prisoners and guards that reveal Raja was afraid of dying and escaped before he could be hanged. As the hunt continues, Raja’s picture is everywhere and a large reward of 10 lakh’s is offered for his capture. Meanwhile Raja is shown running, and running, and yet more running, while his beard and hair grow longer as he moves further and further away from civilisation.

Meanwhile army veteran Ramanna (K. Jayaram) is preparing his ancient jeep for a trip. He buys new jasmine to hang on the rear-view mirror which just happens to be wrapped in a newspaper with Raja’s mugshot (a recurring image that is central to the storyline). As Ramanna sets off he meets with a truck driver (Bhaskar Dev) who has broken down on the road. After rather reluctantly towing him to the nearest garage, Ramanna is persuaded to give the driver’s passenger a lift to the nearest town – a passenger who just happens to be Raja.

Shortly afterwards Ramanna picks up an eloping couple Dharma (Dharmanna Kadur) and Subbi (Bimbashri Ninasam) who hide in his jeep. The couple are being chased by various members of their respective families, who disprove of the inter-caste relationship. Dharma also recognises Raja and wants to claim the reward, but the pursuing families, a soldier (Sridhar) on leave on his way to be with his pregnant wife and a group of travelling musicians all conspire to make Raja’s recapture seem unlikely.

Throughout the journey the story briefly delves into issues such as caste, corruption and the limited healthcare available in rural locations. These are never allowed to implicitly interfere with the characters’ journey but are often the reason behind some of their choices and as such do have an impact. The relentless pursuit of Raja and the treatment of prisoners is also briefly touched on but the sensationalism of the media and need for reform are only part of the backdrop to the story.  The focus is on the journey and how each of the characters react to the various revelations and experiences along the way. All of them are flawed and none are particularly likeable which ensures that it is the journey and experience that is important rather than any particular character.

I particularly liked how Raja seems to have devolved as a result of his imprisonment and subsequent escape. He is like a trapped animal, only concerned with flight and doesn’t seem to have any real plan or final destination in mind. This is an excellent portrayal of a man so desperate to escape that everything else has become irrelevant. Nataraj doesn’t have much dialogue, and so it’s his facial expression and body language that are crucial to illustrate his thought processes and focus on escape above all else. I thought he was excellent in the role and that his portrayal of desperation was pretty much spot on.

The character of Dharma is initially incredibly irritating, although he embodies so many common traits that it’s hard not to smile at his various antics. His obsession with combing his hair is just one of these, and he does bring some light-heartedness into the film just when it starts to drag in the first half. The relationships between Dharma and Subbi is also interesting as he promises her the world but fails to deliver. However, Subbi seems to be completely aware of Dharma’s shortcomings and in some lovely pieces of writing does turn the tables rather nicely on him to make sure she gets what she wants. The contrast between the couple and their reluctant traveling companions is also used to good effect to accentuate each of their flaws as the journey progresses.

What I really love about this film is the perfection and attention to detail in each frame. There is so much to enjoy even in the shots of the landscape as the jeep travels through. The TV in the prison at the very start is surrounded by papers and files while the shelves are just as shambolic with files strewn everywhere. With just a few images cinematographer Lavith captures the disorganisation and carelessness of the prison officers perfectly.  I also love the precision of the bicycle with the water jug sitting in front just outside Ramanna’s house, and how this contrasts to the limited and out of focus shots of the interior. The countryside looks amazing, despite being devoid of life and during the journey it almost becomes a character itself, and certainly just as important. Just as precisely, the pictures of Raja in the newspapers are carefully repeated and contrasted to images of his current appearance although his travelling companions only seem to register the mugshot and the reward. It’s all perfectly put together as a visual feast that compliments the action beautifully. The soundtrack from Nobin Paul is excellent and the songs from Vasuki Vaibhav work well to keep the narrative moving.

Rama Rama Re does follow a classic journey template but the journey itself is unique. The story is allowed to develop at its own pace and the characters are quirky but plausible within the framework of the plot. Although the film does drag a little in the middle, the gorgeous images and wonderful characterisations overcome this slight lag, while the end is just as unusual and unexpected as the rest of the journey. This is a clever film, beautifully filmed with interesting characters and very well worth watching. 4 stars.

Striker (2019)

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Pawan Trivikram’s debut film has an interesting storyline but the execution is rather clunky and in the end doesn’t do the plot justice. The film is essentially a murder mystery, and although it takes a long time to get going, the second half has some tense moments and enough twists to keep the ending in doubt. Praveen Tej and Bhajarangi Loki star, but Dharmanna Kadur and Shilpa Manjunath make the biggest impression despite their smaller roles.

The film starts by introducing Sidhu’s (Praveen Tej) unusual mental disorder. Following an injury as a child, Sidhu apparently suffers from ‘nightmare disorder’ which means he doesn’t know if what he has experienced is real or a dream. This causes some confusion when he follows up on previous conversations with his neighbours, some of which really occurred and some of which weren’t real. Sidhu is a mechanic who works with his best friend Venky (Dharmanna Kadur) whose wife is expecting their first baby. The third member of their group is Ravi (Ashok Sharma) who runs a mobile shop and who has a girlfriend that the other two have never met. The friends all meet in Ravi’s apartment to drink, smoke and discuss life in general, although Venky’s wife doesn’t approve. But when Sidhu finds Ravi’s body in the apartment one morning, he isn’t sure if he has murdered his best friend or if their disagreement was just a dream. With SI Purushottam (Bhajarangi Loki) investigating and the net closing in, Sidhu has to work out exactly what happened before it’s too late.

The first half of the film is taken up with developing the story behind Sidhu’s disorder and then the romance between Sidhu and Madhu (Shilpa Manjunath). This starts badly after Sidhu thinks that his meeting with Madhu was just a dream, but ultimately it’s Madhu that comes up with a way for Sidhu to work out what is real and what is imaginary. The romance is well done and Shipla Manjunath effectively evolves her character from being disgruntled and unhappy to finally falling in love. I really liked how the relationship was portrayed, in particular that Madhu wasn’t prepared to just forgive Sidhu and fall in love, but instead was ready to make him work for her attention. The time spent on the romance is somewhat justificated since Madhu’s method to distinguish dreams from reality is an important point later on, while the relationship provides some of the reason for Sidhu to act the way he does. It’s also a good point of contrast to see a different side of Sidhu, since for the most part he is morose and violent with a hair-trigger temper. His relationship with Madhu brings out a softer and more compassionate side which helps to develop some empathy for his character as events unfold in the second half. 

As the investigation steps up in the second half, there are some excellent twists and turns, and this is where Dharmanna Kadur really steps up with a terrific performance as Venky. I really enjoyed how he confused both Sidhu and SI Purushottam with different stories for each and was completing convincing throughout. The plot here is really well done, and although the end is less satisfying, it’s possible to look back and see the foreshadowing earlier on in the film. The pace picks up as well in the second half, which helps devlop a sense of urgency as time runs out for Sidhu.

The main problem I have with this film is that at times the execution feels awkward and laboured. Pawan Trivikram seems to be following a set formula – love seen here….fight scene here, and the story doesn’t flow as well as it needed to. It’s not helped by some terrible dialogue, which is either just translated very literally, or is just stilted and unrealistic with little emotion. I’m guessing it’s the first as there are many grammatical errors in the subtitles as well, and at times they just make no sense at all. By themselves, poor subtitles are a reflection of the production and not necessarily the filmmaker, but here they just compound the problems around the lack of story flow in the film. Praveen Tej varies between good and very wooden, sometimes in the same scene. Part of his character is his bad temper, so his disgruntled expression made sense, but there wasn’t much difference between his appearance when angry and when just chatting to his friends or neighbours. When he did start to show some emotion during the romantic sequences, his character suddenly came alive and I wished he had done more of this in the later scenes. 

Despite these issues, I did really like the story behind Striker. It’s a different take on a murder mystery and the twists in the second half were generally well done. It will be interesting to see what Pawan Trivikram comes up with next and I’ll be keeping an eye out for his name. I’m sure that the film would have had more impact on me if the subtitles had been clearer, and for those who understand Kannada, the film probably works much better. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why producers don’t think outside the Kannada film industry and realise that there are other markets out there where they could increase their reach with something as simple as better subtitles. Striker has a great story, but the execution could have been better. It’s worth find it on a streaming platform if you like murder mysteries with a twist, and probably best if you can understand Kannada. 3 stars.

Alidu Ulidavaru

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Arvind Sastry’s Alidu Ulidavaru is a psychological thriller that has some interesting horror overtones that make it a cut above the usual. There are quite a few creepy moments in the first half, but unfortunately the film runs out of steam near the end, and the climax suffers from some dodgy special effects. However, the basic idea is good and the story flows well with some interesting social commentary making Alidu Ulidavaru well worth a watch.

Sheelam (Ashu Bedra) is the host of a TV show called Kaarana that investigates ghost stories. We join him at the start of Case 99 as he is investigating a reportedly haunted guesthouse where a number of people have died. Sheelam is his own researcher and also his own cameraman, and throughout the course of the night he spends in the guesthouse we see him setting up remote cameras and even sending up a drone for some aerial shots. The point he wants to make is that there is no such thing as a ghost, and despite some scary moments, Sheelam is able to debunk the stories and prove every time that there is a human agency behind the reported hauntings.

Sheelam works for TV5, where his boss (B Suresh) is only concerned about ratings and wants to know what he will do for his 100th case – sure to be a hit for the TV station. At the same time, rival network boss Rajeev (Arvind Rau) has been set an ultimatum – improve ratings or lose his job, so he’s out to poach Sheelam to boost his audience numbers. But Sheelam has other problems too. His girlfriend, self-defence instructor Amrita (Sangeetha Bhat) wants him to give up ghost-hunting to get her parents approval for marriage. It seems strange that her parents are happy with her day job (teaching women how to fend off attackers), and yet seem to baulk at the idea of a TV presenter son-in-law, who has a good steady income and a popular fan base. But when Sheelam and Amrita are set upon by a group of thugs, her father blames Sheelam and his job, although there really isn’t any corroborating evidence. What’s great here is that Amrita gets to fight alongside Sheelam and show off her self-defence expertise in a real-life application of her skills. But overall the relationship doesn’t feel particularly real, mostly because Sheelam and Amrita are awkward in their scenes together and have little chemistry. Their exchanges frequently appear stilted and there doesn’t seem to be any passion in their relationship at all, which makes some of the scenes later on feel forced and unlikely because the underlying relationship hasn’t been developed in a meaningful way.

Sheelam also gets drawn into a live dispute with Guruji (Dinesh Mangaluru), a colleague at the station who presents a spiritual counselling show. While the two are friendly, they have quite different philosophies on life and their conversations are used as a way to try and draw out theories on spiritualism and the conflict between science and belief systems. What works well in these scenes is the glimpse into the world of TV chat shows. I’ve seen that India has a lot of these ’talking head’ shows where various people appear to shout over each other and argue about political and social issues of the day. I’ve always found them baffling, and more like WWF where it’s all a show for the punters rather than any attempt at meaningful discourse and according to this film, I’m totally correct! Here, the arguments are shown to be all completely contrived, with the presenters actually complimenting each other on inventive insults and clever put-downs during the ad breaks. Adding controversy is purely a device to increase ratings and Arvind Sastry gets this obsession with audience numbers and rating across well as we see the various machinations that go on behind the scenes to ensure ‘the numbers’ are kept high.

The second half of the film looks at what happens when Sheelam goes to investigate a supposedly haunted house where a number of people have recently died. The ideas here are really clever and initially well presented, but later on the special effects don’t work well which derails the narrative just when it needed to be sharp and well presented to achieve the required effect. There is also some dodgy medical diagnosis which is always frustrating since it seems to me to be used as a cop-out, when better writing could have produced an alternative solution. But regardless, the themes of jealousy and the sacrifice of morals to ensure good ratings for the TV show are well presented. I also liked how Arvind Sastry tries to illustrate the emotional burdens of trying to reconcile career, relationships and ethics with each other and how these impact on health and wellbeing. These are complex ideas and themes that for the most part he gets across well even if the final conclusion is rather less satisfying. It’s still a good attempt and the story is compelling as a result.

I did find Ashu Bedra to be rather stiff in his portrayal of Sheelam. I’d expect someone with his ghost-busting tendencies to be either wildly enthusiastic or else just a bit nerdy, and he isn’t any of these. Instead he basically comes across as just another reporter doing his job. There wasn’t any of the passion I expected – either for his chosen profession or for Amrita, and not even for all the various gadgets he uses in the course of his investigations. His lack of emotion makes it difficult to connect with the character, and hard to feel much empathy with his predicament. The problems he has to deal with in the second half really needed a more emotional portrayal to be effective and this is part of the reason why the film starts to lose steam by the climax. The rest of the cast are all fine. Sangeetha Bhat doesn’t have a lot to do, but Arvind Rau and B Suresh fare much better as the two rival TV bosses. Atul Kulkarni is good as the mildly lecherous police officer investigating suspicious deaths at the haunted house while Pawan Kumar makes an effective appearance as the owner of the haunted house

Aside from those special effects towards the end, the film looks good and there are some genuinely eerie moments enhanced by excellent use of lighting and camera angles. The background music from Midhun Mukundan is perfectly evocative and works well to add atmosphere to the narrative. I like how there is a good contrast between the artificial world of TV5 and Sheelam’s own reality, which ironically is all about unmasking fraudulent spiritual activity. If only there had been the emotion and sense of drama and theatricality that was needed to ensure the characterisations matched the intensity of the storyline the entire film would have worked much better. However, the uniqueness of the story and the blend of horror and intrigue make for a better than average watch and it will be interesting to see what Arvind Sastry come up with next. 3 ½ stars.