Krishna and his Leela Analysis

Krishna and His Leela

Directed by: Ravikanth Perepu

Co-Written, Co-Edited by and Starring: Sidhu Jonnalagadda

Streaming on Netflix.

The theme of this film is familiar to Telugu cinema - it's about how a small lie can cascade into big mistakes and put you in a helpless situation. In spite of the familiar theme, the setting of the film is refreshing - it's set in the urban IT world: we see engineering colleges, relationships, offices, parties, weddings and a self actualization trip to Ladakh. The film sucks you in right away, since it starts with a break up scene - the scene is shot very well. The mobility of the camera is used to portray their immature and unstable minds. I was badly wishing for this film to start a counter-culture movement in Telugu or maybe even in Indian cinema and have an ending where Krishna, Radha and Satya live in together - that'd have been such a kickass ending. I was a little confused the way they used Krishna's father character - was it a genetic reasoning for Krishna's flaw? One of the main reasons the film works is, because of the performances and the characters - they seem like real people and they fit the tonality of the world of the film. Sidhu's performance is so fluid, he does well throughout the film.

Breaking the fourth wall, is being done too many times these days - mostly people use it as a lazy tool to narrate how the character is feeling instead of showing it. Legends like Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese have used it too in Annie Hall and The Wolf of Wall Street - but the difference being that they never use fourth wall to convey how the characters are feeling. In Wolf of Wall Street, he talks about other things, about his wealth, his drug usage and his world so that we can get an understanding of his pysche - by the way he looks at money, women and life. In Annie Hall, I've seen the most creative usage of breaking the fourth wall I've ever seen and this film was made more than 40 years ago. Here they use it in a style, David Fincher used in House of Cards - but the most brilliant breaking of fourth wall happened at the emotional moment where for the first time he cheats - when he lies to Radha when he finds out that she was pregnant. It was least expected that it'll happen there.