Gargi (2022)

Gargi (2022)

Written and Directed by: Gautham Ramachandran
Starring: Sai Pallavi
Streaming on Sony LIV. 

It's one of the most gripping films I've seen in a while. It carries nerve-wracking tension throughout. It's a must watch. The film has a terrific premise, it's about a woman whose father is accused of raping a minor girl, and when no one is ready to take the case, an assistant lawyer, with a stutter agrees to take it up. The story has strong antagonism, with all the public hatred and ostracization, and the lawyer being a newbie and with a stutter, the protagonists are underdogs. I love the tone and the pacing of the film, it allows for terrific tension and clarity in every scene. Along with the mystery slowly unfolding, the film also explores the psyche of every character going through such intense moments in their lives - right from the victim's father to Gargi's family. Gargi is a very inspiring character, especially her resilience and her patience. I think Gargi is a really good hero figure, because resilience and patience are the qualities we need to survive in the modern world and not skills like physical strength. 

Spoilers ahead. Do watch the film before reading further. The film beautifully subverts all expectations. With all the subversions I've seen in Malayalam cinema, I kind of saw this possibility in the beginning. But the way they showed Gargi's love for her father and her conviction about him made even me completely erase that possibility from my head. And when the final reveal happens, I could hear my heart pounding. I was shattered at the plight of Gargi, and when finally she herself talks to the girl and stands by her when she's identifying him, it again shows how much of a hero she is. The scene where she talks to the uncle, and he has a tongue slip, the scene was written so well - there is a lot of small talk in the scene and it almost feels like a build up to a terrific reveal. The best part about films like this and Jana Gana Mana, is the conviction with which they present all possibilities. Now because of the conviction in this film, even though the man was actually the rapist, the film also talks about how public's conclusions could possibly ruin an innocent man's life. The film inspired me on so many levels.

Karthikeya 2

Karthikeya 2

Written and Directed by: Chandoo Mondeti
Starring: Nikhil Sidhartha, Anupama Parameshwaran

It’s an adventure travel film, with the core of film being the enigma of Lord Krishna. The beautiful part about the film is that in a lot of moments in the film, I found myself feeling that enigma. It made me think and wonder. It was like a nice foray into the world of Indian mythology, or rather history as the film says. For an adventure film like this, the most important thing is about where it goes. The film goes to a lot of uncharted territories which we don’t see coming and it keeps us interested. I enjoyed Srinivas Reddy’s character a lot, he made the film grounded and rooted. Although what didn’t work for me as much was, the film keeps slapping us with conflicts after conflicts and it’s very heavy on us. Some of the episodes only have some physical hurdles and they don’t feel like they’re strong links to move the plot forward either. Although action/adventure fans would enjoy these episodes, I would’ve liked fewer of them to be in the film, but really well explored.  

Also, the tonal shifts were a little tough to handle. One on hand, the film talks about the enigma of Lord Krishna, and on the other hand a man comes and severs another man’s head, like in a Boyapati film. Although I didn’t mind this because, this film tries a new format – adventure travel – which isn’t much explored in Telugu cinema and it does so by sticking to the Telugu meter of storytelling. So it was interesting to see this. The comedy in the film makes you chuckle a number of times – with all the actors like Praveen, Srinivas Reddy, Viva Harsha, etc. It was refreshing to see no romantic angle/love songs being there in a mainstream Telugu film. For me, in spite of the little issues I had, the film made me think, curious and feel that enigma, especially whenever the flute theme played.

18 Presents

18 Presents (2020) 

Written and Directed by: Francesco Amato
Streaming on Netflix. 

It's one of the best film ideas I have ever come across. Anna, a rebellious teenager whose mother, Elisa, died at child birth, gets to time travel and be with her mother and father when her mother was pregnant. Anna knows that Elisa is her mother, but Elisa doesn't know that she's her daughter. And a beautiful friendship is formed between them. Of course, initially there's friction because Anna is a stranger. But eventually a beautiful friendship is formed between the both of them. I was wondering that perhaps this is the only way a child could match up to the love of a mother. If the mother loves the kid, without knowing that the kid is her own child, whereas the kid knows that it's their mother. There is a terrific scene where Elisa slaps Anna, and Anna says that she couldn't focus on work because her mother (who Elisa thinks is someone else) is sick. And Elisa empathizes with her. Only if she knew that she was her own child. 

The film is beautiful by itself, it made me cry. But since the idea was so terrific, I had different scenarios forming in my head. What didn't work for me as much was about how they just tease the idea of Elisa getting to know that Anna is her daughter. And later how they explain the whole time travel setting, vaguely as if they both interacted with each other in their respective dreams. This part was slightly off, but I let it be because this film anyway uses the fantasy element to tell a very emotional, human story. So it didn't bother me as much. The climax ripped me apart. Elisa writes a letter to Anna, before her pregnancy. She has some instinct that she doesn't have it in her to make it beyond the delivery. She asks for a pen and paper, writes a letter, sighs and finally says, I'm ready now. To give life to her daughter. I love how they visually end the film, with the whole swimming pool match cutting with the baby. I really enjoyed the emotional energy of the film. 

K. D. (2019)

 K.D. (2019)

Written and Directed by: Madhumita
Starring: Mu Ramaswamy, Naga Vishal
Streaming on Netflix.

This is the most heart-warming film I’ve seen in a long time. An 80 year old man, KD, leaves his home after he finds out that his children are plotting his death to claim inheritance. He meets a 8 year old boy, Kutty, who was abandoned as a kid by his parents and both of them become the best of friends. Kutty helps KD to tick off his bucket list. Kutty is a beautifully written character. From KD’s perspective, he feels so loved by Kutty that he says, even my mother wouldn’t take this good care of me. I wonder who the child is between the both of us. Kutty’s love comes through very casually, he’s not being nice or sweet. That’s just who Kutty is. Since Kutty was abandoned as a kid, he knows the value of a connection.

For a film without any physical conflict, it’s very important for all the scenes to work standalone. If there’s a strong villain, there could be a scene or two that could be middling. But in a film like this, every scene has to work. And the film succeeds in that. Valli’s subplot is beautiful. There’s just so much love and heart in the film. All along I was wondering if they’d kill KD and make Kutty go through it. But no, they make Kutty go through worse. He’s again abandoned. That scene in the bus stop broke my heart. They beautifully bring the 10^th empty point in the bucket list. It works as a nice set up and pay off, and it works emotionally too. And I have to mention, the background score was very soothing and I enjoyed the music so much. 

Pokiri

Pokiri (2006)

Written and Directed by: Puri Jagannadh
Starring: Mahesh Babu, Ileana, Prakash Raj

Pokiri is undoubtedly a benchmark in Telugu cinema, and a lot of us have seen the movie countless times. One huge factor is the dialogue of the film. Not only in Pokiri, but in a lot of Puri's films, there is this style of dialogue. In Pokiri, almost every dialogue that Mahesh Babu says is a punch. Sometimes, they're so on the face, like the famous, 'evadu kodithe...' and sometimes, it's subtle, where in the opening scene Subbaraj says, 'nee perentra', and he responds, 'peru chepthe kani thannulu thinava'. He almost never answers a question anyone asks, and even when he does, he says something unexpected. I feel like Puri has this natural instinct of writing dialogue where before he writes a dialogue, something comes to his mind, and he goes, not this, this is a normal response, we need an absurd response here. And somehow this doesn't even feel forced. 

Another very interesting aspect about the film is, Ileana's character. The film is centered around Pandu, a bad guy, which is what the film is centered around. We see his life, the consequences of his action. Ileana's character is a beautiful subplot which explores a different facet of a bad guy - how does it feel to fall in love with a bad guy? It's charming initially, but when you later get to know him better, it's confusing. The brain and heart conflict with each other. She's heartbroken throughout the second half. There's this terrific scene where she has this intuition that he is around, and I feel that women can sense things like this, they have this intuition. And Shruti has so much conviction on her intuition that she says that if she's wrong, she'll forget him. And yet, he lies to her face. That's what I love about this film, it seems like a hypermasculine film, but even Ileana's character and her plight is explored beautifully. 

Sita Ramam

Sita Ramam (2022)

Written and Directed by: Hanu Raghavapudi
Starring: DQ, Mrunal Thakur, Rashmika Mandanna
Spoilers Ahead.

They say, everything is fair in love and war. Though love and war seem like two opposites, they’re quite similar. You fight in a war, and you do the same for love. There is pain in war, and so is in love. So, a romance set amidst war is a beautiful way to explore the extremes of life. Sita Ramam is shot beautifully, with visually appealing locations, production design and costumes. The film borrows the structure from Mahanati, where two people are on a quest for a big story, played by Rashmika and Tharun Bhascker. The film keeps intercutting between DQ’s story and this track. Although there is a terrific twist in the ending, which joins both these tracks. For me, though the romance in the first half was middling a bit, it beautifully talks about longing. Waiting for someone’s letter for days together, in today’s day and age of quick replies, I can’t even imagine how it’d have been to wait for hear from someone indefinitely.

The interval gave me goosebumps. The film already has a lot of barriers between the both of them, and the film keeps increasing these barriers further and further as the characters grow become fonder of each other. The ending was really good, especially the scene where the small girl takes the letter from his hand with an innocent smile on her face. That shot broke my heart. Rashmika’s character has a beautiful arc – from being an arrogant woman, to being someone who learns gratitude. From someone who hates India, to someone who realizes that an Indian man saved her, who didn’t care about which country she was from. He saved her, only because both of them were humans. In the ending when she meets Noor and asks if he’s alive, Noor says no, and she almost says it with a straight face. That expression carried a lot of pain. I enjoyed the film, and the terrific ending made up for whatever middling there was in the middle here and there.

Network (1976)

Network (1976)

Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Screenplay by: Paddy Chayefsky
Won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay

It’s one of the most compelling films I’ve seen in a long time. It has a lot of outrageous energy. The film is set in the TV news network, and the amounts of craziness that’s in there. A news anchor announces that he’d shoot himself live on TV in a week, and suddenly there’s a lot of attention to this show. Eventually it gets to a point where the network executives keep him going, because the show generates more views than a lot of other non-news shows just because of this man’s erratic behaviour on TV. Although the film makes a commentary on the turmoil of people against the government, which is pretty perpetual in a way. That way, this screenplay is way beyond the film. In a way, it predicts the future. The pitch of every actor is in a high tone, they’re almost never talking. They’re almost yelling. This beautifully captures the anxiety and the turmoil everyone is going through, in a desperate attempt to make more money.

The subplot of the affair between Max and Diana is beautifully written. It uses hyperreality as a tool, they constantly address how such affairs usually end up in pop culture and it exactly ends like that. Diana’s character hit me so hard – she’s an obsessed artist who’s good at her work, but the reason she’s obsesses with her work is because she finds self worth only at her work. In other aspects of her life, she has failed time and again and she’s somehow told herself that she perhaps is only good for her work and is continuing to do so. Self-fulfilling prophecy at play. One of the best conversations is between Max and Diana when they talk about how women always think the worst things they could say to a man is about how bad they’re at bed and that he left comparing genitals back at his high-school yard. This is a beautifully written screenplay, it has a lot of depth and layers – irrespective of whether you zoom out or zoom in.

Lord of the Rings: Part One

 Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Directed by: Peter Jackson
Streaming on Prime Video.

I’ve always stayed away from mainstream fantasy films, and this is almost my first exposure to this genre. The film has a terrific prologue, where it talks about the story of a ring. The story is so rich that it almost feels like it’s not something that’s been created on paper. And it also feels vast and epic because of the timespan of the backstory. The ring has travelled for thousands of years, and it finally lands up in the hands of a young boy, Frodo Baggins. The ring is capable of a lot of destruction in the world, and the task of the boy is to make sure that the bad guys don’t find the ring, and to destroy the ring. I always like stories where characters are put into situations that they are not ready for. The young boy is definitely not ready for this, and he in the process of this epic adventure, becomes a better man. So it’s also a coming-of-age story of Frodo in a way. Though the film is set in a fairy tale kind of a setting, the conviction of the storytelling makes us feel like it’s an existing epic or even history.

In this journey Frodo Baggins takes up, he makes a few friends, a few mentors, a few people who save his life and faces a lot of enemies too. We see all archetypes of supporting characters – a friend, a comic, a mentor, a villain, and more. Though at every stage of the film, the forces of antagonism are very physical and visual, the turmoil that our characters go through to face them, or after facing them is deeply emotional. After Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo in the ending, Frodo loses trust. He feels so betrayed that he decides to go on the journey alone. Though the setting of the film is epic, what the events does to the characters is deeply intimate. And then comes my favourite moment in the film, Sam insists on going with him even if Frodo won’t let him – because he promised someone. I really enjoyed the humane moments more than the action set pieces, and I’m looking forward to watching the other two parts.