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Dated and inconsistent
Highlights
The good things first. Jagapathi Babu, the 53-year old, plays his age as the central figure in the film, and refreshingly is not afraid to sport salt-and-pepper stubble. He does not raise his voice, or mouth punch dialogues. Surprisingly, he does shed a tear now and then, attempts to emote and act, though not always with conviction.
The good things first. Jagapathi Babu, the 53-year old, plays his age as the central figure in the film, and refreshingly is not afraid to sport salt-and-pepper stubble. He does not raise his voice, or mouth punch dialogues. Surprisingly, he does shed a tear now and then, attempts to emote and act, though not always with conviction. Also, there is no heroine hidden in this flashback story, especially, to fulfill the dream sequence fantasy of the average Telugu film fan. This allows Meera Nandan, the main female character to be herself, with a credible screen presence.
This said, the endeavour to bring together an assemblage of characters and situations to narrate an endearing guru-shishya story is what runs into a mess (with this film). A tribal village, steeped in the vice-like grip of exploitation by the local sahukar has a Maoist group which makes an attempt to educate them and stand up for their rights. This almost happens before the wily powerful elements get their way; get the minor heroine, the hero’s disciple, to marry the bad guy. Then begins the story of the social transformation which ends with a message of the need to be useful to the society rather than oneself.
Director Viplove credits the film to the 1965 Russian film ‘The First Teacher’, as an inspiration. He makes the vital change from the original which has a romantic angle to the student-teacher relationship where the latter falls in love with his pupil. Here, fearing a social backlash, as the film teeters to an end, Meera Nandan is shown coming out of a Lolita complex when she is chastised for professing her love to her master and defiantly justifying it. The young director tries too much, attempts to rein parallel tracks of events and happenings, pointing fingers at social inequities and rising consumerism to whip up interest in a clearly- dated story line. He attempts to be sincere too to the timeline, the late 80’s to early 2000, by showing rotary landline phones, STD PCOs and posters of Pawan Kalyan films ‘Khushi’ and ‘Gudumba Shankar’.
Nothing helps as the inconsistent, flip flop nature of the storytelling induces a terrific sense of boredom and disinterest in the film. The reluctant rebel with a golden heart is what the hero is and he is at times too tame and uninspiring.
Meera gets tremendous footage right from the start when she asks one of her dependents to choose the larger cause and not fall for immediate monetary gains. She stays true to her character, in a tolerable manner. The film, sadly, does not have the strength to sustain the running time it consumes – 150 minutes. One feels, it would have been better had it stayed in the cans where it was for more than a year.
K Naresh Kumar
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