A state of comatose has taken over this blog for a certain period of time. In this brief period movie that can be defined as neo noir stepped into telugu world (Ko ante koti) movie with satire on social issues (matru bijlee ka mandola, krishnam vande jagdgurum) movie recalling a heist of 1987(special 26) movie that sent chills with a eatery(pizza) movie that was unnecessarily a centre of controversy(viswarupam) demanded a review from this blog but time definitely provided little room to execute a thought provoking review.Occupied with my work and problems I chose only particular movies which quenched my thirst and relaxed me at the required time. In this way I am completely away from a lot of Telugu movies and definitely missed our flavour.
My good gods seem to have a taken a pity on me and yesterday i got an opportunity to watch Mirchi which is already a block buster. As the movie progressed I saw the protagonist transforming from a lover boy preaching the message of love- to a reformer who reforms bad guys -to a family man who understands a mother's agony-to a sword wielding angry young man and then came the interval. In the second half a flashback reveals transformation of the protagonist from a software engineer to blood thirsty factionist to a son who abides by his father's words. As the flash back ends the protagonist asks the antagonist to stop blood shed by killing him. The goons and their leader thrash the protagonist black and blue and he slips on to the ground unconscious. On a simple provocation our hero raises up from the ground and in a whisker of a second grounds all the goons and lays the sword on the neck of their leader and then preaches him the virtues of non violence and love.
There is a common feature in all the movie i watched this year. The protagonist is one among us. He fears like us. He behaves like us. In special 26 Akshay kumar and his team fear after every robbery.In Ko ante Koti Sharwanand loses the game to Sri hari. In matru Bijilee ka mandola Imran loses his battle to rain. In pizza the hero ends up in the house where his fears can become true. In Viswarupa a helpless Kamalhasan watches in guilt a hanging for which he is the cause.Even a dynamic cop like Bajpai in Special 26 behaves like us. There was a huge consistency in the characters in these movies.
It pains us to see our protagonist like us. Hence we need an impossible hero. We need one who can preach and kill, one who can love and hate, one who can remember and forget, one who can earn and donate, one who can dance to an item song despite heart wrenching tragedy in his life, one who can be smooth and hard one whom we can never see in our entire life. We are habituated to see our hero in this mould.
The actress in special 26 carry a sense of dignity. The heroine fears about her future and finally does whatever she wants. The heroine is viswarupam is an nuclear oncologist and considering a divorce from the hero. The heroine in matru bijilee ka mandola is conscious of the society she lives in. The heroine in pizza is an author whose line of interest is horror fiction.The heroine in Ko ante koti is a social activist. The heroine in Krishnam vande jagadgurum is a social conscious TV reporter .( both these films were huge flops). In English Vinglish Sridevi reminds us the pain of an neglected house wife in a very defined manner. Even in a regressive film like Dabaang Sonakshi Sinha as well as Dimple Kapadia come up with better characterizations and personality
The actress in Mirchi (save the protagonist's mother who seemed a marriage event host) cannot speak against their male partners. One heroine has done MS in ..... but still in a state of confusion over her life. Another one a village belly was head over heels over the looks of the protagonist. They have no other work than romantic escapades. Other women represent a medieval culture.
These days we see a lot of awakening among the women in India. Voices are tough and lot of anger is vented out against injustice meted out to them. I don't know what happens to these voices when such degrading portrayal of women takes place in our movies.
Another funny aspect i observed in our faction movies was the antagonist and his family despite belonging to the same class of the protagonist are dark skinned and very unclean. On the contrary the family members of the protagonist are fair and very neat. All the members of family were dressed in the traditional attire where as our heroine dons all the collection of Manish Malhotra and Ritu Beri. .
We have abundant treasure of literature. Ranging from Nanniah to yandamuri we have been bestowed with as lot of fiction which can offer any film maker a food for thought. Telugu poetry prose and drama are no less to any reputed master piece. Our history presents us with facts which are very stranger than fiction . We are a part of a legacy of thousand of heroic tales. When other states are busy filming classics based on their history and literature we still lie in the blankets of a monotonous imaginary faction tales. When the protagonist s of other states are very near to real life and inspiring stuff our hero still wilds sword and romances in the break.
There's no wrong in action movies. In fact i am a die hard fan of Die Hard movie series. . John Mcclane needed a film time to conquer the antagonist. He was tired. He was injured. And as the film nears end he was completely down and we want him to get up and bash the goons. Yet he takes time, searches for a weapon and ends the movie in style and make you believe everything is real.
But our faction hero's are great than John Mcclane. In fact they will definitely laugh over the travails of John Mcclane Had it been them they should have utilized the time to romance, dance, fashion lessons and what not. John Mcclane has only one agenda. Our agenda is multipurpose. And Violence in die hard movies will be at shame watching our faction movies. And it pains me here to compare my favourite Die hard movies with our stale action capers. I am just making my point. Action movie doesn't mean rotten dish served in a neat plate.
Our hero's never die hard. They make us die hard in the theatre .
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