LESSONS FROM THITHI, SAIRAT & NIL BATTEY SANNATA / PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

What Viewers Want

A slow but steady trickle of low-budget, high-quality independent films is finding a space in mainstream theatres across India against all odds – and making money

By Anna MM Vetticad

In the midst of the hype surrounding big-budget Hindi ventures such as Airlift, Fan and Housefull 3, you may not have noticed that little Nil Battey Sannata just completed a nine-week run in some cities. Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s directorial debut starring Swara Bhaskar, Pankaj Tripathi and Ratna Pathak Shah survived this long despite virtually no marketing. This story about a housemaid who is determined to give her daughter an education and ambition, triumphed almost entirely on the strength of rave reviews from professional critics and positive word of mouth from the audience since its release on April 22.

Several worlds away from the Agra setting of Nil Battey Sannata is the village where Nagraj Manjule’s Sairat unfolds. A Marathi film on love across caste barriers in rural Maharashtra, it was made, reportedly, on a budget of Rs 4 crore, released all India on April 29, is still going strong in theatres and with over Rs 80 crore already in its kitty from domestic turnstiles according to press reports, is among the year’s highest earning Indian films so far.

As Sairat forges ahead, the Kannada film Thithi – directed by debutant Raam Reddy – has completed seven weeks in Karnataka theatres and has been wending its way across the country. Thithi released in its home state in early May, and hit major urban centres in the rest of India on June 3 armed with strong social-media endorsements from non-Kannada film stalwarts such as Aamir Khan and Anurag Kashyap.

The availability of halls for these films and their box-office fortunes spell happy news for independent and/or small filmmakers. Clearly, a sufficiently significant pan-India viewership is interested in languages other than their own mother tongues and in the experimental winds blowing through the indie circuit across states.

Take Thithi, for instance. Who would have thought that a chronicle of the 11 days following an impoverished, senile villager’s death could result in a whimsical, tragi-comic, sensitively handled social satire? Yet, that is what Reddy’s film turns out to be, as it follows the old man’s family in the run-up to the expensive post-cremation ceremony they are compelled to perform despite the dire economic straits they are in.

This is not the kind of film that invites raucous laughter of the sort evoked by British filmmaker Frank Oz’s Death at a Funeral. Such a comedic tone would in all likelihood have been out of place considering the circumstances of the Kannada film’s protagonists. It makes sense then that Thithi is a quieter, slower film. Part of its charm lies in the fact that it does not fall into the lazy trap of romanticising poverty to evoke sympathy or being condescending towards rural India and caricaturing its inhabitants to tickle the funny bone. The other allure of the gently amusing narrative comes from the cast of non-professional actors who look and perform as if they have walked out of their real-life stories and on to the screen to simply be who they are.

Come to think of it, that is precisely what they have done. Reddy has told the press he cast his three leads – real-life residents of the Karnataka village Nodekoppalu in which the story is set – before he co-wrote the story with his colleague Eregowda who happens to belong to the place; that they observed the trio and life in Nodekoppalu prior to devising the script.

The result of his desire to dip into the real world is a smorgasbord of delightful actors – all from Nodekoppalu – and acutely observed characters. The starting block of this bitter-sweet tale is the cranky Century Gowda (played by Singrigowda), who dies at the age of 101. His uncaring, unworldly offspring Gadappa (Channegowda) wanders aimlessly around the village, showering affection on no one and nothing but his brandy and beedis. Gadappa’s financially desperate son Thamanna (Thammegowda S) wants the family property transferred in his name. The fourth generation in the picture is Thamanna’s horny son Abhi (Abhishek SN) lusting after a pretty and strong-willed shepherdess.

Despite its rootedness in Nodekoppalu, Thithi is blessed with a universality that has won hearts across the world through its seemingly simple yet complex plot and unexpected sense of humour. Last year Thithi won awards at the Locarno International Film Festival, Mumbai, Marrakech and Palm Springs. It scooped up awards in India and abroad this year too, topping it off with the National Award for 2015’s Best Kannada Film.

None of this should in any way suggest that the trials of small-budget independent cinematic ventures in India are over. Far from it. Most still struggle to make the journey from the film festival circuit to a theatrical release. Those that manage to come to theatres have a tough time getting good time slots in prime venues. Big corporates that sometimes pick them up for distribution barely promote them. And barring some individuals, the supposedly ‘national’ mainstream news media based in Delhi and Mumbai – read: the English language media headquartered in these cities – are notoriously indifferent to all Indian cinemas other than Hindi, which serves as a double whammy for non-Hindi indies.

The simultaneous success of the likes of Sairat, Thithi and Nil Battey Sannata this year is a pointed reminder to the media, distributors and theatre owners that they have completely underestimated audience interest in small and/or indie films across languages. Moral of the story: never assume – without checking – what readers and viewers (do not) want.

 (This article was first published in The Hindu Businessline on June 25, 2016)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/what-viewers-want/article8765048.ece

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: The Diary of a Frustrated Indian Film Buff

http://annavetticadgoes2themovies.blogspot.in/2016/05/subtitling-dubbing-in-indian-cinema.html

Related article by Anna M.M. Vetticad:

Interview with Pankaj Tripathi: “Modi is the traditional Hindustani hero, Kejriwal is the common man”

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/pankaj-tripathi-modi-is-the-traditional-hindustani-hero-kejriwal-is-the-common-man-2812788.html

Photo captions: Stills/posters from (1) Thithi (2) Sairat (3) Nil Battey Sannata

Photographs courtesy:

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thithi_(film)

(2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sairat

(2) https://www.facebook.com/NilBatteySannata/photos

REVIEW 394: VEERAPPAN

Release date:	May 27, 2016
Director:	Ram Gopal Varma
Cast: Language:	Sandeep Bharadwaj, Sachiin J. Joshi, Usha Jadhav, Lisa Ray Hindi

Ram Gopal Varma’s new Hindi film Veerappan would have been better served by the title Killing Veerappan that he gave to his Kannada film on the late forest bandit that was released earlier this year. The name might suggest otherwise but Veerappan is not a biopic of the notorious sandalwood and ivory smuggler who eluded the police of two states for over two decades. It is, instead, a documentary-style portrait of Veerappan as seen through the eyes of the Special Task Force set up to capture him, while they work towards achieving their goal.

One of the most notorious criminals in recent Indian history, Veerappan’s life no doubt is rich fodder for a filmmaker. And R.D. Tailang’s script has all the ingredients that could make for a great film. That it is not is a result of three factors: the overly loud background music that overpowers everything else in the film, the casting of Sachiin Joshi as the policeman who led the operation to nab Veerappan and Lisa Ray playing the wife of a slain policeman.

The decision to keep the score at a screeching level is inexplicable since the story itself does not scream. Besides, Sandeep Bharadwaj playing Veerappan does a very convincing job and does not for a moment raise the decibel levels of the film, although it might have been tempting to caricature a criminal who was famous for his massive handlebar moustache. Bharadwaj does his version of a Kannada/Tamil accent in Veerappan’s Hindi, but he does not let that overshadow the rest of his performance, as a lesser actor might have. His styling as Veerappan too is very very impressive.

The music might still have been forgivable, but Joshi’s expressionlessness and Ray’s excessive expressions are too much to take. Joshi of course is the film’s producer (his wife Raina’s name appears in the credits though), so RGV most probably did not have a choice with him. But what accounts for the casting of Ray? Her limitations are further underlined by the fact that in many scenes she is placed opposite the very natural Usha Jadhav playing Veerappan’s wife Muthulakshmi.

The film’s deficiencies are most unfortunate because in its pluses we get a glimpse of the old Ramu that we all once knew and loved, the man who gave us pathbreaking gangster and crime flicks such as Shiva, Satya and Company. For instance in Veerappan, it is interesting to see the subtle ways in which RGV plants seeds of doubt in viewers’ minds about the ‘truth’ as it is recounted by the police. The God complex of the lead policemen too is unbridled and not softened up for the viewers’ palate or in the interests of political correctness. The action is well-handled, completely not Singham-style, formulaic, over-the-top Bollywood but realistic and believable as it might have happened in real life (barring a hilarious overhead shot of Joshi on elevated ground scanning the surrounding area for Veerappan – the man is such a bad actor that he cannot even stand correctly).

That being said, the difficult terrain in which Veerappan operated is remarkably captured by Aniket Khandagale’s camera in a way that is intended to overwhelm us, to remind us of how challenging it would have been for the police.

In certain aspects of storytelling then, this is a film that cannot be ignored. It is however hard to get past the poor acting by Joshi and Ray and that overly loud background score. I kept imagining this film in my head with the same director, but with music at a lower volume, starring Adil Hussain or Kay Kay Menon and Tabu in the roles played by Joshi and Ray. What excellent co-stars they could have made to the very talented Sandeep Bharadwaj. Too late for that of course.

Rating (out of five): **1/4

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	125 minutes 27 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/veerappan-review-flashes-of-the-old-rgv-peep-out-despite-the-loudness-2801876.html

Related link: Anna M.M. Vetticad’s interview with Ram Gopal Varma on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/satya-to-veerappan-watch-ram-gopal-varma-talk-about-cinema-censorship-2801654.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veerappan_(2016_film)

NAANU AVANALLA…AVALU, TRANSGENDERS IN FILMS & MAINSTREAM SOCIETY / COLUMN PUBLISHED IN THE HINDU BUSINESSLINE

SHE, HE, THEM AND US

Sanchari Vijay’s sensitive performance as a transgender in the uplifting Naanu Avanalla...Avalu ought to be seen by mainstream audiences outside Karnataka

By Anna MM Vetticad

The audience breaks into applause as the central figure on screen snubs a self-righteous stranger on a train.

The actor in question is Vijay, but not that Vijay whose face is plastered all over Tamil Nadu. The character in question is the film’s lead, yet not the now-cinematically-cliched Angry Young Man for whom such wolf-whistle-worthy dialogues are usually written in India. As she dispenses her lines to an antagonistic fellow though, viewers cheer the way they usually do for mega-starrers filled with song ‘n’ dance, melodrama and bombast.

I look around me, pleasantly surprised by this reception for the Kannada film Naanu Avanalla…Avalu (I Am Not He…She) in a large hall at the International Film Festival of Kerala in Thiruvananthapuram. Although festival crowds are often more open-minded than most, I was expecting some degree of conservatism and discomfort in response to this film about a transgender called Madesha/Vidya. Quite to the contrary, the audience here reacts with positivity and plaudits.

Director B.S. Lingadevaru’s Naanu Avanalla…Avalu is the story of Madesha, born a boy in rural Karnataka. He is a bright student but his peers are too busy mocking his effeminate demeanour to appreciate his classroom acumen. As he grows older and becomes more aware of himself, he begins to feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body. In a journey that takes him from his village to Bengaluru, Pune and Cuddappah, Madesha earns an MA degree and joins the hijra community living on the shadowy margins of society, ultimately asserting a female identity complete with women’s clothes, the name Vidya and castration (termed “nirvana” in her circles). She then experiences discrimination in her quest for a mainstream profession.

The film is about Vidya’s refusal to let this social bigotry force her into a life of begging and sex work. It is about her determination not to allow the chauvinism of others to dictate her life choices. Except for one difficult sequence dealing with the unhygienic conditions in which castrations are conducted underground, this is a truly uplifting film. What makes it even more so is the realisation, in its closing moments, that Naanu Avanalla…Avalu is drawn from a true story, the autobiographical I Am Vidya: A Transgender’s Journey by Chennai-based NGO worker and theatre activist Vidya a.k.a. Living Smile Vidya.

Naanu Avanalla…Avalu earned two National Awards this summer: Best Actor for Kannada theatre artiste Sanchari Vijay’s restrained performance as Madesha/Vidya, far removed from the caricaturish portrayals of transgenders in Indian mainstream cinema; and Best Make-up. The film has also been screened at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne in August and the International Film Festival of India, Goa, in November. It got a limited theatrical release in Karnataka on September 25. It ought to be seen by mainstream Indian audiences outside Karnataka too.

The public tends to assume that films with such subjects would be boring, heavy and/or hard to watch. In truth, the lasting memory from Naanu Avanalla…Avalu is of Madesha’s smile when he realises for the first time that there are others like him out there, and of Vidya’s compassion, spirit and fire.

Such as the scene mentioned in the opening paragraph, that flash of controlled temper she displays on a train during her brief tryst with mendicancy, when a passenger dismisses her as being uneducated and too lazy to work hard for a living like everyone else. Vidya openly challenges him, pointing out that she is, in fact, a postgraduate who society is unwilling to employ.

These are scenes so commonplace in parts of India that we barely notice — hijras seeking alms, hijras barging into weddings to sing, dance and demand money, hijras blessing newly-weds and new-borns. Yet, transgenders are a rare sight in the mainstream. Shabnam Mausi being elected to the Madhya Pradesh Legislative Assembly for 1998-2003, dancer-actor-activist Laxmi Narayan Tripathi appearing on the reality show Sacch Ka Saamna in 2009 to dispel myths about hijras, and the Supreme Court’s landmark 2014 ruling recognising transgenders as the “third gender” have all been uncommon developments.

Over the years, mainstream cinema has lampooned anyone who does not conform to traditionally accepted notions of gender or at best has treated such persons as a source of comedy and little else. Films like Mahesh Bhatt’s Tamanna (1997), with actor Paresh Rawal playing a pivotal character who is a hijra, have been unusual.

Vijay’s National Award for Naanu Avanalla…Avalu has come in a year in which the media has reported other significant milestones: Madhu Kinnar was elected India’s first transgender mayor in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh Municipal Corporation this January, and last month, the Madras High Court paved the way for K. Prithika Yashini to become the country’s first transgender police sub-inspector.

For the most part though, India’s transgenders remain an object of ridicule, contempt, discrimination or, at the very least, apathy.

Even the well-intentioned among us usually sweep away such issues into rarely visited nooks and crannies of our minds where they are unlikely to give us a pang of conscience or an attack of basic human decency. Naanu Avanalla…Avalu drags every discomfiting question out of those dark corners into the light, compelling us to confront them and our own role in perpetuating prejudice by, if nothing else, turning a blind eye to it.

(Anna M.M. Vetticad is the author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. Twitter: @annavetticad)

(This column was first published in The Hindu Businessline newspaper on December 19, 2015)

Original link:

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/she-he-them-and-us/article8000655.ece

Photo caption: Sanchari Vijay as Madesha/Vidya in scenes from Naanu Avanalla…Avalu

Photographs courtesy: MD Niche Media Consultants

Previous instalment of Film Fatale: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/watch/chemmeen-marks-a-golden-milestone/article7899728.ece