(Kannada-2006-colour-130 mins)
Directed By: Girish Kasaravalli
Music Director: Issac Thomas Kottakapally
Costume Designer: Ananya Kasaravalli (daughter of Girish Kasaravalli)
Cast: Venkatalaxmi (Pavitra Lokesh), Nagamma (Rameshwari Varma), Rajalaxmi (Ananya Kasaravalli), Vishwa (Ashwin Bolar), Achchannaiah (Sringeri Ramanna)
Achchannaih and his wife Nagalaxmi live with their widowed daughter-in-law Venkatalaxmi and grand daughter Rajalaxmi in a traditional society. Achchannaih sets out to discover the truth when the news reaches him that in a distant town his son, who died eighteen years ago, has taken rebirth. He eventually brings the boy home, which alters the lives of all concerned. The old Nagalaxmi, for whom faith is essential, accepts him. The granddaughter, who swears by rationality, views it as a foul play, in fact even as a conspiracy. The widowed Venkatalaxmi, after an initial resistance, sees in the boy an opportunity to fulfill all her thwarted elemental desires and to escape the trauma of widowhood. All the tenets and canons of religious beliefs are used by Nagalaxmi to sustain her faith, while Rajalaxmi, her granddaughter takes recourse to the law and the court. Resisting all these Venkatalaxmi swears by her lived experience. Caught between the grandmother and granddaughter Venkatalaxmi's life becomes a rudderless boat. However, she evolves considerably when she balances her existential self and emotional being. It remains an essential question as to what constitutes the actual truth- whether it is the site of conflict that Rajalaxmi embraces or the mode of negotiations that Venkatalaxmi adopts. The film attempts to capture the inversions of social values held by three different generations.
Jury Awards-Asian Film Festival, New Delhi
Girish Kasaravalli
To aficionados of good cinema, Girish Kasaravalli needs no introduction. As a film maker he has hardly been prolific: a mere eight films in a career of more than 25 years. And yet he is the only director to have the distinction of winning the Swarnakamal or the Golden-lotus award four times. A product of the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, Kasaravalli's films may lack 'mass appeal' but as serious works that focus on the social and political ethos and the forces that make an individual behave in a particular manner, they are in a class all their own. Rather than telling the story of an individual, his cinematic attempts have been to set the stories of individuals against a larger political and social canvas caught in transition in various points in Indian history. Kasaravalli pens his own scripts, firmly believes in sparse dialogues and plans his films to the minutest detail.
Other films: Ghatashradha (1977), Akramana (1979), Mooru Daarigalu (1981), Tabarana Kathe (1987), Mane (1990), Kraurya (1996), Thai Saheb (1997), Dweepa (2000), Haseena (2005)
No comments:
Post a Comment