Monday 13 June 2011

Leader

2010 by Shekar Kammula

In India, we have seen lot of political movies. In fact, from around the end of 80's Malayalam movies got a procession of movies with political overtones, in which 99% happened to be quite on the same lines with the same kind of stuff. Some of them still were good entertainers. The best definitely was Panchavadippalam, by K G George relased some time in the mid of 80's. That was a sarcastic, but brilliant take on politics on the ground level. Recently Prakash Jha made Raajneeti, which I thought was just average normally, but it was above average stuff compared to the normal ones from Bollywood. So most North Indian media took it as a huge political movie. I just saw Leader, a Telugu movie and I found it miles ahead of Raajneeti, but no one outside the states of South India (barring Kerala) seems to know about it.

A corrupt Chief minister is killed and his young son, who was working in the US, arrives and takes charge. How he evolves into a leader of the masses is caught quite nicely in this excellent movie. 

This is not a very serious movie, it is actually an entertainer, but it is a great entertainer. Its story can be read almost every day in news papers in India, in parts. In fact everything that is happening in this movie is actually happening in India, not just as a single plot though. And it is only at the end, where a leader of the masses evolves, it turns cinematic, but not going over board.

For people worried about India, its corrupt system and politicians and the majority poor this is definitely an excellent movie. For, it is a feel good movie on contemporary politics.

It would be brilliant, if this movie will be released all over India, in Hindi or English, when we are seeing many, good and fake, fighting to find the black money outside India. The movie actually talks about black money which is stuffed in India itself.

The movie still has a few songs, but we may not even really notice how these songs come and go. It just melts down with the movie. Only in the second half, when there is a love angle, does the movie drags a little bit, bit it falls back into the track very soon. Even as an entertainer, I would say the direction was brilliant. It is an excellent movie under the technical categories too. Even the back ground score and songs are nice.

And Rana  Daggupati as the young Chief Minister was excellent. He has a wonderful charm and I am very impressed.

I really wish, this movie is shown all over India. 

Shankaranum Mohananum

2011 by T V Chandran

There have been so many movies which worked on the life after death and how some souls tried to interact with the living, after their death, some serious, some entertaining, some funny and some awful movies. As a plot for a whole movie, I think Shankaranum Mohananum is a new one in Malayalam, but its awfully flawed movie.

An elder brother, Shankaran dies the day after his marriage, from snake bite. The younger brother, Mohanan starts seeing him.

The script is horrible for many reasons and actually towards the second half of the movie, Mohanan starts seeing not just his brother but most dead souls around him. Even in a funny movie like Ghost Town (2008), it clearly established a simple reason why the protagonist was able to see the dead souls. Here there isnt any and towards the end, more souls are visible, without any reason which makes it even terrible. Forget this particular aspect, but even otherwise this movie doesnt interest us, I am afraid. It is not able to touch us in any ways, even light heartedly. Instead, sometimes we feel laughing out loud at the kind of fancy dress that is presented to us, for reasons what soever.

In spite of that, one aspect which was mentioned was quite interesting, I thought. That, the 9 months after death, when a soul is preparing for its next birth, its difficult to forget the events from the previous birth, this was quite interesting, but even when this is told, we really do not get moved, is definitely a fault of the director.  And the background music, I am afraid, is quite horrible.

The only good aspect, was the cinematography. It is not great, but that is one aspect which made the movie look good, at least, compared to the other movies from TV Chandran, an award winning director. Often his movies lack any kind of technical brilliance, barring one or two mentions like Pondanmaada.