A star is only as good as the fate of his last release. In fact, it’s the content of one or a few films and the resultant box-office collections that help in catapulting fledgling heroes to stardom. It’s at this stage that stars develop selective amnesia and become delusional convincing themselves that a film is successful only because of their presence. They also start believing they know what their fans expect in terms of characterisation and content. Fans are ruthless and fickle. Anyway they can fill the halls only for a few days and God save the film if the WOM (word of mouth) is negative. Bad news travels swiftly and the fate of a film is decided by the tap of a few fingers on various forms of social media these days. Reviews become irrelevant. Two Telugu films released recently are experiencing this. While ‘ISmart Shankar’ which was rated with a single star by a National daily is raking it in, ‘Dear Comrade’ has seen glowing essays written but the film has apparently failed the crucial Monday box-office test.
‘ISmart Shankar’ reminded me of the Kannada blockbuster ‘Seetha Ramu’ starring Shankar Nag and Manjula made exactly four decades ago. If the former is about memory transfer, the latter was about brain transplant. Both are revenge dramas with transfer and transplant made from cadavers with the sole purpose of seeking revenge. ‘ISmart Shankar’ is directed by a desperate Puri Jagannath and it shows. It’s loud, over the top, absolutely unbelievable with the censors employing the ‘beep’ throughout the film to mute profanity. The bottom line is that it’s struck a chord. It’s resuscitated Puri’s career, helped the talented Ram to consolidate and add a few crores to his price tag while catapulting Nabha Natesh from struggle to success. There’s a sense of healthy co- existence in Telugu cinema that’s unique. All kinds of films do well and cater to a variety of tastes. The budget or cast is irrelevant to the fate of the film. The choices are very clear. Chiranjeevi is as celebrated as K. Vishwanath, but when they collaborated it was a disaster. Balakrishna was unceremoniously rejected reprising the role of his father NTR, who was deified. Balanna was uncharacteristically restrained but you wonder if audiences expected more spice.
We still look for endorsement if not from the Western world at least the West in our own country. When a film or performance is praised by someone from Bollywood we preen. Karan Johar is an astute businessman and like most filmmakers uses emotional manipulation effortlessly for box-office success. Well everybody does. The makers of ‘Dear Comrade’ were ecstatic when Karan watched their film, praised it and snapped up the remake rights. The hero Vijay Deverakonda profusely expressed his gratitude as if the films fate depended on Karan’s verdict. With the lead pairs last venture together, a box-office success, the film had a tremendous opening. Critics gushed, writing reams about things the director probably never intended conveying. The first signs are disgruntled fans trying hard to praise their idol’s film and Vijay’s ‘Rowdy’ (as he calls them) army of fans are in the process diligently. ‘Dear Comrade’ is a sincere film, dealing with characters that are drawn, but slightly wary at least from the heroine’s point of view. She loves him but loathes his reactions in key situations painfully reminding her of her late brother. The narration swings from the beautiful to the banal swiftly, sometimes meandering enough to tempt you into checking your smart phone. The pace is as uneven as the direction. Anger management is again the underlying key to emotional contradictions. Arjun Reddy was the kind of character who gets beaten up in our films by the hero but now he’s the kind of guy female protagonists fall for. It’s as if she conveniently succumbs to one tormentor who can keep the rest at bay. Bobby in ‘Dear Comrade’ is not a bully and neither Lilly obsequious. The hero eggs her on to chase her dreams even if their relationship has to be sacrificed.
It’s the ambivalence in the heroine’s character that’s not entirely convincing. Some of the scenes between the lead pair are poignant while solutions to serious problems sound silly.
You know something is wrong when people keep harping about the pace. ‘Dear Comrade’ is a flop only when you compare it to ‘Arjun Reddy’ which has become the box-office benchmark for all future Vijay Deverakonda films. A distributor who bought the film in Bengaluru just hopes to break even while the guy who bought ‘ISmart Shankar’ will make a cool couple of crores. Ultimately, a film is a success not when the producer makes money but when distributors all over do. The difference in the quality and fate of these two films is what makes cinema so fascinating, unpredictable yet alluring.
sshivu@yahoo.com
