A Spirited Experiment from Tollywood

Hidden in the midst of blockbusters and noisemakers viewers of Telugu cinema are being surprised once in a way with cinema that is different. It is not that these products are mindboggling and are Tollywood’s response to Ray, Benegal, Nilani, et al. Actually they are far from such high pedestals. Films like Andala Rakshashi, 7 Days in Slow Motion, etc, are sincere attempts to fly out of the pigeonholes and flutter with freedom in fresh air. Having taken flight hopefully such daring filmmakers will fine-tune the art to fly. No Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Unfortunately no Illusions either.
The filmmaker in keeping with Bach would believe “There is no problem so big that it cannot be run away from”. The film, therefore, is somewhere about flight. It is about fluttering from the restrictions and fears of our being into the dreams and destiny of our “wanting to be”. Thematically a superlative premise to tell the story of three young girls with dreams in their eyes, baggage on their shoulders and attitude in their behaviour. It is precisely from here that the filmmaker could have pulled out a Scarlett O’Hara or even a Hester Prynne. Unfortunately we have characters fleshed from Red Riding Hood and Cinderella.
The distance between the spirit that seeks flight and expression and the flesh that responds to restrictions is the space life is made of. Therefore to overcome the restraint of the physical and to reach out to the imaginative desire of the spirit, threefold could have been a marvellous experiment. Films like Dil Chahta Hai and Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara both dealt with nostalgia, of spirited persona – sometimes coming to terms and somewhere defying the moral code. Rock On moved further towards returning to the spirit that was and was lost in the course of life. Kai Po Che was again somewhere the story of regret a la a Namak Haram and a Beckett. These myriad combinations or any minor streaks thereof could well have constituted the fulcrum of her cinema.
Instead she picks a group of screen-facing enthusiasts who convert the free spirit of man into statement delivering robots and rob the film of a rightful place in the respectful corridor of experimentation. Kudos to producer Jhansi for having had the gumption to take on a film of this kind and praise be to the debutant director Shital Morjaria for willing to chew.
Somewhere on a serious note she fails herself in the process of telling the story. To quote Richard Bach: “Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else in not only impossible, but the mark of a fake messiah”.
Some unsolicited advice to the filmmaker Shital Morjaria – don’t walk the road of a messiah, much less a fake messiah. Be the filmmaker you are capable of being.
All I Want is Everything is the naïve desire to catch a cloud and pin it down. The challenge with such ambition is how do you solve a problem of this kind and to quote from the popular song: A will of a whisp
a clown
Many a thing you know you’d like tell her
Many a thing she ought to understand
But how do you make her stay?
And listen to all you say
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?

L. Ravichander