Keeping aside the fact that I’m a woman who watched a film that is being called “progressive”, I will talk about it later. Let’s discuss the writing and dialogues of #AravindaSametha as Guruji is a matala manthrikudu and whatnot.
Thread. SPOILERS!!
Thread. SPOILERS!!
The film’s primary conflict revolves around the man who is at the top level of factionalism food chain. The idea is to try peace, since war hasn’t worked for either parties. Not new, many films have explored this, but only Mirchi comes to mind.
So, the idea is to say no one is anyone’s enemy and that everyone is as good/bad as the place they come from, then the first thing to do is humanise the characters. Instead of having them be evil or good, have them be people—flawed and scared. Like Naveen’s character.
But that’s not what happens. Everyone on the hero’s side of the village are good. Everyone on the other is either stupid or hot-headed or outright evil. Naveen admits first that his father made a mistake, but Sudhakar gets super turned on when NTR says sorry, why?
Then Supriya Pathak, sitting at the legs of the hero’s chair, tells him how his father started neglecting his mother once he impregnated her. The whole Penimiti song moves contrary to this description with Nagababu putting gorrinta and whatnot. What are inconsistencies a sign of?
Naresh plays a criminal lawyer who thinks it a good idea to put his family in the hands of the clients that come seeking his help. The whole family is being targeted, but our hero follows the main lady. The idea is to have characters drive the plot, not the other way around.
Coming to the way the characters are written. I can say badly written women, but the men aren’t that well written either. None of them are fleshed out enough to have a personality and behaviour traits that can take the plot forward. Yay, equality.
Ragahava- We don’t know what he studied abroad or how it didn’t change his worldview. He is home after 10 years and kills people like second nature. He is like a blank slate, albeit a ripped one, but kind of inappropriate for him to flaunt his body with a dead father near him.
Aravinda- She is an anthropology student, who acts like a psychology student. She is intelligent and is bloody impressed when the hero brings a tomato-shaped stopwatch. Always ready with lessons. Doesn’t matter if she is about to be raped or dead.
Talented actors, all of them, I mean Jagapathi Babu can take the prize whatever it is. Supriya Pathak and Eshwari, the women who outshined Rajani a few months ago, are just there to make a meek scene powerful and it’s unfair and manipulative.
There is this one scene in the beginning that’s good and telling of what a good actor NTR is. Raghava, after finishing a rather long action sequence, comes to the car with his dead father in it and he is suddenly unable to open the car door.
The thing that’s waiting for him on other side of the door is turning a man who just killed 20 men into a puddle. The power of grief/loss shown beautifully but that’s about it. One really well-designed scene. Another might be where Jagapathi Babu kills Naveen.
I don’t understand why we were rushed the way we were at the beginning 20 minutes. We don’t know Nagababu or NTR, for that matter, enough at that point of time to empathise with the deaths and loss, which kind of becomes the film’s catalyst towards change.
Now to the dialogues. Trivikram’s films always have been more about the punch lines than anything else, but there are no punches either. I can’t think of one memorable dialogue, which is kind of sad considering that’s all there is to a Trivikram’s film.
But there is one where Raavu Ramesh calls him a torchbearer of peace and says in the very next sentence, ‘He is tiger, he’ll suck your blood’. Sounds kind of better in Telugu. But keeping the irony aside, tigers don’t drink blood. Adavullo straws undavga.
There is a dialogue that’s supposed to sound very knowledgeable about women and what they like that talks about how Pandavalu only had one wife, but Krishnudu had eight because women like men who solve things through words. I don’t know what to say about that. Really.
There are many problematic things involving women, but I’m not gonna mention them as I’ve said this isn’t about feminism, it’s about craft. I didn’t find any, if you did congrats. Except for the way the dialect has been authenticated rather than used as a punch line.
Close to the ending, Aravindha on her knees, dying, says to Ragahava ‘to write a new story’. And he replies frustrated, ‘Em rayamantav?’ That was Trivikram after we all betrayed him by watching world cinema. So, he decided to lift from our very own films. Bold, patriotic even.
The film decides to end on a dialogue that’s also supposed to work as closure that goes “A person who knows how to live, won’t waste time killing people”. Again feel free to mansplain why that is an epiphany or a coherent thought even.
Shubham. 🙏🏽
