"Journey" Movie Review

"Journey" directed by M.Shravanan and originally produced by AR Murugadoss is another feather to divvy up the golden year of Tamil dubbed movies into Telugu. Wonderfully crafted and innovatively shot - "Journey" is a story of what happens before and after a major collusion of two buses coming to and fro Hyd-Vijayawada. (Trichy-Chennai in original). Two love stories of which one is almost of impro...bable origin (like a Black Swan) are enchantingly woven by M.Shravanan with lots of cuteness and credibility. A story like this which ends in a fatal bus collusion killing 50 pc of the people deserves a rich screenplay toggling past and present quite easily. Director achieves that too and succeeds in giving a few messages, inter alia, on organ donation, choosing a life partner and of course, reckless and speedy driving on roads. The entire sequence of the two buses ramming into each other is shot in outstanding slow motion that brings out the brutality and fatality of such accidents in a telling fashion - you will shudder to hit road like that after seeing the havoc that follows a moment of lapse. Its remarkable how bold and evocative these Tamil movies are and what a mix of class and variety they have. This year, I was lucky to spare a dime to see half a dozen movies of Tamil dubbed into Telugu- "Rangam", "Vaishali", "Vaadu-Veedu", "The Gambler", "7th Sense", and now "Journey" - all of them have a tale that sets each of them apart from one another. Of course, there were notable must-misses like "Sega" and "180" but by far, despite movies like "Kandireega" and "Dookudu" and "Sri Rama Rajyam" methinks 2011 belongs to Tamill dubbed movies in Telugu. They are bold, imaginative, different and refreshingly evocative despite being hauntingly closer to reality. No wonder, Tollywood producers who don't have the guts to make different films are hell-bent on raising the entry barriers to these dubbed movies. Tollywood is 90 percent formulaic, only 10 percent is experimental -thats not enough to launch a renaissance of new wave cinema. Come Sankranti- you have half-a-dozen Telugu films which will again have tons of bizarre violence, obscene dances, and dialogues that sound like " I will make you piss" or something like that. We have to watch because there is no choice. I hope we have more films dubbed into Telugu from sensible film-makers. This started off as a movie review but became something else- year-end outpourings of a mad Tollywood fan who expects the industry to grow-up and make mature films. Otherwise, we will continue to make films that are atavistic but commercial hits.