"Ulavacharu Biryani" (Telugu)

Prakash Raj has a knack of picking off-beat stories and backing them all the way if there is striking point in them. Almost all his films produced by him in the past carry a subtle message with clean entertainment - "Movi"(Tamil) is about coping with challenges of mute and deaf people, "Aakasamantha" (Telugu/Tamil) is about the pleasures and pains of parenting and "Dhoni" (Telugu) captured the mood of today's  young who get sandwiched between parent pulls and youthful aspirations. "Ulavacharu Biriyani"(UB) his latest is a remake of Malayalam "Salt n Pepper". This is a film about lonely hearts and late-marrying men and women who delude themselves into false cocoons of achievement and inferiority complex at the same time while keeping good things waiting. I neither knew about nor saw the original film before watching UB. I watched UB for only one reason: Ilayaraja's music which already became a hit, I wanted to see if his BGM outscored his music in the film. I was not disappointed. More of that later, but short view first - it is a decent film with feel-good factor and terrific performances by the short cast - Prakash Raj, Sneha, Samyukta Hornad, MS Narayana, Tejus and Brahmaji. Worth watching once.

The story is about a foodie called Kalidasu (Prakash Raj) who at age 45 hasn't yet found a companion yet. His main interests are purely epicurean but for earning daily bread he works in the State Department of Archaeology where he works with a team in excavating relics of past and rehabilitating the tribals who live in forests. At home, he is helped by a cook MS Narayana who persuades him to get married. In one such meeting for a marriage alliance, Prakash Raj bumps into an old-time chef Brahmaji who makes delicious "vada"s for the bride. Prakash Raj dumps the prospect bride and returns home with his prized catch - cook Brahmaji. At work, his desire to do good to tribals makes him shelter an old tribal who makes herbal medicines - sought to be exploited by a mercenary businessman. So, it is now four males at Prakash Raj household. In fact, it soon becomes five people with the joining of Prakash Raj's nephew Tejus who comes looking for a job in the city of Prakash Raj. On the other side of the same city, a beautiful-but-aging lady Gowri (Sneha) lives with her sister Urmila and her gang comprising of her transvestite helper and niece (Urmila's daughter) Samyukta Hornad. Sneha is a successful dubbing artiste for film heroines but she is still struggling to find her soul mate. Pressure mounts on both of them to find a suitable match. Call it syncrocity or coincidence, a wrong number dialling by Sneha seeking an order for Kutti Dosa lands on Prakash Raj's mobile. First fire, and then roses all over, sweet small talk leads to mature blossoming friendship. Will it convert to love and marriage? How do two successful professionals who are in their late 30s/40s find their mojo in life - in the sweet companionship of a soul-mate? Are there any hilarious twists? Or a twist in the tail? Watch UB for all of that. In 126 minutes, Prakash Raj has given a watchable narrative thats remarkably clean, straight and fresh. 

The only incomplete chapter is  the troubled lives of Adivasis which are exploited by profiteers in the name of development. Despite an intense-looking characterisation of an old tribal, Prakash Raj lets go a great opportunity to create some drama or infuse more perspective on their plight. All we see is a fierce-looking old man who squats or stands for hours vehemently defended by Prakash Raj but meekly surrendered by him when confronted by human right activists and policemen. If this sequence couldn't be climaxed well, the film's length could have been 15 minutes shorter and that could have been another miracle for an otherwise good film - it could have breached the 2-hour limit for a feature film - a feat that is now regularly being attempted by film-makes in Kollywood, not Tollywood.

Technically, the film stands out in cinematography and music. For a film of this kind emblazoned by the orchestral magic of Ilayaraja, Prakash Raj uses safe distance picture shots avoiding any close-ups even during the most intense moments of the film. That is a rarity these days, when cinematography doesn't dominate direction but rather the eloquence of the music director and the minimalistic intentions of a director call the shots. The titles of the movie scroll in the backdrop of a Kailash Kher song with great original shots of the best street--side food and restaurant food available in India. There is another song shot on the youthful pair of Tejus and Samyukta which show them at their vivacious best using a mixture of natural and golden glow color frames. The cinematography's work aces up in one of the most memorable reels of the film - where Prakash Raj gives out a recipe on phone to Sneha. The recipe called Joanne's Rainbow Cake has been well-shot with Ilayaraja scoring classical music - a slurrpppingly delicious cake with layers of strawberry, pista and orane, made simultaneously by both the narrator and the listener on phone and then the first bite into the cake by both the creators at their respeective ends - it will give any foodie a melting memory. Dialogues are also crisp and urban-cool -wonder why we can't have more of these in our films rather than those elephant-and-mice-and-tiger-likening one-liners.

If the film is enjoyable despite some lazy editing and laid-back screenplay by Prakash Raj, two-thirds credit must sit on the shoulders of Maestro Ilayaraja. Apart from original compositions for the soundtrack of the film which bought him as much fame as "Yeto Vellipoyindi Manasu" in recent times, Ilayaraja has given a great BGM score that will flood the youtube channel soon after the prints get released. Obviously, it is the luck of Prakash  Raj for roping in a heavy-weight name like Ilayaraja. Until "Dhoni", Prakash Raj always had Vidya Sagar score music for his films. Vidya Sagar is himself a gifted composer trained with IlayaRaja. In this film, Prakash Raj must  have given a free hand to IlayaRaja and it shows in the soulful re-recording. The entire film is masterfully punctuated by Ilayaraja and he uses different variety of instruments including vocal support to give one of his best shots. Except for Sneha and Prakash Raj, Ilaya Raja uses BGM for introducing the second youthful romantic pair as they appear and also when they meet for the first time. Then at every crucial juncture, he uses pulsating instrumentation. His music reaches a crescendo in one of the climactic points of the film where all the four lead characters travel in the same car - Ilayaraja uses high notes using extensive violin orchestration, something that would have required a huge budget. Ilayaraja fans will remember that there were few times in his career where he used elaborate multi-crew orchestra for composing music when it demanded - one was for "Dalapathi" and the other for "Yeto Vellipoyyindi Manasu". This must ave beeen the third occasion. Not surprisingly, I checked up with "Salt n Pepper" music director Bijlibal. Ilayaraja didn't even see the original film once to get inspiration for composing the songs and the BGM. Imagine the outpourings that come from ordinary souls when they see a scene of 4-5 minutes, bland without music. Now imagine Ilayaraja looking at a scene only once, making some notes in mind, going to his music room, dictating the musical notations  to the crew for what to play in the background and creating the magic that we aall see. This is exactly the process that Baradwaj Rangan described in his book of interviews with Mani Ratnam as to how Ilayaraja composes music. I am not surprised by the high-octane quality of his BGM in this film. Ilayaraja must have composed around 5 songs per film in a career composing 900 films plus - including original and dubbed films. But he has never relegated the job of re-recording to lackeys or assistants except on few instances. Now imagine the sheer magnitude of the output with the BGM output that comes with equal combinations of energy, velocity and melody - at an average of 900 films multiplied by 10-20 orchestration pieces. Lets settle at 15 pieces per film. Thats a staggering 13500 pieces of original, song-ready musical pieces  that may never be surpassed in quality and the language of film grammar, mastered by few other Western Masters. Hat-tip to you, Ilayaraja Sir for all that and for this film's output.

Finally, back to the film UB after that lengthy excursion on Ilayaraja (I owe myself a lengthy dissertation on his music one day). Good performances by MS Narayana, Prakash Raj and the newcomers. Sneha is good but sulky throughout. UB is a worthy watch even if you are not a foodie or a culinary expert or an expert on marriage- it connects with a lot of people on the planet who live lives of solitude or eke out their existence desperately seeking soulmates at work or neighbourhoods. Despite the few flaws of an elementary story and a slow narration,  the film doesn't bore.  If you do not like it well enough, blame it on the zombie films that are deadening your sense of good  and meaningful cinema. This one is definitely good and meaningful. More power to them. 

My rating: 3.25/5

"Yeto Vellipoyindi Manasu" (Telugu/ “Neethane Enn Ponvasantham”(Tamil) Movie Review

“Yeto Vellipoyindi Manasu” (Telugu) or “Neethane Enn Ponvasantham”(Tamil) is Gautam Vasudev Menon’s latest film whose audio was released many months before the release date. Reason: Maestro Ilaya Raja composed music for the film. Maestro Ilaya Raja had done exceedingly well in the songs which are already chart-toppers. Atleast four out of the seven songs are haunting, hummable and lullaby-melodious. Music-wise, Ilaya Raja has done his part in giving amazing songs for the season, but director Gautam Menon hasn’t capitalized well on the genius of the Maestro. This is because the BGM is hardly perceived in the film – about 65 per cent of the movie is on silent track showing either dialogues between the hero and heroine, hero and his family, hero and his friend – and there is lack of cinematic twists or oscillation of emotions to let music drive the rest. That is why, for fans of Ilaya Raja, the film is a disappointment- sans the songs – which are already a “hit”. As a composer, Ilaya Raja has had an outstanding record in giving memorable BGMs and RR with directors like Mani Ratnam, Ram Gopal Varma, Bapu, K Balachandar, Suresh Krissna, Vishwanath, BharatiRaja, Balu Mahendra, Singeetham Srinivasa Rao, Vamshi and others. It is clearly director’s fault in failing to utilize such a talent that comes rarer than a Halley’s comet. Something has gone wrong with the soundtrack, in short.




What’s the movie all about? Naani and Samantha play Varun and Nithya - two mador-each-other kids who grow up in the same school, go to the same college and have the hots for each other despite huge strata differences, so different that Nithya vacations in Australia whereas Varun goes for Annavaram. And the story continues with time lapses at different periods with many cold wars and hot patchups, without any variety. Varun wakes up one day to be career-conscious while driving some sense in Nithya too that she needs to find a purpose in life beyond him. He writes CAT exams, gets into IIM Kozhikode (where else, Kerala!) and makes his career count – and then revisits his first love – who has found a new calling. She is helping out victims of Tsunami creating a new household. Varun and Nithya overcome their egos and regain each other’s love with a happy ending. Samantha is gorgeous and cute, sometimes tries to look erotic and sensual at the same time. But her style of acting will run out of steam soon if she continues with her ibby-jibbies - girly giggles, self-conscious eye gazes and half-smiles. She is also getting into a rare trap of letting her voice-over Chinmayi dictate her body language – that will make her trapped in an alien voice without giving vent to her talent. In the golden days, you had voices like Saritha, Shilpa and Roja Ramani heighten the characters with their voices dubbed for femme fatales. But Chinmayi is a good singer but comes out dramatically different in voice over – and Samantha is an easy bait for her; here, Samantha dances to the husky and superficial voice of Chinmayi on screen. Naani is a great actor and has put in the right sincerity required for a role of this kind. He is never loud, always apt and remarkably cool.



The lighter moments in the film come when Krishnudu and Samantha’s friends appear on screen. But the movie is mostly a drag and lousy to watch. It is tediously long at 151 minutes, monologous at most times, and inspid when dialogues appear. Gautam Menon couldn’t prevent the shadow of “Yee maaya Chesaave” on the film at most places – the film is again a quasi-documentary of love from K-12 days to Career days, mostly shows dialogues between the boy and girl in the form of conflicts in ego, perceptions and attitudes, and again shows a happy ending. Unless there are more episodes of variety to project on screen from Gautam’s personal experiences, Gautam should put paid to these twilight sagas of love and return to action films or police investigation stories, which are his forte. The movie could have done better with editing, and screenplay deftness. Some of the scenes are abrupt and don't  connect with the previous ones.Lastly, he should get over the leanings of documentary film-makers; every scene comes with a subtitle: Nithya and Varun in school, Nithya and Varun at age 24 and so on. The audiences are too smarter to decipher these - if you want to show an annotated photo and video album from your personal life, show it on youtube and get more clicks but why does he have to inflict them on the audiences? On the whole, a boring and disappointing film from Mr Menon. I would rate it 1.5 on 5.