Watching ETV on Sundays post-lunch is getting quite nostalgic for Bapu film fans. Last Sunday, they aired "Radha Kalyanam". Today, we watched "Seetha Kalyanam". This film, despite the extravagant efforts in trick photography by Ravikant Nagaich and a poetic treatment of Ramayana story from birth of Rama to Seetha Swayamvar turned out to be a damp squib at the box office.
Made in 1976 at a cost of Rs.14 lacs, it was made in just 14 reels but it created history of all kinds for Bapu-Ramana. Before its release, noted maker B.NagiReddi was shown the first copy. Obviously taken in by the visual treat, and buoyed by the stupendous success of the earlier classic "Sampoorna Ramayanam", Nagi Reddy is said to have remarked: "This should run atleast for an year." It probably ran for as much time - but not in the theatres but at major film festivals around the world - London, Chicago, Berlin, Denver. The producer lost his shirt in the making - his name Pinjala Ananda Rao. What made the Indian audiences walk out of this lyrical beauty and made the Western audiences croon over this film is a mystery. Perhaps, the absence of too many dialogues and too many songs spoiled it. Mullapoodi Venkata Ramana in his autobiography says the film has been the most relaxing for him as a writer because all he had to pen was ten pages of dialogues in the film - the rest was all Bapu's hardwork and the work of the cinematographers, artists, music director KV Mahadevan and Ravi Nagaich. Audiences in AP however didn't receive the film well - when the movie started playing and the songs wouldn't end - they were clamoring: "Sound! Sound! Can't hear the dialogues." Obviously it bombed and after soaking up earlier to the complete six-course menu meal in "Sampoorna Ramayanam", the visuals didn't strike gold at the Box Office. But it became a milestone for Indian films in special effects and cinematography used in mythologicals. Before Bapu-Ramana stepped into the arena making mythologicals, the benchmark was Kamalakara Kameshwar Rao who was called Mythological Brahma. After the duo stepped in, there was only one way to make Ramayana and that is the Bapu-Ramana way.
After the film's release, one film critic who wrote for "The Guardian", Derek Malcolm actually sang hosannahs to the team that made "Seetha Kalyanam". And I quote Derek Malcolm:
"It is one of the most extravagantly beautiful films I have seen...It was really made by a team who have worked together often before. Mullapudi Venkata Ramana (writer), KV Mahadevan (the superb carnatic music), KS Prasad (Cinematography) and Ravee Nagaich (the Ray Harryhausen of Indian Special effects) have combined with Bapu to illustrate part of the Ramayana. The result is like a Hollywood Bible Epic done with real taste - an amalgam of lyricism, poetry and spectacle achieved with rare authenticity (everything is as accurate as possible to the legend and to the centuries-old paintings and decorations that embellish it). All is done with a gravita and dignity that is ultimately very moving. I have seen nothing like it before and can't help thinking that its popularity in the West is assured."
This film review ensured Bapu and producer get the passport to London film festival and get accolades galore. Later, the BBC released an English version of the film as "Seetha's wedding" in four episodes. Most of the world fame attributed to Bapu Ramana came with this film itself - despite the film losing the plot for the audience and the money for the producers. A few years back, one of my close friends gave me a contrarian viewpoint on "Seetha Kalyanam" written by none other than the legendary Satyajit Ray. It pained to read Ray's opinion on the film and here I quote again Ray:
"The chorus of praise showered on the south Indian mythological film "Seetha Kalyanamm" launched it on an invitation tour of the international film festival circuit where it won more praise. And yet, in fifty years of film-going, I have not come across a more flagrant exhibition of unmitigated kitsch. As a cultural hybrid which takes an episode from one of the two great Hindu epics, swamps the interiors with Persian carpets, Mughal chandeliers and comic-strip wall paintings; floods the soundtrack with what is claimed to be classical Carnatic music, but it turns out mostly to be high-decibel film songs a la Bombay; punctuates the story with camera tricks that were already cliches in the early days of the talkies; and wraps the whole thing up in the colours of a chocolate box, "Seetha Kalyanam" is a concoction par excellence. One could see it as being mildly enjoyable as camp, though that is not how the critics saw it.. They took it seriously." Those were the words of Satyajit Ray - one of the all-time Asian legends of film-making who thrived on making films for the western audiences. Phew! I was devastated that a film like this which is an outrighht mythological could be received so differently from a man who was an atheist and whose father Sukumar Ray, another multi-faceted legend wrote stories and spoofs on the Ramayana. One cannot judge Ray for what he said nor take what he said as the measure of what Bapu created iin "Seetha Kalyanam" because Ramayana and Rama-essence was what Bapu breathed all his life. So you cannot fault Bapu for failing to portray a mythological (which by its very nature cannot have historical angles and authenticities of settings) in the myriadness with which he endeavored to.
In his own version of what Satyajit Ray commented on the film, Bapu wrote in one of his last pieces that instead of commenting on whether he liked the film or not, Ray had made just two points on the film. "The carpet on which Seetha sat is of Arabic design. There were no crotons in those times." Bapu was sportive enough to take it on his chin on what the Oscar-winner felt honestly about the film. Then he asked for a snap with Ray which is stuck in his library with a caption: "The Long and short of Indian Cinema." So much for the criticism and its reception - Bapu style. But let me make out another inference: it is after watching Jayaprada play Seetha in the film did Satyajit Ray make the famous statement: "Jayaprada is the most beautiful Indian actress." Even the great director K Balachander once put his hand on Bapu's shoulder and said: "I don't go to temple or do pooja, being an atheist. But after watching "Seetha Kalyanam", my mind was reeling with visuals of your film for one week."
Back to the film SK. Not content with the film's poor reception, producer Ananda Rao went ahead post-film to make another two films with the same starcast of Jayaprada and Ravi who fit so well as Seetha and Rama. They were directed not by Bapu but by Kamalakara Kameswar Rao - "Seetha Rama Vana Vaasam" and "Sri Rama Pattabhishekam" but both bombed at the box office. Large-hearted Bapu Ramana who were paid Rupees Sixty thousand as remuneration for SK returned fifty thousand to the producer who was struggling to make both ends meet.
Those were some of the tit bits I remembered after seeing the film "Seetha Kalyanam" (even as I am still at a loss of words to pay a fitting tribute to the great Bapu uncle). Most people rate the scene which shows the river Ganga's descent to earth as the best SFX scene which was created by Ravikant Nagaich using loads of chalk powder in gunny bags poured from atop the mendicant hoods of Lord Shiva. Yes that was something ingenious in those days. But my favorite scene is the climax where Parasurama comes after Rama breaks the Shiva's bow at Swayamvar. It is a fantastic interpretation of what happens when one incarnation makes way for another and there's subtle psychology at work in all the characters in limelight for the scene - Parasuram who feels like a spent force after Rama takes the Vishnu's bow as a test of greatness and breaks with equal elan, and then Vishwamitra who is witness to a new history in making - he divines that Rama is indeed Vishnu's incarnation and then magically moves his hands - first as an acknowledgement of divine blessings and then waves them back at the Lord as if all that comes to us should go back to Him only. One of the most subtle scenes that tells a lot.
Those were the times when movies were made with purity of heart and without an expectation of rewards or awards. 'Seetha Kalyanam' will stand the test of time as long as Ramayana stands.
#SeethaKalyanam
