"Krishnam Vande Jagadguru" Telugu Movie Review

“Krishnam Vande Jagadguru” is quite a resonant title taken from a Sanskrit Sloka in Bhagavatam. It has Rana  Daggubati who hasn’t yet tasted Box Office success and casts Nayanatara in her first glam role after “Srirama Rajyam”. Director Radhakrishna Jagarlamudi is known for themes which are seldom dwelled upon on celluloid. In “Gamyam” he talks about being a humanist instead of a hedonist and enjoying the journey more than the destination in life. In “Vedam” he talks about the essence of right living and right thinking taking stories of five different people and blending them in the climax to drum up  the broad message of Vedas. It broke new ground in presentation and clearly remains a unique film of sorts  - in genre, theme and vivacity. “KVJ” his current, therefore, built a crescendo of expectations  - it has the implicit backing of the king of script-judgements D Suresh Babu, and all the paternal support that comes with such backing – theatres, distribution, the works. It is touted to be the real launch film of Rana. Does it deliver? Maybe, but it’s a mixed bag, according to me.

The story is quite explosive. Loosely borrowed from the famous “Surabhi” Nageswar Rao character. The patriarch of Surabhi theatre  (Kota Srinivasa Rao) runs the troupe with new generation of artists who show mixed commitment to the craft. One of them is BTech Babu (Rana) who is the “manasa putra” of Kota Srinivasa Rao, he is 6’3”tall, handsome, built like a planet and pulls off any role from the mythologies from Abhimanyu and Ghatotkachha to Narasimha and Krishna Avatars. He is the only hope for Kota to enact his magnum opus “Krishnam Vande Jagadguru” in Bellary Mines but BTech Babu has plans to study in US. Crest-fallen, Kota  dies. Shaken by Kota’s death and his past, BTech Babu re-dedicates himself and unites the troupe to  carry on the tradition. This takes him to Bellary where he falls in love with Nayanatara (an investigative documentary film-maker on mining scam). He also meets with the real baddies of Bellary – Murali Sharma and Milan Gunajee and finds more economic and social arson leading to imbalances in the surroundings of Bellary. Then the climax in a filmy way where Btech Babu pounces on the real villain who disturbed his ecosystem: While playing Narasimha Avatar, he pounces upon the villain (find out yourself) and eventually lets the displaced villagers give a fire exit to the villain.  

Director Krish had picked an explosive theme of Mining loot and its effect on the underbellies affected by it. He blends it half-heartedly with the declining patronage for theatre arts with the influx of media and economic boom leading to evolving forms of crisp entertainment. He lacks the control and finesse to blend both. In 136 minutes, he shows half-hearted will to grapple with the issues of the movie. Unlike Bengali and Marathi theatre, why did Telugu theatre vanish after centuries of fantastic run? There must be reasons beyond the evident – could it be mass urbanization or media invasion? Could better improvisation of language (simplification, actually) helped? Could they have picked up shorter and more vibrant and relevant themes? Any craft dies not because of falling patronage but only because of lack of marketing initiatives and perceived value – those aspects were not properly investigated. If Annamacharya had sung several thousand keerthanas, how come only few are sung with telling noticeability by even the unitiated? Some soul-searching needs to be done by Telugu theatre why such a decline befell it  - those who don’t adapt to the changing times in technology, presentation, content, theme or relevance, they are bound to perish. Krish disappointingly, has done no justice to the relevance of this debate. Instead, he sprinkles a few powerful dialogues that art is that which wakes you up from dreams, not the dream itself. Point taken, but how does the art become sustainable, remunerative and fulfilling? Krish doesn’t answer:  If you use  language that’s not crisp or clear to the current generation, the theatre has no hope in hell. But if you make it entertaining and improvise, it can survive the odds as in cities like Pune, Mumbai, Kolkata etc. For every “Surabhi” example, we need to see why some others have succeeded like “Prithvi” or “Qadar Ali Baig theatre” or some noted English theatres. Everybody loves a good play and stage performance and I can vouch that given good presentation and content, people will go to any lengths to watch theatre, there’s no dearth of audience here.

Krish also under-utilises his own strengths in documenting social problems well in his assessment of the mining mafia. Even though so much has happened in Bellary, and Goa mining scams, some justice is happening in terms of export bans, invoking of the RTI, land acquisition laws,  etc. I don’t want to delve deep into this issue as there are other larger points of debate which can be tackled separately. Showing how mining barons terrorise the villagers is just old-school villainy. When you have the main villain as “Reddappa”, there is so much scope for bringing real-life characterization and depth to sophisticated villainy. Krish fails to deliver here as well as in the characterization of most roles in the film. Nayanatara is a documentary film-maker on the mining scams. We don’t think she is either intelligent nor capable of the task at hand in the way she is characterized; she is mostly seducing Rana, dancing with him or running with her camera in Ambassador car. And what is the connection between a CBI officer and a documentary film-maker? Do they authorize film-makers to shoot documentaries and give leads? Murali Sharma is a talented villain who continues to be short-changed in Telugu films, he had scope to give a fiery performance but is again given short-shrift. The three best characters in the film are L.B.Sriram as the safekeeper of sand, Brahmanandam as “Rampam” and Posani Krishna Murali as “Tipu Sultan” car driver. Infact, the lightest moments in the film are when Brahmanandam takes a dig at stage artists and when Posani Krishna Murali sizzles on screen with his antics.  Their screen presence electrifies for the moments they appear.

Rana  Daggubati definitely has a diction that is top of the tree and credit must be given for his awesome dialogue-delivery of tough Telugu. He looks very impressive in the roles of mythological characters especially as Abhimanyu and Narasimha but he needs to improve his looks and work on what is the best facial hairdo for a person of his hulk and height. He looked better in “Dum Maro Dum” and previous movies in terms of looks than in this movie. He probably looks better with a stubble or a beard and a moustache like Victory Venkatesh (btw,  Venkatesh has a guest appearance with Sameera Reddy in a song). But he delivers a heartful performance that may make him win more hearts. Had Krish concentrated on every scene one at a time, the intensity of Rana would have come alive because he has streaks of fiery acting like Venky. Krish has treaks of my uncle Bapu – he doesn’t allow a scene to fully develop to its potential (like they say in Telugu, “scene panda ledu”).  Music by Mani Sharma  sounds unlike him and lacks the class and masterly touch of his earlier films. I get a sense that Krish imposes his own restrictions on the music output expected for BGM and songs except in “Vedam”. The background song with SPB at about half-dozen moments of the film brings out the pathos well.  There are songs which abruptly break into the flow of the scenes - like the circus song. What mars the film also is the degree of violence – it has some scenes that you will cringe to watch like tongue-slaying and hot-water throat bath etc. Why do they show such scenes? Why compound cruelty with clarity? I understand the censors have ordered for 36 seconds of brutal violence to be cut but only 12 seconds are cut in some theatres and the rest are showing off.

On the whole, a movie with mixed-bag results and could have been better handled by Krish because he had a great opportunity. I hope he becomes deft enough to be equal to the themes he selects henceforth. I will give this movie 2.5 out of 5 as I was disappointed a bit. It is watchable more in the first half than the second.