“Varna” is one of the most hyped films with visual effects
created by the same team that worked for “Avatar”. It had everything going for
it – a producer with deep-pockets (PVP) who is on a cyclical high, a director
Sri Raghava (Selvaraghavan in Tamil) who gave great family entertainers like “Aadavariki
Maatalu Ardhaale Vere” and “7/G Brindavan Colony” and a great looking pair- the
blue-eyed Arya and the sweet-and-sensuous Anushka Shetty. Harris Jayaraj scores
music and the lad who created “Kolaveridi” composed the BGM score for the film.
With that kind of a team, there were huge expectations and even the trailer
kissed a surge of optimism. Is the film worth the hype? Alas, No. Then what
went wrong? It’s the script and the characterization again, stupid. Basics of
entertainment were missing – no comedy, no romance that sticks and no
entertainment value despite an extra-ordinary theme of love and other human
emotions having inter-galactic appeal. Director has combined atleast two fairy
tales with one half-hearted romance in modern times and then connects the two
stories towards the later half. The
duration – 160 minutes – made it hard to concentrate a story involving two
planets and the same lead pair – Arya and Anushka.
The story is all a flashback narration by the earthly hero
Arya who is sinking in an ocean. He is a good Samaritan who falls in love with
Anushka, a doctor. On the other planet, many light years away, a Goddess of
love rules and is worshipped by all but the planet is effectively resident evil
– wrong doers seized control of the planet where love is absent, women are
ill-treated and shephearded as slaves and none of the human emotions abound.
The goddess there sows the seeds of embryonic love between another Anushka and
another Arya who is the son of the king. A few twists later, the earthly Arya
is transposed to the other world where he eventually plays cupid between the
two, culminating the wish of the Goddess of love. The narration moves in tandem, and toggles
between earth and the other planet – which looks like a supernova in color scheming
but exotic and splendid in landscape and sky. Visually, the director transports
us into a surreal planet full of mythical birds and beasts and flora that
captures all the colors your eyeballs can absorb. A few fights here and there
but most of the film moves slower than Telangana bill, the first half takes you
to wit’s end to elaborate the love track between the lead pair in both the
planets and only the three songs by Harris Jayaraj spruce it up.
Post-interval, the movie picks up tempo but fails to elevate the characters or
add to the story that was revealed at the outset in the form of a short
animation film about the fight between evil and good. However, there are some
beautiful moments in the film which leave you dazed and tranced – the snowy
surroundings on the other planet where love and sometimes hate envelops the
three characters on a mission ( shot in Georgia), the serene characterization of
the Goddess of love, and the transformative powers of human emotions on
machine-like men. All the best scenes get amply highlighted by the mesmerizing background
music of Aniruddh. He will be a sought-after BGM composer after this film. There are
big takeaways – how love drives a man to superior machismo than even a
thousand military training camps and the emotions of kindness and human
affections are what makes our planet so
unique in the universe. I do not know whether the message in all its subtlety
will reach a wider audience because the multiplex I went to on day one was
half-empty so do not know whether there is that much of nerve and verve to
attract bigger audiences. It is slow, smooth but lacking in intensity of
emotions – the very emotions humans can teach other beings. For most part,
Anushka is shown as the one who sulks but in varied costumes. She gets a meaty
role in two characters but it could have been etched better to make her
characters evocative. She still carries the film on her shoulder, her costumes,
her Xena-like warrior movements and swordly fights and her feminine grace light
the screen. Arya as the earthly lover did better justice than the other-worldly
warrior. Technically, the film looks stylish and defining in VFX for Indian
Cinema. It might have cost more dollars than the marketing budget of a
Hollywood animation film but if only some entertainment, comedy and ripened
romance be uploaded into this mix, “Varna”
would have been a different tale. Audiences will forget a movie’s furniture
pieces fast- the VFX, et al but never forget the lines, the chemistry of the
love pair and the entertainment quotient. For that let down alone, and not for
anything else, the film’s rating deserves 2.5/5 but not more.
Post-script: The themes of inter-planetary movement of human
beings is explored by Indians also as much as Hollywood directors. Imagination
must run wild to explore a start-trek kind of experience because thought can
travel faster than light. There is nothing wrong with that because Hindu
Astronomy recognizes that there are 24 earths in the universe which are similar
to our own. Recently, we read somewhere that Russians have researched a
possibility of the netherworlds lying under the earth’s crust which leads to the worlds like Naga loka etc. talked
about by fiction writers like Amish Tripathi. There are also ways and means
defined in our own ancient books about many worlds that can be experienced once
human beings go outside their sensory range – like experiencing the body in
several realms, travelling in astral light etc. Cinema lends itself perfectly
to such possibilities being explored. But where movies like “Avatar” click and
movies like “Baba” and “Varna” fail is in deliverance on emotions and mass
value. Hopefully, these lessons will be learnt well before deep-pocketed
producers look for the exit door of the film industry.
