A film on human values and promotion of artisans

Unlike earlier films, R Narayana Murthy slightly deviated from his path to bring out a film by touching various issues like, travails of traditional artisans, the craze for foreign jobs in the name of earning dollars, the attacks on innocent girls by crazy youth in college etc., Earlier, most of his films highlighted the armed struggle, revolution and other such issues. But this time, the film doesn't have violence and has lots of commercial values. Though he deviated from his path slightly, the audiences continues to ignore his film and only the hardcore fans of his films turned up to watch the movie.

Devarakonda Veeraiah (R Narayana Murthy) is a barber by profession. Though his wife dies after giving birth to a son and a daughter, he brings them up with lot of care. He gives them everything by taking hand loans for their education. On the other hand, he takes up struggle as the government continues to ignore the traditional artisans like barber, potter and other such occupational jobs. In order to earn good money, Veeraiah goes to the nearby city and forms an association for barbers. He sets up a saloon there and starts earning money. Though he strongly believes that his son would complete his job and help them repay the loans, he ignores them by marrying the daughter of a millionaire and settles himself in the US. However, his daughter Chitti Thalli, who loves her father very much, helps him to repay the loans by earning Rs 2 lakh, as an art lover purchases her paintings. At this juncture, Chitti finds Nirodh (contraceptive) in the bathroom and beer bottles in the backyard of the hostel. She warns the warden that she would complain to higher authorities. When the tempers rise with an argument, she dares to slap the warden. Irked over the development, the warden abets Naveen, son of an MLA, to rape her and unfortunately, she dies in the hands of Naveen. Veeraiah pleads for justice in the court. However, the MLA, with her money and political power manages to jumble the case and the MLA's son gets acquitted. As he could not get justice, Veeraiah takes the law into his hands and kills all those who were responsible for Chitti Thalli's death including, the hostel warden, the advocate, the police inspector and finally the MLA and his son.

PLUS:

Possibly for the first time, R Narayana Murthy's film has meaningful and thought provoking dialogues and songs. All the songs are high in literary values and mirrored the social causes. There is a humane touch in every frame and instead of high-pitched dialogues the film has thought-provoking dialogues. Narayana Murthy showed a matured run of the film by sprinkling commercial values here and there. Music scored by Vandemataram Srinivas was routine, but the Praja Kavulu, penned nice lyrics for all the songs. Especially, the song which highlighted the 'barber occupation', the two sentiment songs involving son and daughter, the song on how the MNCs are swindling our money are highly thought-provoking.

MINUS:

The movement of the story is steady and the audiences had the feel of watching a good movie. Despite all this, the main draw back is that he himself played the main role. Had he remained behind the screen by directing the film and employed some other senior artiste or popular artiste, the film would have a very good saleability. Though all the artistes performed well, the unknown faces on the screen could not attract the audiences. The climax was not properly etched. Though the entire film was very near to nativity, the director should not have propagated the idea of taking the law into one's hands. If a person, who meets injustice takes a weapon and goes on killing spree, the country will fill with blood and nothing more. Though the message he wants to give is good, the end should have been something different.

REMARKS:

Narayana Murthy's films always have the mark of red flags. There is a particular set of audiences who are eager to watch his films. Normal audiences would not go and watch films as they feel that the film will have lot of violence and unnecessary dialogues on revolution and at times promoting the Naxalism. He earned a lot of fame for bringing out such films but not the money. It appears he realised that mere promotion of revolution will not serve the purpose, and deviated the path to highlight the plight of artisans. It is a good sign and at least he could improve his fan following by bringing out such message-oriented films with a touch of different emotions.

Cast: R Narayana Murthy, Gogineni Prasad, YS Krishneswara Rao, Sharafat, Balu Mahendra, Priyanka, BHEL Prasad, Ranga Rao, Nata Kumari, Prameela Rani, Karate Lakshmi, Madhav and others are in the cast.

Credits: Dialogues – YS Krishneswara Rao, Lyrics – Vangapandu Prasada Rao, Gorati Venkanna, Suddala Ashok Teja, Jayaraj, Music – Vandemataram Srinivas, Cinematography – M Prasad, Editing – Mohan-Rama Rao, Story, screenplay production and direction – R Narayana Murthy

Banner: Sneha Chitra Pictures

Released on: November 28, 2008