In one of these sessions to KV the discussion drifted towards movies and as usual my Tam friend applauded the brilliant performance of Ranji in his latest flick SIVAJI. I forgot to mention we all went for the first day first show of sivaji here in kolkata. On a personal front,I thought that the heroine was under utilized and the glimpses of talent that she showed in every dance number (unfortunately her only contribution) were breath-taking.
Neways, the discussion then moved on to Telugu films papularly known as GULT movies. I had recently seen the movie "Bommerellu" and thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it, considering the fact that I don't understand telugu. My first encounter with GULT came when I was in Hyderabad and my circle of friends were all ardent GULT movie lovers. During my 8 month stay in Hyd. I went for 2 gult movies in the theatre nad one of them was a "Cheeru"starrer. Both of them were raw action packed films and true entertainers going by the crowd hysteria that could be seen in the theatre.
My early impression about gult movies, I must say, wasn’t that great. There is this 20 mins cycle of events that repeat themselves 9 times to complete the 3 hour duration. The split-up of those 20 mins are as follows: Comedy scene (if with heroine part romantic), a song sequence, villain pitching in with his antics, an emotional angle where the hero swears to take revenge and as would be expected the action sequence. All this with a background score that too on dolby surround sound, the crowd has to go bonkers and which it does.
Bommerellu was a deviation and I recommend it for any movie buff. But hardly did I know that there was a different angle to gult movies. A friend of mine over the dinner conversation (we still haven’t left KV) enlightened me about the attitude that has to be developed to appreciate them. One has to have an open mind and should be receptive to the ideology behind such movies, the audience that they cater to etc. With this new outlook I saw “Athadu”,a Mahesh babu starrer, I in my sanest self saw that I really enjoyed it J
