!!! Triplets of Arundathi !!!

Have you ever thought, why there is 1..2..3.. Go and not 1..2..Go or 1..2..3..4...Go ??
Its an observation that triplet is the best way to program the brain. 1..2 Go is too early and 1..2..3..4.. Go is too late.

This is not my theory but many speakers and story-tellers say and follow this. They always suggest, if you are talking about a subject, tell three good points and three bad points, if you are narrating a story of yours, like your childhood life, pick the three interesting incidents that happened when you were a child. Its because anything beyond three could make it boring, because of too much stuff and anything less than three could look short and may not cause expected impact. That is the reason most of the times we see the triplet of something being done. That is the beauty of 3.

In the screenplay of Arundathi as well, there are lot of places where the triplet formula is used. Since the credits for the film are given as, Story-Screenplay - Mallemala Team and Director - Kodi Ramakrishna, and as I am going to discuss about the screenplay and since I dont have authentic evidence of who the actual screenwriters are, I am not going to take any name but will just call as 'Writers'.

1. Three characters Pasupathi used for his advantage in first half of the story:

When the film begins, we come to know that villain Pasupathi has grudge on Arundathi but he is locked in Samadhi in Gadwal Mahal and Arundathi is not in Gadwal. So he has to bring her to Gadwal, kill her and he also should come out of the Samadhi. Here, writers made use of three characters for accomplishing those things:

i. Satyanarayana (Arundathi grandfather) - Pasupathi using his power causes a physical hurt to Satyanarayana who is in Gadwal. As a result, the news spreads to Arundathi and she along with family comes to Gadwal.

ii. Rahul (Arundathi fiance) - Once she came to Gadwal, Pasupathi mimics like her fiancé and asks her to come to his Mahal so that he can kill her there but however his attempt fails because Phakir Shayaji shinde protects her and pulls her out of Mahal. But Pasupathi made use of a character for his benefit and succeeded in bringing her to the Mahal.

iii. Ramana (Aundathi relative) - Pasupathi traps Ramana and his wife who are travelling in a car carrying Arundathi's wedding card and kills his wife, in the first few min of the film. After that, the same Ramana is used to break the Samadhi at the interval block and lets Pasupathi out.

2. Three Evil-Acts of Pasupathi in back-story - for character Build:

When the back-story starts, its obvious that Pasupathi is the Villain and he would have done some evil acts to the people. Here he is a Womanizer. To show that the writers used the triplet formula and this time they gradually increased the intensity of his evil acts one by one:

i. Pasupathi is introduced as a womanizer grabbing the ladies who ever he sees in the town. This is a small dose, showing how he is outside.

ii. Pasupathi, along with group of whores in his bed-room, ill-treats his wife. This is medium dose showing how he treats his family people.

iii. Pasupathi grabs the opportunity when he sees the blind dancer in his Mahal and then he stabs her with a sword before raping her. This is a high dose given to show the evilness in his character. Audience watching this scene will definitely want this guy to be dead.

Having successfully set audience mood to hate the Villain, and anticipate his fall, the writers next made Arundathi to feel same by making her sister commit suicide. That is the motivation for Arundathi to punish Pasupathi and throw him out of the kingdom but for audience the motivation already got established at the end of the triplet.

3. Three disguises Pasupathi used after coming out from Samadhi:

As Pasupathi is just a evil-soul, once he comes out of Samadhi, he has to use someone's body to accomplish his goal, which is nothing but to torture Arundathi. In that process, again he uses three persons before he actually becomes himself in the climax.

i. First he uses the maid girl body to scare and warn Arundathi that he is out of Samadhi and he has come for her. Tension builds (1).

Arundathi gets scared and she runs out in search of the Phakir but she fails to meet him due to his unavailability. She goes in search of Phakir but Pasupathi threatens her while she is leaving Gadwal in search of Phakir and thus she comes back to her home. Tension kept continously build (2).

ii. Once she is back, Pasupathi again takes a human form this time a different lady and threatens Arundathi to send all his family members out or otherwise he is going to kill everyone. Everyone leaves and its only Arundathi and Pasupathi in the entire house. Tension build to the peaks (3).

 There is an internal triplet here - the writers kept the suspense and tension build continuously with three events happening one after the other and finally the tension is broken when Phakir comes to the house and rescues helpless Arundathi from Pasupathi. Notice that Phakir did not come at tension 1 or 2 but comes after 3rd scene.

iii. Third is when Arundathi comes to know about the entire back story, and finds out that there is a weapon to kill Pasupathi. She goes in search of the weapon. To distract her, he brings her fiancé Rahul back to Gadwal and sends message to Arundathi that Rahul is in a danger. Arundathi stops her run for weapon and comes back to Gadwal to save Rahul. That's when Pasupathi takes a human form of auto driver and tries to take Rahul in a auto to Mahal to kill him. However, Arundathi reaches in time and spoils Pasupathi's plan.

Interesting right! We are not done here, there are few more triplets that can be found in Arundathi. But since we are talking about triplet, I am stopping here, after discussing three triplets. In my next blog, I will discuss another three triplets of Arundathi. Watch out!

- Sai Kiran

Tom and Jerry show of Okkadu

This is my second blog about the film Okkadu and in this blog I would like to discuss little bit about the screenplay design during the second-half of the film that kept audience engaged, excited and kept guessing of what will happen next.

The Screenplay writer, who is none other than the director himself, Mr. Gunasekhar very intelligently designed the part from the time Mahesh brings Bhoomika to his house to the time when they both fall in love at the airport.

Till the time Mahesh encountered Bhoomika and Prakash Raj, his goal was to become Kabaddi champions and get a Police job under sports quota but when the 'Konda Reddy Buruju' scene happened, from then his goal has got changed. Knowingly or unknowingly, he brought himself to a life-threatening trouble of taking the girl away from a notorious villain (Prakash Raj). His life is at risk now. But he has a new goal of sending Bhoomika to America and he feels that as his responsible. The character priorities changed so much that all his plans got shattered and now there are new goals and new challenges ahead. Here is where Gunasekhar succeeded in convincing audience that Mahesh can do whatever it takes, by showing him as a courageous boy right from the beginning of the film. At this point, though we may have doubts on how Mahesh will get escaped from Prakash Raj, we are pretty confident that Mahesh can face any kind of challenge.

Keeping audience convinced to this point is a tough job but director succeeded in doing that, with the help of his screenplay and Mahesh screen presence. 

Now he brings the girl to his house. They are somewhat in safer zone from the Villain. Here is the challenge for the screenplay writer. When the audience come to know that the lead characters are not in any risk or threat, they may feel the flatness in story and loose their interest but the writer intelligently weaved the plot from here on to keep audience engaged by creating quite a few obstacles in Mahesh's attempts to safeguard the girl and send her to America. Lets see what they are:

1. Hiccups

Being at home, the only obstacles/threat for Mahesh in hiding the girl is his family so the writer created the obstacles using family members as threat to Mahesh. First is the dining scene when he steals rotis from his dad and sister for the girl, showing how caring Mahesh is towards the girl, an attempt to make Audience like the Hero more. The interesting point is the scene doesn't end there. Bhoomika starts to have hiccups creating doubts in Mahesh's parents mind that there is someone in his room. Mahesh gets bit tensed and somehow manages it. The writer is able to create a threat in this scene and thus kept the interest going.

As long as the Protagonist has a threat and if audience are aware of it, the interest is kept hold to see how he escapes from the threat.

2. Sister & Mom

Second is when we see Bhoomika hiding in a cupboard and Mahesh gives her his sister's dress to wear but in the next scene his sister will come in search of her dress and opens the cupboard keeping Mahesh and audience nervous. To everyone surprise, Bhoomika will not be there in the cupboard. Mahesh gets more nervous, as to where she has gone. He searches everywhere, keeping audience guessing. Finally she is found, hiding along with the dolls. Sister threat is solved but it follows another threat from Mother, when her Mother Geetha comes in to his room and gives him juice to drink. At that point she notices Bhoomika amond the dolls. Again, there is a tension if she can find her out but showing her innocence, writer loosened the tension and generated humor out of it.

3. Passport office

The third is in the passport office, showing the passport officer as strict officer and delaying the things for Mahesh, when he goes and asks for Passport, the officer will not agree to give it over hand. Then the Mahesh gang tease him and finally get the passport. Here the obstacle is the officer but writer chose to deal the scene humorously as audience can relax a bit.

4. Gypsy found - sniffer dogs on the way!

Right after the comedy scene, the tension multiplies itself when Mahesh hears the news that police found the gypsy he used for bringing the girl. A sudden shift from comedy to suspense thrill, makes the relaxed audience stand on their feet and watch what will happen next as the Hero is again in some danger of getting caught. But he gets escaped as sniffer dogs fail to find the trace.

Slowly the writer has loosen the threads, by revealing the suspense to Hero's sister and then they all meet at the roof-top to celebrate Bhumika's birthday followed by a song, Cheppave chirugali. All these sequences are placed to show that there is a relationship building between Hero and the Heroine, as this movie cannot have the mantra  - Hero sees the girl and falls in Love at first sight.

5. Father - the Police officer

This is the biggest threat Mahesh has from his family as his father is the police officer and he is the one who is in search of the so called Kidnapper. Here is where great writers say and follow, keep your biggest punch to the end and save energy till then. Writer showed all other family members as threats but kept his father to the end so that the blow can give bigger impact. This scene when Bhoomika, not aware of who the police officer is, brings him to the home and plays the scene. We can notice here the  threat Hero has and we can see on his face, how tensed he is. As the scene progresses, we can anticipate for the biggest revelation of the secret. His dad finally comes to know she is the girl that they are looking for, Mahesh escapes from his home with Bhoomika.

That is how, about 40 - 45 min of scenes are designed from the time Bhoomika enters Mahesh's house to the time they escape from Mahesh's dad, Mukesh Rushi. Then Mahesh decides to hide her on the great 'Charminar'.

6. Police and Villain gang surround Charminar - escape plan

As things get relaxed, the next day Police find them and call for surrender. Also the villain gang come there to catch the girl. Once again the pair is in a trouble. Interesting, showing his skills the writer/director designed the plan to escape from the Charminar to reach the airport. The fight, the chase all show the gutsy side of the Hero.

I am sure you will definitely remember the pani-puri scene that follows after this escape where again Mahesh feels the tension of loosing the girl but she comes back to present him a knee-cap. So I am not explicitly mentioning it. (or may be I did!)

Finally, when they reach the airport safely, Mahesh leaves the girl and while coming back he realizes she has already occupied his heart. Bhoomika notices that as well and she also expresses her love and they both fall in love for each other.

This portion of the film is the middle part, as the later part is when the girl is taken away by the Villain and followed by Hero-Villain scenes leading to the climax. When the girl is taken away, Hero has no threat to escape from, his goal has changed now - its to get the girl from the hands of villain.

The middle part is when Hero is not having a direct encounter with Villain but there is always a threat from someone or the other that makes him feel insecure, unsafe and thus maintaining the suspense and tension in the film.

In other words, its the Tom and Jerry show, where the Jerry is always attacked by Tom, here there are multiple Toms, each attacking Jerry one at a time and the Jerry successfully gets escaped from each Tom's  attack.

Job well done. Kudos to the writer for the design and director & actors for the execution!

- Sai Kiran

Three Brilliant Clues that Director Re-Used in Okkadu...!

Lets just recollect one of the finest films in Modern Telugu film history, Okkadu, directed by Gunashekar. Okkadu, a block-buster hit for Mahesh Babu and Gunashekar which also was remade in Tamil as Gilli and ran successfully. There are lot of interesting points in the screenplay of this film, that Gunasekhar very intelligently designed and implemented. Lets talk about the three brilliant clues here.

I am calling them as clues, but in cinema language they may be called as establishments. Establishments are used to give audience a prior information of what is going to happen next so that audience will be well prepared when the actual scene happens. These establishments can be made explicitly to the audience or can be just a glimpse and leave it to the audience to catch those clues.

Let me give you a simple example from the same film. It happens during the introduction of Prakash Raj's mother, Telangana Shakuntala character. She has a pet dog and she throws a ball to a distance that her pet dog sees, runs towards the ball, catches it and gives it back to her. This happens at her introduction as a establishment scene. Its about her and the relation with the dog that the Director is telling to the audience. The same scene happens during the climax, when she throws a bomb, the dog runs and brings the bomb to her which apparently blasts and causes to end of her character. This is where he Re-Used what he established earlier.

Even if we are not paying 100% attention to the first scene, still the chances are many that the first scene, (establishment) would have got registered in our mind and when we see the climax, where the dog picks up the bomb, we recollect and relate it to the first intro scene.

Directors use this technique to make the scenes look logical.

As we have understood the concept of establishment (clue) and re-using it, lets see the three brilliant such scenes which Director established and used at later part of the film. First one is my favorite.

1. Men in Concentric circles - circling the Hero

At the very beginning of the film, during Mahesh babu introduction, we see a batch, called Soda gang circle him to attack. Thats how Mahesh is introduced. As the scene progresses, Mahesh babu smiles surprising the Soda gang, in the background Mahesh babu friends come around and circle the Soda gang batch. We see a top-angle shot of the concentric circles with Mahesh babu at the center.

The same top angle shot has been used in the pre-climax when Prakash Raj takes Mahesh babu out of jail and takes him to a remote area to kill him. That's when again Mahesh friends come and circle around the Villain gang, and Mahesh standing at the centre, says the popular punch dialogue " తెల్ల డ్రెస్ వేసిన ప్రతోడు ఫ్యాక్షనిస్ట్ కాదు " ("Not every guy in white dress is a Factionist")

Typically for me, this is very brilliant usage of establishment shot.

2. Mahesh Roof-Top entrance to his Room

This is the second interesting establishment that Director has made at the beginning of the film. This can be called as one of the unique features of the film, Mahesh having a Roof-top entrance to his room. If you are watching it for the first time, without any knowledge of the story, then definitely it surprises you, how Director used this entrance, in the later part when he brings Bhoomika to the house. If I am right, Mahesh uses this entrance, couple of times before he actullay brings Bhoomika in, so that audience are informed enough times that all the scenes are going as per the logic. 

Not just for bringing her in, in fact more impact is created when Police bring sniffer dogs, to catch the kidnapper but they fail after certain distance of search, for the very reason that the kidnapper didn't use a regular path while taking the girl away. So, this entrance not only helped to safely bring Bhoomika to the house but also helped in escaping from the sniffer dogs - ఒక్క దెబ్బ కు రెండు పిట్టలు.

3. Dolls in Mahesh Room

This is in continuation of the his introduction scene when Mahesh enters his house, he sees his sister gang dancing in his room and he specifically mentions about the dolls in the room. We get few close-up shots of the doll as well. All these are made to explicitly inform audience about the dolls and to let the dolls get registered in the minds of audience so that later in the part when Bhoomika hides in the room, she uses those dolls as one of the hiding places. 

During the script/screenplay development I believe these thoughts would have been made, answering the questions like where can she hide in his room, from Mahesh's parents and sister. One option could be a cupboard, which is the first thing used and there has to be few interesting alternatives to keep the audience engaged. And then again, if you bring suddenly something at that point, it may look illogical as audience are not informed before. Director Gunashekar rightly did it by establishing the dolls first and then using it when it mattered.

Those are the three brilliant re-usages of the establishments in this film, Okkadu by Director Gunashekar. Digging inside the film made me feel that this movie is also way ahead of its times. I really wish he comes up with another brilliant script as Okkadu.

All the Best Mr. Gunasekhar.

- Sai Kiran

An Open Letter to the CEO

To: 

Vinod,

CEO,

The Earth.

From:

A Movie lover,
On Earth.

Sub: Analysis of the Short film : The God Must Be Crazy.

Respected CEO,

I saw your film, The God Must Be Crazy and this  blog is about the analysis of your film based on my understanding of Films. Most of the lines will be about the film making style which you may want to share with the film director. I will be glad if it happens so. Since the content attracted me to the minimum, I concentrated more on the framing and acting part along with other crafts of the film.

To begin with, I liked the intro titles, song and the below wordings:

ప్రజ్ఞానం బ్రహ్మ – చైతన్యమే బ్రహ్మం (ఋగ్వేదము)
ఆహం బ్రహ్మస్మి – నేనే బ్రహ్మం (యజుర్వేదము)
తత్త్వమసి – బ్రహ్మమే నీవు (సామవేదము)
అయమాత్మా బ్రహ్మ – ఆత్మయే బ్రహ్మం (అధర్మనవేదాము)….

Moving on to the opening scene, I was praying to the crazy God that it should not be a ‘indoor shot’ film because of my expectations on the Banners and knowing that there are producers for this film. However it turned out to be what I scared of, but there is no point in pointing out, because its the decision of story writer and director to pick the story that they want to film.

In the first scene, when Govind and You, the CEO of Earth were introduced, I understood this is mostly likely a 1-1 conversation, at least the first scene. Just would like to point out two things, the 180 degree rule was well followed (of course, there are no so called rules in film-making). I liked the framing - when you are shown, you are near to the right corner of the screen and when govind was talking, he was almost to the left of the  screen. I will tell you later, why I liked it.

Moving on, I found out there was a continuity break when Govind is narrating his story and the focus is on your reactions, after your dialogue “ Govind, personal question. Neeku lover unda ?” and Govind starts telling about a girl named Prerana.    

I see the difference here, folded hands vs free hands - in very successive shots with shots depicting that there is no time gap between the two but the posture of yours was different in one shot to the other.

I, could be because of my high expectations, just felt if this was ignored or purposefully shot in that way for someone in the audience to catch it. If your aim was the second one then I am happy but if it was ignored then I am bit disappointed as this is clearly visible. As a professional filmmakers we should not miss such bugs.

Moving on, just like Govind, I didn’t get what director was trying to say with this shot: 

I am curious to know if there is anything hidden in this shot, other just the possible fact that the director is also a great admirer of Tarantino , Bob Marley (that’s what I think about second pic) and few others. For me, it didn’t add any value to the story but just caused a bit confusion of how its related to the CEO of Earth. I will be glad to know the answer.

Please don’t get into a wrong impression that I am only talking on the negative side of the film. There are definitely few positives that I liked and learned from the film.

1. Govind & CEO of Earth - Shashank Mouli & Vinod Varma

- With all due respect to you, I am really impressed with Shashank’s acting. It could be because of his character or could be because your character was very contrast with calm and composed posture and gestures which you really handled well, but I really liked how Shashank played his part. I am unaware of his experience in acting, but knowing that you are experienced actor, I felt he competed neck to neck with you and that could become the main reason for people to watch the film till the end. Good duo on screen.

2. BGM - Pvr Raja

- Started good, liked it in the middle and especially during the climax phase. At times, bgm was not related to the mood in the scene but It was overall a good sounding for the ears.

3. Framing - Jayashankar and his assistants.

- As I mentioned earlier, the first few min, the framing was good. Then when Govind comes back again, opening the door and sits again, feels shocked, drinks water and the CEO talking to him. I observed these are shot from the other side of 180 degree axis, the axis being the straight line between the two people conversing. I actually liked it.

  

I really don’t know why director chose to shoot it from the other side, could be because he wanted some variety or he intentionally did for the reason which I felt and I am explaining it below:

I felt, In the first half, (considering Govind going out and coming back as mid point), it was shot from one side of the axis, giving it as one side of the coin (of the story). When he comes back and sits, drinks water, from there on most of the shots are taken from other side, saying that there is other side of the story. That is when the CEO reveals his actual designation, what happened to Govind earlier and what this entire interview discussion is about. I felt this is like, watching the other side of the coin - I only felt this because it was shot from the other side. “Brilliant” taking for me.

- But again even as it goes further, there were shots taken on both sides of the axis, breaking the 180 degree rule. In one way, its breaking the rules but I would like to leave it as ‘style’ of the director. Frankly, I even won’t believe on rules in film-making.  For me, as long as there is a reason for the director to shoot a  shot in a particular way, then it just adds on as a new rule, that’s how creativity takes new shape unless it ends up as just my assumption on the director.

4. Dialogues - Jayashankar

- Over all the dialogues are well written, what I liked most is “ ఒక్క సారి పక్క గ్రహాలను అడిగి చూడండయ్యా భూమి అసలు అభివృద్దిలోకే రాలేదంటున్నారు”. And defining earth as hell. I felt those explanations are logical and interesting and more importantly ‘new’.

5. Cinematography & Editing - Shiva Shankara Vara Prasad & Dayakar Annam

- Its really good. I liked it. No remarks. I liked the lighting, considering the limitations of a short film. Cinematography looked professional. Have to appreciate Shiva Shankara Vara Prasad.

6. Titles 

- I just felt to share a suggestion, I see titles in the beginning of the film and at the end. I guess, if we can avoid at one place, then we can shorten the length of the film. Actually titles take first two minutes of the film time, so honestly I don’t think there is a need for end titles. Anyways, its just a suggestions.

This is my overall feeling about the film. Hope I didn’t cause any hurt with my words. Looking forward for much more professional films setting standards for others to follow!

All the Best!!!

- Sai Kiran