ARUNDHATI is the name of a Telugu movie, may be the first major Telugu film, using very graphic effects with computer software.
It is a horror film in its broad category, for a foreigner especially. But for an Indian with his natural bent of mind and knowledge of rebirth, karma, aghoras, spirits and possessing a sprite etc.
It is a simple film with revenge motive cinematic ally done with re-birth as well as mantra, tantra powers used for good effect. The story writer had stolen a leaf from Mahabharata as well. In Mahabharata, Amba , one of the three sisters Amba, (other two .Ambika, Ambalika ) prays to gods, to give her strength to kill Bhishma who is son of Goddess Ganga. But the Gods express their inability, and at last , the supreme God Brahma gives the idea that she should take birth again not as a woman but as an eunuch .
Then she kills the great warrior Bhishma in Kurukshetra war. The film has many orthodox, tantric features with computer effects. The idea of incarnation is made easy to understand with a few scenes actually revealing her incarnation , (explanation as well ) which means the modern , physically weak, mentally weak woman was actually an earlier incarnation of a woman warrior , Jejemma aka Arundhati, who took birth now in the same family, to kill an aghora , a tantrik who is out there only to kill her for a past birth revenge (in the past birth , he was her brother-in-law) !!!
The beauty is that the complication of a lengthy story simply evaporated, the audience is kept at ease and filled with full of thrill with mood and tenor of the film kept thought. It can be watched by any person of Indian origin with any mother tongue but I am not sure if a foreigner could also enjoy it. The point is that it is very good entertaining movie, you would be filled with some satisfaction of some entertainment of a good quality with very well done script, rather the script was done with cleverness to bring superb effect on the audience.
The direction is definitely crude, very crude. The tantrik part played by an upcoming Hindi actor Sonu Sood could have been depicted better. His tantrik powers could have been shown in a different way, much finer way than just for killing people in a palace hall. Neither the beneficial Yogis nor their spiritual practices were shown any better. Aghoras have to eat dead corpses as part of rituals but director did not seem to understand who the Aghoras are after all?
While naked Yogis, Sadhus are different kind of people altogether but they were shown like a bunch of mad people.The heroine is the center point of the film who indeed did justice as Jejemma the warrior princes some petty kingdom. Her tall, shining body and a round countenance gave her good dignity and pose. So this made the first part of the film very logical and interesting, though in the very beginning of the movie, , it all looked like a nonsense horror film. As the film progressed the first part was done extremely well.
The second part to a great extent went very well but as the climax was approaching , some scenes definitely lost control. The heroine was shown too much weak or that in the very last part the heroine simply lies down on the bed while villain bent over simply waiting to rape her!! Or waiting for a muslim sufi saint to reach there , that too by a lorry !! It does not make any sense to anyone at all.The direction could be improved a lot, if any Hindi version is made later because the film is super hit in Telugu movies.
Lately Telugu movies are revolving around only one theme, that is teenage love with a college atmosphere totally out of realty. And Chiranjivi’s , ( a telugu actor) daughter seem to have learnt a lot from these teenage Telugu love movies. Now this movie “Arundhati “ may open the eyes of stupid film makers, bent upon feeding "opium" to the teenage cinema audience. Which also made joker like character with horrible chimpanzee faces too. To become actors!! Arundhati make them understand what the audience wants.