>>>----Gandugali Kumararama – Kannadigas Historical Mark--------->
Which was the last seen historical movie? Ashoka? Mangal Pandey? Taj Mahal?
Which was the last seen Kannada historical movie? Mayura? Huli Haalina Mevu?
Here comes the brand new historical movie by Bhargava- Gandugali Kumararama, starring Shivarajkumar in the lead.
Warning: Do not expect any great screen stuff like those by Rajkumar or NTR or Shivaji movies.
Before discussing about the movie, let’s talk about its release. There is a huge controversy over releasing a movie in Majestic. Makers of Mohini had a fight with Santhosh theatre for its release. For, there were no theatres available for any new release. But Gandugali … did not have any problem with Kapali theatre. Kapali was screening Sudeep’s Thirupati which was on its way to 50 days. This movie was removed without any controversy. If a remake dabba movie like ‘Ajay’ can go on for 100 days, why is Sudeep’s non-remake movie taken out before 50 days? Well, it is anybody’s guess- politics and lobby in the industry!
When I heard about the movie ‘Gandugali …’ that Shivarajkumar is playing the lead role, I was shocked because a character like Gandugali requires an actor like Rajkumar. There was no big hype in the movie release nor there were big promotional campaign. I saw a song of the movie just two days before the movie release. (Watched the movie at PVR last Sunday.)
The movie starts with an excellent title card etched on a stone with Kuvempu’s ‘Yelladaru Iru, Yentaadaru Iru’ song sung by Rajkumar. However, the excitement immediately dies as Shivarajkumar is introduced in a very dull manner. In his ambitiously launched 50th movie, Bhargava seems to have made a mistake in selecting the cast in particular aspects though the main artistes excelled in their roles. While Shivarajkumar walks away with all the honours for his extraordinary performance as Kumararama, others like Srinivas Murthy, Ramesh Bhatt, CR Simha and Ashok look outstanding with their costumes adding to their historical face appeal. Anitha, Laya, Seetha, and Sumithra also appear in the good clause. Other characters do not seem to have been given a scope for performance.
Visual effects also look good, with double role of Shivarajkumar shown very well- you can see lots of frames with both coming together and you wouldn’t find a single goof-up in mixing. But technically, I found this big-budget movie lacking in the image quality as the whole movie looks distorted with lots of dots and noise- might be due the camera or film processing quality they used.
This is always there in Kannada movie industry- they never concentrate on quality of the film processing.
Gurukiran’s scores are melodious- he has also sung a song ‘Ginirama’ with a different tone which tastes like listening to old Gantasala song! Sundarnath Suvarna had cinematographed Hampi well. PR Sounderraj’s editing work looks too crowded and bad. Marvelous stunts by Ram Shetty with real horse power. Bhargava has well managed the screenplay.
Make-up plays the important role in any historical movie, Shivarajkumar’s moustache is clearly visible and also one can make out his wig. I am really worried our Kannada heroes are not at all show the dedication that the stars of yesteryear used to show towards the roles they play. Being a prestigious, and a high-budget historical movie, Shivarajkumar should have ideally grown a real big moustache and huge hair before the shooting of this movie. Our heroes will always be doing lots of movies/roles parallelly. Those days we had heroes like Vishnuvardan who had shaved his head for ‘Mutina Hara, ’ and you can also see Aamir Khan in Mangal Pandey and our Vijay Raghavendra in ‘Shree.’ They all had put in some good homework being getting into the roles. In Gandugali’s case, Avinash does a role of a Muslim with his moustache (all other Muslim brethren in the movie show beard and shaved moustache in truly characteristic style), which is very unconventional.
Ramba comes in, in only a small role with different hair styles and colours, we can easily make out these hair styles and colouring as made in modern beauty saloons- it doesn’t match any historical role. Bhargava didn’t seam to waste Ramba who had come all the way from Chennai, so with her small role he gave her a bonus song ‘Sarasake Baaro.’ Ramba, and her character is useless, and a misfit for the story. She appears with a group of people before interval and suddenly appears as a new character after interval with a song too. Nobody can imagine where from the song came.
Art direction, which is the main stay for any historical movie making, is a clear lacking with Gandugali. For a movie of 800 year-old-story, the art direction team needed to work hard to recreate the old time-setting in terms of locations. The movie is shot in Hampi- and one can make out the old Virupaksha temple without clear painting and broken stones: just the ‘Halu Hampi’ (Destroyed Hampi). They could have made a good set of the temple or shown any other new temple.
Anybody, who is familiar with Bharathan’s Vaishali and Girish Karnad’s Utsav would know what an art direction for a period movie is all about.
Nevertheless, we welcome this kind of historical movie in future too, and we are very grateful to the producer Anita Pattabhiram for trying to retell a story that happened in 13th century. And its a wonderful effort by Bhargava.
Plus points: Making historical movie these days, Shivarajkumar’s challenging acting, Music, Cinematography, Action, etc.
Minus points: Make-up, Film processing, Re-recording, Editing, Art-direction, etc.
THE STORYLINE: Kumararama is the third son of Kampila, king of Kammata Durga. He is righteous with wonderful thoughts and always safe guarding his kingdom. He can take up any challenge. Destiny puts him to test when the tribal girl Rathna with whom he is in love with, is married by his father, and the former becomes his step mother. He is asked by his mother to marry the minister’s daughter Ramale and he obeys. Upset with the development, in a pretext of penance of 48 days, Ratna keeps herself away from the king.
The aging Kampila asks Kumararama to take the mantle of the crown. However, before this could happen, much to his astonishment, Kumararama finds a look-alike of him, and he knows from his mother that both are brothers.
When the threat of invasion from Tuglak increases Kumararama gives a fitting reply. Around this time, the tribal lady forces Kumararama to accept her. He obviously disagrees. Out of vengeance, the tribal lady enacts a drama that Kumararama molested her. Enraged with this matter, Kampila orders for his son’s head. Ironically, Kumararam’s look-alike brother Rama sacrifies his life for his virtuous brother and the latter’s head is taken to the king.
When Kamplia’s enemies launch a war against him, he realizes the importance of his son. Then the hiding Kumararama fights against them, and wins the war gaining the sobriquet ‘Gandugali.’ Then, his father realizes that Kumararama did misbehave with his tribal wife who commits suicide due to her realization of guilt. Subsequently, Gandugali also dies in an ensuing war.