OF SATYA and RAMUJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

One of those visits to my mom's cousins' place as a kid probably triggered off a filmmaking instinct in me. Those were the days of VHS casettes and ma mom's cousins had brought home a film called 'SHIVA' and were watching it with seriousness not typical of a telugu masala film audience. I didnt realise that day that the maker of this film would go on to me cinematic moments that would inspire me to become a filmmaker like him. 'Shivaa...shivaa shivaa....vaademi devudaa?" some cricket playing seniors of mine used to say all the time. I knew it was a line from that film ...a line spoken by the dreaded 'bhavani' ( late RAGHUVARAN) . I was fascinated by that line. RAMGOPALVERMA was unknown to me then.

Time passed by and then there was this another film which some uncle suggested was a must watch and so , me , my sister and cousins..all of us ran to the nearby theater to watch that film ..'KSHANA KSHANAM'... This time, I was so ...so...so blown by the movie ..its tough to describe it. To me it was what cinema was supposed to be. I knew this was just another film and and just another story...but the way the story was being brought to life was awesome... and that is when I realised that there was this guy called RAMGOPALVERMA..the director who made it possible. Soon, I realised that this was the same guy who had made SHIVA..

I saw SHIVA again. RAMGOPAL VERMA WAS MA FILMMAKING GOD. I used to eagerly watch out for his films... films like gulabi( dir: krishnavamsi) , rangeela, anaganaga oka roju, deyyam, started rolling in... and this guy could never go wrong!! I chiselled ma film making technique and screen writing style by watching his films...

And then came..the masterpiece... SATYA... I watched that film 57 times on last count. To me, probably, SATYA was the best that I could expect from the filmmaker who never tried to be 'holier than thou' in his storytelling. SATYA was real, honest and so simplistically made . Some say COMPANY was technically more advanced than SATYA but for me the opposite is true. COMPANY was intentionally stylised and the jump cut pattern and the soundtrack was very pop. But, SATYA had to be told in raw and real circumstances and the use of craft in that film was the stroke of a genius. The pull back shot to introduce the hero waking alone in a crowd in mumbai, the blast sound juxtaposed with the candid footage of the collapsed buildings...wow! The shot near the shore where both chakri and manoj stand back to camera and discuss their siuation... the scene on the terrace where chakri says 'happy birthday vidya'.. or the simple and haunting montage of 'baadalon se kaat kaatke'.... the scene where bhiku and gang are trying to get truth out of one guy and satya talks to vidya outside ...(check out SANDEEP CHOWTA's rr in dat scene)... the grand finale ..( the ganapati bappa frenzy..) and after all that a simple and true ending to a film story. Through out the film... not in a single frame do we see an insincere film maker .He just told us a story looking at us eye to eye and got up and left...!

That was RGV then.. and now he is RAMUJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII! RAMUJI and his brand of cinema now is definitely far superior than those bollywood kid films, but the point is ...technique is not everything. CONTNE AND TECHNIQUE must merge somewhere to make a great film. RAMUJI cinema either reeks of strong and unwanted technical skills or reeks of flimsy ideas that often dont get developed into strong scripts. Mayb, he is not able to see the whole film as one nowadays. Nyways, with SARKAR RAJ he showed me he stil has the same story telling capactiy that i saw of him in kshanakshanam or satya... and that is why i loved that film inspite of the bachchans who are generally very boring as a gang!

MY LIST OF RGVfilms( not RAMUJI films)in order of liking them

1)SATYA

2)SARKAR RAJ

3)KSHANA KSHANAM and DEYYAM

4)ANTHAM

5)RANGEELA

6)Anaganaga oka roju

7) Raatri

8) JUNGLE and so on....

RAMUJIIIIIII RAMUJII GO AWAY... COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY...