An Ode to Honesty

How do you feel when you know someone is lying to you?
That is exactly how the audience feels if your Film lacks honesty.
A big budgeted posh looking ‘SUPER’ wasn’t super at the box office because it wasn’t honest enough. In contrast an ultra low budgeted ‘Premisthe’ was a huge success because it was fiercely honest. It was so honest I smelled stench when the lovers met in streets full of filth. Again, the recently released ‘Pokiri’ ROCKS because it is honest in its roots.

Puri Jagannath has been one of my favorite Film Makers. He has placed himself among the all time greats of Indian Cinema when he gave that delightfully refreshing novelty to the Telugu Cinema and perhaps to World Cinema in general, a Vibrantly Visible Hero with a lateral thinking hat. It all began with Badri in Badri. Rakshita fondly called him Idiot in Idiot. He is Pandu now in Pokiri. More often than not, greatness is associated with clarity of thought. Jagan is all about clarity of thought. He largely believes in the KISS theory that Clint Eastwood loves to talk about, Keep It Simple Stupid. Beginning from his plots to his shots, he almost always keeps it simple. That is a sign of greatness. His shots never display the technical wizardry that some Film Makers are gifted with although it is another matter that complex camera work could at times become a burden to the viewers as well as to the Producers. After Amma Nanna O Tamil Ammayi, Jagan never really was able to give a Film that matches up to his earlier standards. This is because post ANOTA, Jagan was guilty of compromising honesty in his Films, i. e. until Pokiri came along. Pokiri is not perfect but it still works because its basic essence is kept honest at most times by the machinations of its inhabitant characters. The master was in his elements again, finally!

Sivamani, Andhrawala, 143 and Super, they all had very Jagan’ treatments; but none of them could make any impact because they all lacked honesty barring perhaps Sivamani to some extent. On the other hand, Badri, Itlu Sravani Subramaniam, Idiot and Anota clicked because they were all honest in their story lines and in their executions besides having Jagan’s trademark treatments.

Now with Pokiri, Jagan is back again with a bang! Not just because he has rediscovered his ability to be honest to his ideas in execution, which I believe is the single most required skill for any artist to succeed, but also because he still manages to use his trademark Hero’s characterization touch to bloody good effect. It is vintage Jagan all the way and it is as coarsely poetic as is Sania Mirza’s forehand. To sustain belief in his own self after a spate of not-so-successful Films, to stick to his own guns amidst tremendous uncertainty, it needs courage but what matters is that he delivered and he deserves kudos for that. Of course it also needs to be mentioned that Pokiri, besides having the incredibly good-looking Prince Mahesh Babu as its hero, it also has Ileana as its heroine, who yours truly believes has The best bottom the Film Industry has seen since the halcyon days of the gorgeous late Ms. Divya Bharathi. Ileana is sensuous and cute at the same time and that is a dangerous combination which makes many a fatal strikes at the weak hearted. Ah damsels, their beauties and their vagaries, one never gets tired of indulging in them, let me not digress too much here …

It is a dangerously delicate line that Telugu Film Makers walk upon, as their very objective is primarily to entertain people because the dictates of commercial cinema(read Producers) are such. Very often, this leads the creative teams to subconsciously move away from honesty. I believe most Film Makers allow themselves to fall into this trap as they falsely assume that they could manipulate audience into whatever emotions that they want to as creators, but the audiences have always been the smarter lot and they do smell it when you try to sell them dishonest stuff even in a single scene. Ever seen audience shuffling in their seats uneasily in theaters? That was most probably a scene lacking in honesty, my friend! Real life or reel life, folks, nothing pays like honesty does. Now that’s a lesson that none of us ever want to forget, Film Makers or otherwise!

Other Ticket to fame articles:
Riding the movie express
Flirting with Mallika Sherawat
I am gonna be next Mani Rathnam