When, at the end of 'Bombay', people of inter-regligious faiths come together to form a human chain and stop the rioters, of both stripes, from further ravaging their community, it appeared as though the filmmaker took an easy way out, a very simplistic approach to find an end to 1.his movie 2. one of the gravest issues that has plagued the Indian society for more than a few hundred years - communal violence. A cop out, it would appear on surface, for, there is no meaningful way a movie could propose a solution to an eternal burning issue with all its main characters intact lest the movie ends on a sad note, now, can it? Until the fact comes out that during the actual Bombay riots of 1993, people did really come together, formed human chains in the middle of the pogroms and resisted the murderers from tearing their communities apart, member by member. The problem (for a filmmaker) in picking up a social issue always lies with the ending. What kind of an ending would justify/satisfy the premise? A "happy" ending (a la 'Roja') may threaten to take the spotlight away from the issue itself, in this case, cross-border terrorism. On the flipside, turning on the lumen level on the issue without letting the characters come in the way of it (a la 'Maachis'), might make it not too palatable to the commercial/mainstream audience. In the end, it is always about the ending, whether the characters are caught in the greater cause, or whether they break free of it. In the former situation, the movie becomes a stark social commentary ('Sairat'), in the latter, there is a danger of it of getting accused for using the issue merely as a plot device ('Manoharam'). Ultimately, it boils down to that one decision about the ending.
To borrow the phrase from gymnastics, Sekhar Kammula sticks the landing with "Love Story". He calls it as he sees it. It is not about tragic or a happy ending, it is about staying true to the society its characters dwell in. To have it any other way would have diluted the agony and the angst the characters were put through and would have reduced the movie to a 'good movie', instead of what it currently rose to - a brave movie. Coming from the stable of Kammula, it is indeed surprising to have him take the road less traveled, at least in commercial telugu cinema, more so, when there are 'stars' involved. At a social level, like religion, caste continues to remain the whip in the hands of the privileged who flay at and flog the weaker sections with. The rest of human frailties being what they are - envy, jealousy, prejudice, anger etc - when suddenly weaponized with religion or caste, like fitting a nuclear head to a conventional missile, the issue immediately escalates from being a personal one to one that the institutions of society suddenly have to come to terms with. In this day and age, when technology has seemingly erased the human boundaries, opportunities seemed to be filling up the fissures of the society, the horrors of casteist violence, every once in a while, that scream from the headlines jolts the society from its self-congratulating complacency. Two people from different religions come together, the privileged scream 'lure'. Two people from different castes come together, (and if one happens to be from the so called 'weaker sections'), the powerful scream 'honor'. Kammula's sensibility shines through in the characterizations of Naga Chaitanya - who doesn't wear his weaker section status on his sleeve, and yet is acutely aware to remain realistic of his place (particularly in his village) and prospects in the society - and Sai Pallavi - coming from a 'higher' caste, as to remain blissfully oblivious to the sensivities involved even in something as simple (and hurtful) as using right pronoun. The searing distinction, when she calls her lover "meeru" instead of "nuvvu" during a fight, suddenly makes the fight (or her comment) not about the person but about his place in the society. Fight is always about drawing blood, but when caste is involved/invoked, even the parts of speech come with serrated edges.
The great(est) love story in telugu cinema "marO charitra" is remembered more for its ending, as (m)any immortal love stories are. But there is a distinction between shock and inevitability. "marO charithra" had a shocking ending. It didn't need to be, but still when the ending rolls out and the audience is sufficiently shocked, it looked like Balachander was aiming for immortality. But here Kammula goes for inevitability. In the current social milieu, where identity, instead of being one about individual personality, became one about community - religion, caste, state, nation, and appears to get more and more entrenched, contrary to the conventional wisdom, the ending of two lovers hailing from from the furthest corners of the social spectrum, as was portrayed in the movie, was inevitable. By shunning an easily consumable and readily digestible ending, Kammula hasn't just made a movie, he made a social commentary. And in a different path, this too would join the immortal ranks, without even trying. Brave effort!
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