RGV and Me (and also Review of RANN by critiquing the critter)

1989.A spectre was haunting Andhra Pradesh - the spectre of  Ram Gopal Varma.


A wave of a person smashed on to the shores of public and awakened them out of their slumber, who were bored of out-of-style and out-of-substance non-sense of movies. The public loved him, but he said, "screw you". Then, I started loving him. kshana kshanam is still among my fav movies, along with all the world renowned movies. My ADHD addled brain needed excitement, and I used to imagine a movie camera floating in air and imagining stuff before going to sleep. No, he didnt inspire me to make movies, he planted the seed of desire for movies.



Friend : What inspires you?
Me : I dont know what, but I know who. Einstein and RGV. RGV, not only for his movies, also for his philosophy of life.


Einstein and RGV in one sentence! I am not sure if he inspired me, or I found a spokesperson for my disgust for the hypocrisy of the society.


Interviewer : Why do people think you are arrogant?
RGV : I am not sure, but, let me give an example. Everyone loves sex. But, no one talks about it as it is a taboo matter. Now, I come and say the truth, that I like sex. When I say that, I hurt the sentiments of these people, and they attack me and call me names. Its not my problem, its theirs.


He fought my wars.


I watched 'Rangeela' 10 times in theatres, when it was released. My hatred for DDLJ, not only arose from the fact that it was made of crap, but also from the fact that it shadowed the phenomenal hit of Rangeela. If not for DDLJ, Rangeela would have been among the biggest hits of indian film history.


I loved Rangeela, but, I couldn't enjoy the sensuality of urmila at that time. She was my Bhabi, because RGV became my big brother. It would be incestuous to look at urmila with horny eyes.I was able to discover the super  sensuality of urmila, only after coming out of grip from RGV's influence. You should watch her in that black tight dress with sun glasses, in the song ' O bhavre' from the movie Daud. It was my natural viagra at one point. Sometimes, I even imagined him fucking urmila, some how that used to titillate me. I am damn serious!

Then came Kaun. How many times I watched it? I didn't count.




After coming to America, the flood gates of my desire for movies were opened. From Kubrick to spike lee, from antonioni to ming-liang, I found all the great directors in the world.


RGV's spell on me was broken. But, I still called all my friends for the release of 'Company' in my apt, through my VCR. A total of 20 people watched that movie. During that time, he started the 'factory', and started his downfall, atleast in my mind. A lab is creative, factory is not. 


I once accidentally saw 'darling', and that was it, RGV died as far as I was concerned.On top of that, he started cock-sucking Amitabh and Abhisekh, father and son at the same time. No need to talk about Amitabh, but, Abhisek bachan??? WTF!


His interviews turned out to be craps of lies and manipulations. Dude, we are not kids anymore!



I didn't see any of his movies, except Rann, until yesterday. I can sense a movie from its trailers, and so watched it.When the movie ended, the whole theatre was clapping, including myself. RGV is back, folks. But, as sanjay gupta said and got famously screwed by Michael moore ---- not so fast.

RGV is not a rebel. He is a conformist. People may think of him as rebel only if their knowledge and view of world is narrow. Public love him, even if they are chastising him at the same time. He is your upper caste slick brother. You condone all his transgressions. He is like your little brother who is rebelling against  your father. You would kick him, but still love him, because, you know that he is just going through a phase. A true rebel, who would change the scenario would be hated and thrown bricks at all the time. His/her movies would be stuck at censorships and courts. I am not saying that rebels are awesome, just that RGV is not a rebel nor a brave person.

He is a true manipulator of people, and it helps him in his craft, as director need to manipulate with peoples emotions. He brings out the best out of his cast and crew by using that manipulation. The reason why he is in love with Amitabh, is because he doesn't need to go through hoops of manipulation to extract exceptional work for him.Amitabh deserves respect in that matter.


I wrote in his blog that he is a narcissist, and I am not really 100% sure about it. Chances are high, though.  I agreed with him at one point because narcissism is a healthy human defence. But, an excess of it produces ayn rand, a dictionary meaning of a bitch.





RGV's movies are all about style and no substance. Very few times a style become substance, and during those times, RGV films become instant classics. I frankly feel that RGV experience very few positive emotions. His only complex emotions are passion for cinematic style, illusions of grandeur, and desire for attention. His realism is style, not the truth.

Thats where Rann comes. Rann is full of both substance, and style. Thats why it may become one of the near master pieces of RGV. The  substance of Rann comes from the emotions of anger and frustration by the victimisation of RGV by the media. Boy, did media screw him! When RGV slipped and fell, they pushed him in to abyss. They celebrated his failures. They loved to destroy him, as he didn't gave a fuck about them. He didn't attend their parties, their page 3s, their drunken revelries. RGV is a lonely man in his apt, who wouldn't find pleasure  paling around with starlets. He would rather fuck them in private. He didnt attend those bitch ass Karan Johar interviews. On top of that, he opened a blog purely to critic his critics, which is unprecedented in the history of cinema. I never heard of such thing before. I applaud the effort, even though, some of those critics really liked him and hated his movies.

Rann is basically KO of opponents in mike tyson boxing bouts. RGV delivered a KO, well...almost.I have problems with the movie -- the characters are unidimensional except that of Jay, and i think its a mistake to show his true intentions as early as the second scene in the movie. There are obviously some other loop holes in the story, but...let me say this, a perfect movie is a boring movie. Rann is totally enjoyable, satisfying, and also it tries to feed your hunger for socially concious movies. But, never think even for a second that RGV wanted to make socially concious movie. No. It was just an unintended consequence of KO of those media people who irritated him for long time.


He brought out the best from sudeep, paresh rawal and amitabh. All the other characters are unnecessarily brooding and serious. Its a completely out and out male movie, women characters are just like furniture...useful but lifeless. On a personal note I have to add, suchitra krishna moorthy became one hot auntich. I would do her without thinking twice. And, WTF that crazy non-actress neetu chandra doing in the movie?? You doing her, RGV??? According to the reputable websites whose last name is integrity ..like andhravilas.com and greatandhra.com, You are actually doing her, right now...at this moment.


My verdict : Inspite of its flaws, Rann is a must watch. RGV is back. (could be)

Sukanya Verma wrote a review of Rann, titled Horrors of Rann.


What pisses me off  is the lack of substantiation of the title in the review.
That obviously means, she wants to mislead the lazy readers, who would form an opinion just by looking at the title. If as a movie buff, I let this moral bankrupt of a person go away with out any criticism, then it would be a big mistake.


It was like you see a video title 'hardcore tripple X animal sex', and what you see is an  amoeba dividing. It was like an article title 'horrors of war', and the author explaining how she lost her pinky toe.Her review does to movie criticism, what 'Planet 9 out of space' did to movies. 


A film maker is not impervious to criticism, and so is the critic. A film maker can have an agenda, but, a critic shouldn't. A critic with an agenda is like a person watching Monalisa with coloured glasses. The colour of her glasses dictates her opinion and which is not in control of the artist. 




It's like this. Stuffing falafel filling inside, a rava dosa might produce an exotic junk food fusion but confusing genre-styles in film making can lead to utterly crappy results.  




Whats the genre of 'Network', one of the best movies ever made about media, by sidney lumet, written wonderfully by paddy chayefsky? I see a love story, satire, drama,comedy,farce, male menopause and whatnot. Network is an 'UTTERLY' 'CRAPPY' result, right?? How  baised you are to use two words; 'utterly', 'crappy';in conjunction, and refuse to substantiate those words in the succeding paragrahs. Btw, to which genre coen brothers films belong to?? 'utterly' 'crappy' genre. Lets do this...if at all there is an 'utterly crappy' movie made, then let it name as sukma genre..and  if you pinhead didnt notice, sukma is a clever combination of your first of your first name and last of your last name. I promise you that I substantiate my use of the word pinhead to describe you, in the remaining part of the article.


Come to think of it, middle eastern-south indian fusion cuisine could be enticing!




That's one of the foremost flaws of Rann


Wait. You mean 'thats one' by the genre comment??...and that is your FOREMOST FLAW OF Rann?? When did rediff become the  'Shock corridor'??


Idealist drama (blah..blah)......out and out horror movie minus exorcist.


Why? Why shouldn't a movie be an idealistic drama and a horror movie?? 
Omen is a christian idealistic drama and also an out and out horror movie minus exorcist.
Texas chain saw massacre is a family drama (what a caring family it was!) and an out and out horror movie minus exorcist
Your review is a practical trauma ....out and out fruity minus orange. WTF!


Ritesh deshmukh (blah ..blah) .... overacts.

Omg, that is the 'horror' of Rann?? Oh you mean, you mean the scene where he goes to kanna's apt? That is not overacting, kanyaji, I believe it is the 'strap the camera' shot made famous by Darren arnofsky in 'requiem for a dream'. You know what, you are something to movie criticsim, what shivaji ganesan is to acting. (no offence to sg).


Pray, why does Gul Panag not screech a single line without raising her eyebrows till they cannot move up any further? Why does Sudeep play a media shark like a dope addict? Also, for a reasonably rich guy, he uses a noticeably down-market mobile model. His girlfriend's (played by Neetu Chandra) sole utility is to model sexy lingerie and keep asking 'What's wrong?' Then there's Neena Kulkarni playing the classic one-dimensional housewife we've witnessed in many of RGV's films.  


okay, when you 'screech'( a high shrill piercing cry usually expressing pain or terror), your eyebrows tend to move max up. I mean, only when you screech. Ever met a dope addict? My neighbour is one. wanna meet him. oh, you are talking about sudeep's lips? He was obviously shown as chain smoker. down market mobile? what a horror?? you know, there are some shots in the biggining of the movie "2001: A space oddessey", where you can clearly see for a few sconds, that the background is not africa, but the pojection of the pictures of africa. Down-market mobile?? so, what?? I use a fucking boost mobile (in USA) for god sake, because I fucking like it.


I will give you a half-point about Neetu Chandra. 
About dimensionality of female characters in the movie, it is like asking for feminism in predator...an alpha male movie. If we want to talk about the complexity of other important characters, then we can have some discussion.


Worse though is that this is not much of a Bachchan vehicle as the publicity would like us to believe. AB, like us, is clueless about what's going on and just steps up in the last few reels to shoot up the calibre of this otherwise hokum movie with his articulate presence and succinct speech


Did you really watch the trailer of the movie? clueless? Ofcourse, he is clueless, thats why he fucking resigned from the channel. Hokum (nonsense) movie?? Just because, you picked up some grammatical mistakes from an article, does not mean that the article is 'hokum'. But, the fact is,you weren't even able to pick even those 'grammatical' mistakes from this movie, but still named it as 'hokum'. You substantiate your hatred by more hatred. WTF! Who   r   u??




Also, while Ramu's criticism on sensationalist media is pertinent and understandable, the concern is executed with such superficial, amateurish and half-baked views, it's cringe-worthy.


If Roger Ebert, out of some unfortunate googling, come upon your review, he wouldnt cringe --- he would summarily execute you. Your circular reasonings are making me dizzy.


Look, I understand your hatred for RGV, but, when a director is done with the movie, he becomes a part of the audience. The movie gets its own life...and its ridiculous to form opinions, even after watching the movie, based on RGV's biceps. 


Coming back to the horrors of Rann, the background score is so dauntingly exaggerated and blaring, it's hard to tell shocked from spooked. And the camera (Amit Roy), it's more wayward than an untamed horse on the loose, especially when it goes on handheld mode. What's stylish or symbolic about shooting two characters, having a normal discussion, like a wild game of ping pong?




"coming back to"....please!! Why use such strong words like "coming back to", when you just spent half a milli second to accept the fact that this film has some fun moments.handheld mode?? Where??oh..you mean the spy camera ritesh uses to film monish??? Gotcha! Even if he used handheld more, and I believe, for most part of the movie, the camera was regidly fixed to whatever it was fixed to, and most of the movements were classical; do you really have any idea about the psychology behind handheld camera???


My grouse doesn't stop here. The close-ups! There are SO many of them. Fine, so our man loves to go macro on his protagonists but does he really have to make them feel like that annoying housefly on your nose?  I am quite sure a long shot is as necessary as Ramu's need to focus on Big B's biting lips, Paresh Rawal's creepy wince and Sudeep's fidgety fingers. 


You dont need to particularly say that. We all came to know that your grouse against RGV is like a non-stop flight to hell. You have problems with closeups?? Actors and Audience love them.


"All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up". Watched Sunset Blvd??

 



Then again, a messy climax, witless and uninspired writing and shoddy, detail-free narrative ensure these memories are washed out as soon as they are formed. 


A pinhead's memories are always momentary. Why blame it on the movie??






Ms.Sukmaji, You are a disgrace to the Homo sapiens. Why puke such bile in the name of review?You must be suffering from premature-menopause (sorry feminists) that would come from rejection of love, or sometimes, rejection of scripts.




To the RGV fans, I know, you are in a dilemma whether to  appreciate my blogpost or not. You must understand that a person's character and the art he/she produces are two independent things...even though we could deduce a character of a person from his/her art. But vice-versa does not work here.
If you got attracted by his charisma, and try to imitate him, then you would be in a huge bowl of soup. You dont know what moves him. He could be a narcissist, and that could be the reason why he appreciates Ayn Rand, because her philosophy works for him. Its not the case with all you rats who follow him. Inspiration is flattery, imitation is suicidal. Many directors who tried to imitate him failed because they failed to understand the source of his creativity.


A philosophy can never be universal if you take it on a personal level. He is neither god nor satan.


I called RGV a narc, but as he said in the movie " that 90% of this country is corrupt"..I also say that 
"90% of the country is hypocrite"...and


Any time I would choose a narc over a hypocrite. Yes, I am still fascinated by him. He cuts through bullshit.


ps : Sukmaji, to which genre does this blogpost belong to? I hope its not the infamous 'SUKMA' genre.