Andala Rakshasi Movie Review

Story: Gautam (Rahul Ravindran) loves Midhuna (Lavanya) who cannot get over the accidental death of her first love Surya(Naveen Chandra). Just as Midhuna begins to start falling in love again with Gautam, he discovers that Surya is still alive.

         

Movie Review: Spoiler alert! It’s a tragedy! The film ends in one i.e. But then there was a time in Telugu cinema, (the mid to late eighties to be specific) when films tragic romances like Mouna Raagam and Geetanjali were the zeitgeist. Andala Rakshasi is of that vintage, as far as matters of taste, sensibility and cinematic integrity go at least. On the flip side though the film avoids all the “silly business”(read as forced comedy tracks, silly jokes, unconnected action) that most filmmakers resort to, hoping to appeal to the masses among the audience.

A rare few filmmakers though try to make the movie that they want to make, the one that they think the audiences will identify with. Debutante director, Hanu seems to belong to that category. It has to be said he has given a good account of himself in his first outing in bringing back irony and despair into romance.

Set in the early nineties, the film revolves around the Gautham, Lavanya and Surya. Gautham is the only son of a rich dad who owns Rs 500 crore worth of businesses. But he prefers to live life making a pittance playing guitar at a local pub instead. He falls in love the first time he sees Midhuna. She happens to kick a football which throws him off his bike while he’s on his way to somewhere. The two get to meet each other again when Midhuna survives a fatal accident. Gautham’s dad helps her family with the finances needed to save her life.

But then Midhuna comes back to life from a four month coma enquiring if a certain Surya is dead, and she is more than destroyed when her parents nod in confirmation. It turns out Surya is a bit of a wastrel who can’t help landing himself in trouble all the time. But he’s so struck by Midhuna that he follows her until she falls for him eventually, which is when the accident happens. And then Gautham discovers that Surya is still alive, in self destruct mode yet his love for Midhuna still intact. Then the melodrama kicks in.

The film is told in a series of gripping flash backs, going back and forth in time. The cinematography is crackling. The filmmaker uses landscape of Ooty to drive home the poignancy of the romance and doing a good job of recreating the nineties. Each frame seems to have been constructed with care. The background score gives you the goose bumps. The music is melodious and fun and writing is lyrical yet simple. On technical front there isn’t much to complain about.

The performances are natural and haunting. The debutante Lavanya has the author backed role and does a great job of it. She has a very versatile face and the filmmaker utilized it to the hilt. The boys Naveen Chandra and Rahul were both pretty good themselves.

It’s the tragic climax that runs against the grain of commercial Telugu cinema with its compulsive obsession for happy endings. Also it is loaded too much with the 90′s sensibility of tragedy and sacrifice. Also the movie moves along at a pace of its own and it might not really cut ice with our audiences used to the predictability of “masala”.