Y Sunita Chowdhary
It has been a great week for debutant Srikanth Nagothi. The director from Vijayawada had grown up in Hyderabad, hadn’t watched too many films but always had the burning desire to tell stories. With a few friends, he came up with an independent production company and in 2020 when the world is looking for a ray of hope, he had found his calling; Bhanumathi And Ramakrishna released recently on AhA and the director had also given a new lease of life to its prime actors.
Naveen Chandra isn’t someone who’s been applauded for his acting skills in the past and his career graph hasn’t been consistent since Andala Rakshasi released. In this gem of a script that is biased towards Bhanumathi, be it his subtlety or with his screen presence, he as Ramakrishna held his own and had compelled the audience to applaud his positive outlook. People are used to seeing conventional girls in Telugu cinema, Srikanth wanted to show that someone like Bhanumathi can coexist and we should be okay with them. Salony Luthra isn’t your quintessential pretty looking heroine, she brings beauty to her personality as well as her attitude and engages and wows the audience as she oscillates between her highs and lows.
“Everyone is complaining that I wound up the film too fast. As a team, we are extremely grateful to what is happening and I was scared about the duration of the film. Cinema choosthu aipovali. Tegedhaaka laagoddhu ani anukunna. About the climax, I didn’t want the lead pair who are in their thirties, to connect their problems to their parents. Their choices, problems, solutions, emotional outburst, everything is theirs. Ramakrishna cries on his mom’s shoulder and the latter is helpless; so when Bhanumathi comes home, she leads her to the backyard and closes the door. There are mistakes in the film but people have overlooked it, given good reviews, I think they liked the intent and ethical film making,” says Srikanth when Klapboardpost.com remarked the film could have gone on a bit more.
“I have also absolutely no regrets that the film didn’t get a theatrical release. To convince people that this film is viable for theatrical business is a big struggle and what I feel is such stories can be easily narrated on OTT platforms,” he adds. What gave him the story idea? It was just an observation. To make a film, one needs a story. He had little budget, and he took his writing seriously. To write a story or a role in the perspective of a woman wasn’t too difficult for Srikanth. He had two elder sisters and many female friends. He says they were compassionate and would tell him their interpersonal problems related to their parents, boyfriends and husbands. Apart from this, Srikanth didn’t quite like the impression of women that Telugu cinema created on women – that other than being beautiful, there isn’t much one can do with them.
He analyses his prime characters, “I want my girl to be attractive, to be owned and men to be more sensitive to women. On-screen, no one explored a 30-year-old woman’s story deeply. You see a very normal story here. Women make very few mistakes and the rest is they are cowed down by social pressure. Bhanu is very cautious, she can’t take too many bad decisions, she can’t give up who she is because she is self-made and independent. I endorsed Bhanu, her upbringing. Her father tells her it is okay if she has done a mistake, she should own it up and apologise. Women are fun when they can be themselves. While creating Rama Krishna, I didn’t want him to be a super guy. Such kind of simpletons exist but we think of them as being useless and we don’t give them importance. If Bhanu’s journey to Vijayawada didn’t happen, there is no way she would know the real Rama Krishna.” Srikanth still doesn’t think he achieved something remarkable, he is happy with the compliments he’s getting but was totally unprepared for it. It was a small attempt and he for sure tried to build a soul.
