kannada, my kannada

"This bourgeoisie government can only be brought down from within"

Saw Bara over the weekend. Based on a novel by U R Ananthmurthy, it stars Ananth Nag as an upright District Collector and C R Simha is a communist leader in the same district. The district, which is nameless but somewhere on the Karnataka, Maharshtra border based on dialect is drought hit and ignored by both the central and state governments. Both men work towards trying to help the people of this water less district while being rendered mostly helpless by the powers that be. One scene in the movie really got to me. Simha tells Nag that he's a big fan of the socialist literature and books that Nag's uncle writes and quotes the above line to Nag from one of his uncle's books and hints that Nag is actually part of his uncle's idea to bring down the Bourgeoisie government from within. Simha is serious but says his lines in a very casual friendly manner but Ananth Nag's reaction was a spectacular bit of acting. Half surprised that this brash and loud village leader reads his uncle's intellectual works and half amused at his conspiracy theory. Fabulous bit of acting from 2 superb Kannada actors. Its a pretty good movie and made me wonder where Simha is these days. It also reminded me of his stunning performance in and as Tughlaq in Karnad's play. That was goose bump inducing. They don't make Kannada movies like they used to.

This is the scene but the whole movie's up on youtube. No subs. 

In other news, PVR has a special Wednesday offer where you can watch a movie for a hundred bucks and seventy if its a Kannada movie. So off I went and after much inner debate, decided to see "paper boat". Naveen Krishna is the hero in what is probably the worst Kannada movie I have ever seen. Hilariously bad, Krishna manages to solve the world's problems in 2 hours. He gets a start by reselling flowers left on graves, then forms a nationwide team from society's rejects who he rehabilitates and starts a "software" business in a slum and sells laptops for 2500 rupees and finally creates a security software that solves all of the world's security problems. In between all this he also finds Osama Bin Laden and tips off the Americans, tricks Dawood Ibrahim into coming to India and kills him, eradicates hunger in the world, eradicates racism in Africa, fascism in Europe and corruption in India. All of it through his SoS organization and special software. There are plenty of moments right through this film that will make you giggle but there was one moment that will forever stay with me. Krishna launches his revolutionary laptop and there's a scene where a little boy is using it to learn the English alphabet. The graphic on the laptop screen says "A for Aero Plain" with a photo of a nice big passenger airplane to go along with it. That kid will go far. Probably go abroad and teach the Americans some English. This is how we do it. Utter shit but so many laugh out loud moments that the movie has a charm all of its own. This is a movie that I must somehow get a hold of, sub it and upload it on the great internet for the world to see. Unbelievable.


Also saw Gangs of Wasseypur last weekend and it blew my mind. The best Hindi film I've seen in ages and probably ever. Detailed review and opinion coming soon but probably after a second watch. For now, "keh ke lunga".