‘Gamanam’ movie review: Earnest and relevant, not thought masterfully

Remember the line ‘Water, water, everywhere, not a drop to drink’ from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner? The line becomes more relevant when the city is battered during monsoons and the lower colonies are submerged every year. In a passing scene in first writer-director Sujana Rao’s Telugu film anonymity, an elderly woman living in a slum, questions why water canals are encroached upon and turned into tall buildings, leaving no room for rain water to drain. Neither is it one of the best scenes in the movie nor is the question overwhelming, but it’s hard to miss the relevance.

Sujana Rao presents three stories that cut across age groups and social classes in Hyderabad and show what the deluge can mean to different people. Water is an ever-present additional character. First, we see women in a jhuggi-jhopri near a tanker in line to get their daily quota of water. Elsewhere, a young rag picker chance upon a bottle of mineral water and cherishes it. Later, the life-giving water threatens to devour some of the characters, while it makes others reevaluate their priorities and break out of their preconceived notions. Binding the stories cleverly is Ilaiyaraaja’s background music, filling the scenes with soulful joy, poignancy or hinting at an imminent danger, in a way that only he can do. There are scenes where nothing is spoken; When music works, words become meaningless.

Kamala (Shriya Saran) is the hearing impaired mother of a slum-dwelling infant trying to make ends meet while waiting for her husband to return from Dubai. With an undercurrent of pathos, this is a story that can be used to emotionally manipulate the audience to pity the woman. However, the story goes on to show how Kamala uses her innate power to fight for existence. Shriya plays Kamala with conviction, enjoying the opportunity to give a moving performance. The scene in which she reacts to various sounds and later the laughter of her baby fills your eyes well and leaves you with a smile.

Running parallel to this is the story of young love and aspirations. Ali (Shiva Kandukuri) is a cricketer who wants to join Team India. His humble family background, unlike his lady love Zara (Priyanka Jawalkar), could have been a regular story of a poor boy and a rich girl. What makes this story interesting is the added layer of ideals their grandparents follow and, in return, expect them to follow. Charu Hassan plays the character of Dadaji with warmth and assertiveness. There is a scene in which he is cooking food for his grandson and asking his wife to leave the kitchen. The film shines in such moments. The clash scene between Zara’s father (Sanjay Swaroop) and Ali’s family could have been handled better. Its clumsy start can be saved to an extent by Charu Hassan’s performance.

The third story is about two street children who are rag pickers; Anonymous people in a growing metropolis. Again, this could have been a dull, tearful story, but it’s told with warmth. There are enough scenes to portray their innate helplessness, unlike the children who grew up in shelter homes. The story tells of how these boys, instead of drowning in self pity, try to make things work. The casting works to the film’s advantage with the effective portrayal of child actors.

Shiva Kandukuri and Priyanka Jawalkar also make their presence felt seriously. However, one major disappointment is how a brilliant actor like Suhas gets wasted in the role of a friend. Afterwards color photo And family drama, ruining it feels like a crime.

When the deluge occurs, the characters are pushed to the brink and forced to punch well beyond their own weight. Stories are predictable and emotional. Well placed signs are signs of things to come. Mitti ke Ganesh in the case of street children and Ali said in the beginning that they would be written about in the newspapers, for example. Smarter writing could have circumvented the prophecy.

anonymity An embodied existence does not live up to its potential to be drama. But despite the rough edges and projected pitfalls, it holds its own and tells stories with conviction, and marks the arrival of yet another new director who is afraid to go against mainstream Telugu film tropes.