Jaggesh and Rachitha Mahalakshmi in ‘Ranganayaka’.
| Photo Credit: Vikhyath Studios/YouTube
Director Guruprasad often identifies himself as a hathasha prekshaka (A disappointed or frustrated audience). He describes himself as someone who made films just to overcome the disappointment of watching bad films in Kannada and to prove a point that the industry hadn’t understood the “real meaning of cinema”.
However, with Ranganayaka, he seems to have forgotten that the audience he is catering to also desires variety in cinema. Guruprasad’s latest film is stuck in a rut and is a letdown for those who expected magic from his third collaboration with actor Jaggesh after the successful Mata (2006) and Eddelu Manjunatha (2009).
Ranganayaka has a superb core idea, perhaps never explored in Kannada cinema. Guruprasad plays himself, a director known for his outspoken nature. Such personalities are a favourite for TRP-hungry television media. One day, he gets called for a television show famous for hypnotising their guests and unearthing their secrets.
Ranganayaka (Kannada)
Director: Guruprasad
Cast: Jaggesh, Guruprasad, Srinivas Prabhu, Rachitha Mahalakshmi
Runtime: 121 minutes
Storyline: A filmmaker learns about his past life, in which he attempted to make the first ever Kannada movie.
Instead of plunging into this concept head-on, the movie offers ample room for Guruprasad to vent his frustration about life and cinema. There is enough and more show-boating, with the interviewer asking questions intended to boost the filmmaker’s ego. For those who have followed Guruprasad’s pre-release interviews, this portion of the film offers nothing new.
Ranganayaka gets back on track when a hypnotised Guruprasad talks about being born as Padmanabha Sharma in his previous life. In 1896, a visit to Mumbai to see the motion picture invented by the legendary Lumière brothers — Louis and Auguste — inspires Padmanabha. He vows to make India’s first motion picture in Kannada.
Y V Rao’s Sati Sulochana, released on March 3, 1934, is Kannada’s first-ever movie. Ranganayaka had the opportunity to explore incidents that led to this first Kannada film, from when the Lumière brothers invented cinema. Barring a scene that showcases the legendary Puttanna Kanagal, the movie fails to portray the bygone period interestingly. The director, who believes in cinematic liberty, could have delved deep into the challenges of making movies in the pre-technology era.
Padmanabha names his film Ranganayaka, and Jaggesh gets picked as the hero. In this film-within-the-fim concept, Ranganayaka loses total control and becomes a bunch of adult jokes packaged as a movie. Guruprasad’s films are known to have eccentric characters who indulge in dark humour. But in Mata and Eddelu Manjunatha, the eccentricity is justified as we know where these characters come from. In Ranganayaka, the context and background of the characters get zero attention.
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At one point in the film, Guruprasad and Jaggesh are like two batsmen going hammer and tongs with nothing to lose, chasing a target beyond their reach. So, there is a brief phase of mindless entertainment. We laugh at their jokes and admire their inventiveness, even as we rue that they should have come in a better film than Ranganayaka.
Guruprasad’s cry for saving the Kannada film industry from its competitors seems well-intentioned, but there is nothing in the film for us to feel for his subject. What’s worse is that Ranganayaka takes itself too seriously in the end, when it is actually much ado about nothing.
Ranganayaka is currently running in theatres