Addled Andhra

As someone who has been spending the past few months in Andhra Pradesh, I’m amazed at the number of biopics being cranked out on famous Telugu politicians. What more, the release of these propagandist movies coincides with the elections that were held this Friday.

Both the big parties in the fray, the ruling TDP and Opposition YSR Congress, have been behind these slickly produced biopics on N T Rama Rao and Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, respectively. A two-part biopic on NTR, with his son Balakrishna in the titular role, proved to be a cropper at the box office despite a stellar star cast and an inventive director like Krish Jagarlamudi (Gabbar, Manikarnika).

The first part, NTR: Kathanayakudu, is all about how an unassuming man from Guntur transforms into a matinee idol and the physical epitome of Lord Krishna for millions of Telugu-speaking people. An equal weightage is given to the role of his wife Basavatarakam (played with typical elan by Vidya Balan). The movie gains the levity of a two-hour Wikipedia entry, what with all of NTR’s achievements and his filmography being rattled off. It’s basically a spot-your-favourite-actor-being-played-by-a-famous-actor for those who grew up watching NTR’s histrionics. Sample these: Nithya Menen as Savitri, Rakul Preet Singh as Sridevi, Hansika Motwani as Jaya Prada, Rana Daggubati as Chandrababu Naidu.

The second part, NTR: Mahanayakudu, is comparatively better than its crashingly bad predecessor but that’s not saying much either. The movie lethargically chronicles how NTR cocked a snook at Indira Gandhi in 1982 and launched the Telugu Desam Party and within nine months defeated the Congress in Andhra Pradesh. The film also shows the souring of his relationship with Nadendla Bhaskara Rao (played with a delicious snarl by Sachin Khedekar) but completely ignores how Naidu, his son-in-law, eventually got to him in an even worse way.

Balakrishna shows immense grace in re-imagining his father’s superlative stature but the script is bogged down by hagiographic undertones that will make the neutral viewer reach for the nearest brown bag.

Nandamuri Balakrishna and Vidya Balan play lead roles in NTR: Kathanayakudu

At the other end of this credence-testing spectrum is Yatra, a film about YSR’s 1,400-km foot journey from Chevella to Ichchapuram that helped him comprehensively snare the 2004 elections in the then united Andhra Pradesh. For the uninitiated, the movie, starring Mammootty as YSR, is a decent insight into what helped Congress romp to victory despite a Naxal attack on Naidu. The movie’s release coincides with YSR’s son Jaganmohan Reddy’s quest to win in the current election and from whatever little I could gather from my recent travels, he seems destined for the throne of chief minister. One hopes this excessively long movie, at 126 minutes, is not a catalyst.

Amid these perplexing and exhausting movies, the enfant terrible of Indian cinema, Ram Gopal Varma, thought with his latest offering, Lakshmi’s NTR, he should touch upon an aspect of NTR’s life that’s verboten for any official biopic. Close to the twilight of his political career, while he was busy licking his wounds after losing in 1989, NTR allowed Lakshmi Parvathi into his life as his soulmate and, eventually, his wife. This chapter of his life has always been a hush-hush affair — one that would have been social media fodder in current times. Varma assiduously showcases the buildup to their marriage. It’s no secret that Varma lost his movie-making mojo years ago and is now just schlepping through movie after movie based on his past accolades. After delivering at least a dozen yawn-inducing duds, Lakshmi’s NTR is Varma’s least insufferable movie. But even Varma plays safe, and faultily and laboriously shows his protagonist as a selfless woman.

Andhra and Telangana are the two most movie-obsessed Indian states and their 10 million-odd citizens have been done a disservice with these clunky, leaden films. In 2018, Mahanati, a biopic on yesteryear actress Savitri, showed the country how a biopic can be made by staying true to the source material. But in 2019, Telugu cinema harkens back to the Stone Age of filmmaking when directors baulk at the idea of ruffling a few political feathers.

jagan.520@gmail.com