Kannada Movie Review: Sapta Sagaradaache Ello (Side A) feels like the beginning of something big for the classical romantic drama
With the tragic romance seemingly deemed out-of-vogue by Hollywood and Bollywood alike, Sapta Sagaradaache Ello (Side A) stands a powerful announcement that the Kannada film industry may be here to fill the void. There’s a certain classical timelessness to the movie’s approach to romantic storytelling that registers as a feeling, right from the start. We’re introduced to the focal couple in the midst of a squabble that only goes on to underscore the way they perfectly complement each other. But there’s also a deep foreboding: as Manu (Rakshit Shetty) speeds down the road in his employer’s expensive Mercedes while Priya (Rukmini Vasanth) begs him to slow down – think of how many years of salary he would owe if he totaled the vehicle! – we know in our bones that this trip is headed towards an ominous destination. There’s a lump in our throat well before we even know why.
But the movie also departs from tradition where it counts. In the early going, we’re spared the long-winded and conventional romantic backstory in favor of smaller, tenderer moments that bring us into the relationship. There’s no meet-cute, no quirky foreplay – just human glimpses of a young couple navigating an authentic (albeit still cinematically heightened) lower-middle-class reality. It’s hard not to get invested in the two of them early on (even as he makes some classically bad decisions). Manu works as a driver for a wealthy family, while Priya is in her final year of school but fantasizes about becoming a famous singer. Shopping for an apartment, they one day decide to pose as a much more well-to-do couple and tour a lavish penthouse, lingering on the balcony together and dreaming of a prosperous future. She yearns to one day have the means to buy a home by the sea, where she grew up, but she’s also perfectly content with the more modest life that they’re building.
White Guy Watches Bollywood: An Introduction
By nearly anyone’s definition, I’m a highly avid moviegoer. I see around 150-200 movies in theaters over the course of an average year; occasionally, I make it north of 250. This pales in comparison to my totals during college and graduate school, but my 34-year-old body can’t handle more than three theatrical viewings in a row, which used to be somewhat commonplace for me on the weekends. I subscribe to AMC A-List, Regal Unlimited, and MoviePass, because my moviegoing can’t be contained to just one chain or another. I see movies of all budget levels, genres, and languages. But even I have a big, notable blind spot at the multiplex, shared by many other frequent moviegoers: Indian cinema.
Two events last year really convinced me that I needed to be paying a lot more attention to all of the Indian films being released theatrically in the U.S. (and across other formats, but theaters are a good, reasonably contained starting point).
The first event was the smashing success of S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR among American cinephiles. Here was a Tollywood movie that made countless year-end Top 10 lists among critics and fanatical moviegoers alike (mine included), thanks in no small part to the enterprising support of Dylan Marchetti and Variance Films. And yet, a little more than a year after its initial release, RRR already seems like more of a one-off phenomenon than an attention-generator for future Indian cinema among American audiences. Surely, there must be more for us to savor.
