Monthly Review: September 2023

I was in Mantralayam at the beginning of the month and was there for four days. And then traveled to Chennai, Hyderabad, and back home now. I got to witness multiple live performances, watched good cinema, and met amazing people. Let’s get started with movies.

Movies

Ms Shetty, Mr Polishetty

When I was in Chennai earlier this month, I watched Ms Shetty, Mr Polishetty by Mahesh Babu, starring Anushka and Naveen Polishetty in lead roles. Honestly, I didn’t have any expectations on the film and I’ve heard the movie was doing good amidst the craze for Jawan.

I wanted to watch a film at Sathyam Cinemas and my friend Sasank booked tickets there. With no expectations, I sat in the cinema hall with a housefull crowd on a Saturday afternoon, and the movie turned out awesome!

The writing of the movie is clean and had us engaged for the most part. Although the beginning felt uninteresting, it sets up the character and takes us through Anushka’s decision. Then enters Naveen Polishetty who runs the show. His performance is bliss to watch on screen.

The cinematography and production design bring us a good vibe that is enhanced by the background score. The emotional scenes in the movie felt organic and convincing.

Mahesh gave a sensitive touch to the movie that made it worth watching. Naveen Polishetty — man! I hope he becomes a bigger star. He has great comedy timing, brilliant screen presence, and acting skills. Everyone was clapping, cheering for him, and laughing at all the jokes. UV Creations is doing this well — last time with Bhaagmathie and this time with this film.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

I’ve been wanting to watch Wes Anderson’s movies but due to unknown reasons, I haven’t watched any of them until Susruth decided to play that movie in his room! We were in for a treat. We watched the movie in the evening, had dinner while watching the movie, and applauded continuously.

It took some time for me to get into the film in the beginning but once I was in, I was enjoying it completely.

Wes Anderson’s writing, the characters, and his obsession with colors, symmetry, and production design amazed me. Looking forward to watching more of his films.

Sapta Saagaradaache Ello

I’ve been a fan of both Hemanth M Rao and Rakshit Shetty from their previous collaboration, Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu. I’ve been following them on social media to see the updates on this film, SSE, and was happy to find out that it is releasing in two parts, and that both of them will be released within a 60-day gap (less than that).

The reviews were out and it got unanimous positive feedback from the audience and critics alike. I watched it in Hyderabad, with my friend, Vishnu. I couldn’t wait until the Telugu version was released and I didn’t want to watch it in Telugu when I understood Kannada!

I watched it on a Saturday ~ 9 a.m. show in Prasads with a house-full crowd. Before getting to the details, I liked the film. It is a movie that deals with the emotions of the lovers when they are far apart but yet closer. The music, cinematography, editing, and crafts were in perfect sync to provide a film that makes us emotional.

No complaints about the film but the environment in which I watched the film. The guy who sat beside me apparently had drunk the previous night and the odor was worse. I couldn’t tolerate it but I couldn’t help it. I had to endure that poignant movie painstakingly, literally. There was another group of friends who were chatting continuously. It was quite disturbing throughout. I wish we, as an audience, would be mature enough to respect the environment when visiting public places where experience matters.

Now, coming to the movie, I felt Hemanth explored the depth of love and separation realistically rather than getting to the breadth of it by convoluting the plot. It was a good decision to keep this movie in two parts rather than hurrying up with everything in one film to market it as a good commercial film.

Every time I expected something to happen, the movie took a different and realistic direction than I’ve heard or read in life. People often show their angst on the things at their disposal, making things even worse. There were a couple of times when we become hopeful that the lovers will be united but no, it takes a rather different approach.

Also, the scene-scene progression worked well for me. There are a couple of transitions in the movie that made me say “wow” especially the one where we see the reflection of a flight on the surface of water in the prison.

If all the atmosphere in the theater was good, I’d have had a great experience of watching this emotional movie!

The movie is now streaming on Prime Video. Do watch it.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I love David Fincher movies. I haven’t watched all of his movies yet but the movies I watched made me a fan of his. Gone Girl is still one of the movies I love the most. When I was browsing his filmography, I found this title to be interesting and when I checked the cast, there was Daniel Craig.

I loved watching him in Knives Out and I like the way David builds the tension between the characters with drama and the choices they make. The only thing left is to see where it is streaming and I believe recently Prime Video acquired the movie and I couldn’t be happier!

After many Fridays of not continuing my Friday movie ritual, I watched this movie on one Friday this month. Thoroughly impressed. I don’t want to speak more about it to spoil your experience but will only share this line — The way I saw the movie is “one victim of sexual abuse helps a journalist in finding another victim of the sexual abuse.” The movie was disturbing in one scene and I couldn’t continue watching it. I took a short break and resumed watching the movie after that scene.

Rooney as Lisbeth is badass and Daniel as Mikael is as perfect as it gets. The movie is based on a book and now I’ll look out for the book!

Skanda

I went to the first-day show at a local theater as I didn’t want to miss the experience of watching this film with friends although I had no expectations. After watching the movie, I had a headache throughout the day.

Everything in the movie is absurd and over the top. Though this was expected, the only respite I had was constant inside jokes we cracked at most of the scenes. It could have been bad but it’s worse. At times we didn’t even know what was happening and then came the end title card with an announcement for the sequel. Oh my god!

I like a few of Boyapati’s films like Badra, Sarrainodu, and Akhanda (in parts) but it is perhaps his weakest work. I only wish the background score had a limit (the volume was unbearable many times).

Books

This month hasn’t been great with finishing the books I started. I was reading No Rules Rules on Netflix’s work culture but wasn’t able to finish this month. I started reading another book and again, couldn’t complete it.

When there’s a gap, I always rely on Yandamoori to revive my reading habit, and hence, I started reading his novel, Duppatlo Minnagu.

Duppatlo Minnagu

Yandamoori experimented with the style in this novel and he broke it down into multiple short stories narrated by the people in the novel. It was a good read, and this book kept me hooked throughout. I sincerely admire the writing prowess of this man, and he amazes me every time with his work, which was written much before I was born!

The short stories present in this novel are suspenseful but are different in their own genre. I’m impressed with this! I finished reading this book within three days, and thanks to him, I resumed reading after a short break.

This novel is meta in its sense — Yandamoori analyzes the style and provides criticism on the stories, that he wrote, and that literary criticism made more sense. By the way, there’s a cross-over of Abhilasha in this novel and when I read the name “Chiranjeevi” in this novel, I smiled immediately. I believe Abhilasha was one of the very first novels I read in my life, and meeting those characters in this book made me happy :)

This novel is unique and interesting. I did not read the brief synopsis on the back cover and proceeded to read and finish the book, only to look at the back cover after completing the book. There’s a good twist that is revealed on the back cover and thank god, I didn’t read it before or while reading the book.

Yesterday, I completed reading Unprecedented, a collection of poems by Apurva. It has been a good read so far with relatable thoughts. This is my first, reading English poetry after struggling with understanding them from school.

After this book, I want to read The Outsider by Albert Camus. I read “Antharmukham” by Yandamoori last year and it is based on The Outsider. I know the basic plot but don’t remember everything. I think it’s time for me to read the original version as Antharmukham moved me when I read.

Travel

As mentioned at the beginning of the blog post, I’ve been to Mantralayam and Chennai this month, for special occasions. I was in Mantralayam to attend Aradhane of Guru Rayaru and the experience was good. I have cherished it for a long time and wish I get to witness it again.

I went to Chennai to attend AR Rahman’s live concert. While the experience wasn’t great, I shared the details here.

In a way, this month has been a month of witnessing live performances for me. In Mantralayam, I watched the performance of the Prabhat Group. They performed Bhasmasura’s story and Pashupatastra. After many years, this was my experience of watching live theater and it was brilliant throughout. Goosebumps stuff.

While in Chennai, I went to Arivu and Agam Band’s live performance, thanks to Sasank. It was a brilliant experience. And then the following day, AR Rahman’s Live Concert.

Adding to that, this month has been good with meeting people. I met a lot of kind souls and spent quality time with them. Starting with Sasank, Gayathiri-Ashwin, Sruthi, Sampath, Bharath, Sripriya, Vishal, Aishvarya, and many others. The meaningful conversations and timely laughter are what we crave, and it has been great!

Looking forward to many things in October…