(Recommended by elnino.aurora
Move over Vimala Raman, Tabu, Meera Jasmine, Navya Nair et al.
We have a new squeeze now – Kamalinee Mukherjee. 😉
If that stupid shit Godavari (2006) has any redeeming elements, it came in the form of the talented Bengali babe Kamalinee Mukherjee.
The young lass plays the role of a feisty, independent, stubborn girl Seetamahalakshmi, who falls in love with a U.S. returned engineer Sri Ram (Sumanth), also a good samaritan who aspires to be a politician.
After seeing clowns like Kajal Agarwal and Kanagana Ranaut in Telugu films, it’s a relief to behold someone like Kamalinee Mukherjee who packs decent acting skills.
Much of film is set on a boat journey on the Godavari river from Rajahmundry to Bhadrachalam.
While that is a novelty, the photography of the river didn’t leave us spellbound notwithstanding the paeans sung to it in the film.
Consider us cuckoo if you want but we kinda felt that director Sekhar Kammula may have drawn some inspiration from Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ Love in the Time of Cholera. The river has a strong presence in the book and the final scenes involve a long romantic boat trip taken by Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza.
Not that Godavari has any of the grandeur of Marquez’ book. In fact none of it.
This is trite romantic shit, albeit a little polished by Telugu film standards. None of those asinine fights or silly song-dances in Switzerland in Godavari.
Sumanth plays the male romantic lead opposite Kamalinee.
The young lad is nowhere in the league of Kamalinee in the acting department. How could he be? After all, Sumanth is that bozo Nagarjuna’s nephew. 🙁
Will someone please pack that clown Neetu Chandra back to Bihar and her Taek-won-do.
An absolutely pitiful actress, even by South Indian standards, Neetu plays the character of Raji, Sumanth’s first love. Her fiancee in the movie an IPS officer Ravi (Kamal) is caricatured as a vain, self-centered fellow.
All in all, Godavari is no big deal but better than the few Telugu films we’ve seen (Ganesh, Ek Niranjan, Arya et al).
Godavari Review – Kamalinee Sole Consolation added by SearchIndia.com on
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You’ve seen K. Mukherjee before in Vettayadu Vilayadu but only made a passing mention of her in that review. Perhaps Kamal’s acting rubbed off on Kamalini and she’s now a better actress? 😉
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Passing mention, yes.
Complimentary reference, yes.
See, this is what we said about Kamilini in our Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu review:
Raghavan’s wife Kaayalveli (Kamalini Mukerjee) is quickly disposed off but she does all right in the limited time given to her.
Offtopic:
Watching Gulaal on ZEE Cinema. Almost over and I am liking it. Very much so. The movie gets its name from the stuff that the members of a rebellious separatist rajputana organisation put on their faces on their secret meetings so that they remain unidentifiable to each other! Their ultimate aim is to free the state of Rajputana by an armed revolt. Add to this student politics, illegitimate sons, some sex, guns and blood. There you have it. Gulaal.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
We’ll see if Netflix has it.
http://passionforcinema.com/gulaal-indian-cinema-is-freed/
Well, I wouldn’t excatly go over the top like the above guy but it was a good movie. There are a lot of Hindi lyrics in the film and I didn’t understand most of it. It seems most guys found those very good.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: There are a lot of Hindi lyrics in the film and I didn’t understand most of it
Don’t you get English subtitles there for DVDs/Hindi movies in non-Hindi-speaking areas like South India.
All Hindi movies released in the U.S. come with English subtitles.
Anand and Happy Days were much better than this film.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Added Anand and Happy Days to our Netflix queue.
Dint like Happy Days so much; it’s all about a bunch of ultra-successful-in-everything-they-do college students, and I couldn’t identify with the movie much 😉
Liked Godavari and Anand though, simple and sweet.
Ohh, and yeah, I absolutely hated the movie Gulaal. Movies about revolution, and patriotism are fine, but pointless movies, with boring story lines I really don’t like.
SearchIndia.com Responds:
You write: Liked Godavari and Anand though, simple and sweet.
So, are you the ‘Seetamahalakshmi’ kind of person? 😉
@SI
Nope. No subtitles on TV or theatre.
@Asha
You have a point there-about the movie being pointless. It pretty much is. It doesn’t give you any take home messages, tell you this is wrong or that is right. What it does is to engage you throughout its length and may be makes you think about somethings for a while later. Of course, it can also give you a headache 🙂
Gulaal being boring is a subjective thing. I had a friend of mine practically begging me to change the channel. He had problems with pacing (too slow, lots of silence acc to him while I had a tough time keeping up with the movie), the language (for me too). It isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Probably explains why it was a failure at box office. There is a lot of poetry, metaphors (like the ardha nari, John Lennon’s locket) and my friend (who said the narrative style of Krissh and Koi mil gaya were much more engaging) got so bored that he went to bed half an hour into the film! I felt kind of guilty but thankfully that soon passed 😀
@Asha
Scroll down a bit to see a numbered list(incomplete) of metaphors(some obvious some subtle). I caught around 6 of them. Understood around 4. I have a friend who is a nihilist(really smart guy, a physicist no less) so caught and understood that one without wikipedia. The explanations are OK but some commenters provide better ones, IMHO.
http://passionforcinema.com/gulaal-why-it-will-not-do-well/
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Interesting.
Have yet to read the comments though. Will do so later.
Expected a more-trashing review. But good that you found it watchable, at least. 🙂
Anand is much better than Godavari, overall. Great music, too. Surely you wouldn’t want to miss it, given the Kamalinee factor.
BTW, off topic, as a critic, how important do you consider the music track of a movie to be, when writing a review?
SearchIndia.com Responds:
1. You write above: Surely you wouldn’t want to miss it, given the Kamalinee factor.
After watching Godavari, we’re in the Kama-linee mood these days. 😉
2. You write: how important do you consider the music track of a movie to be, when writing a review?
Music is not a must-have but if it’s there it’s got to be mighty good. For us, a movie is the total experience (acting, story, music et al).
But these days we’re getting tired of the jetting off to Switzerland, Iceland, Greece et al for a song/dance routine. Sick.
3. Will watch Anand soon.
/Added Anand and Happy Days to our Netflix queue./
Funny to find Anand to be mentioned as a 1987 release (Actually it released in 2004) in Netflix! 😀
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Just checked. You are right.
Netflix goofed up on the year of release.
For me, Bommarillu is my most favourite Telugu movie out of the 20-30 Telugu movies I’ve watched….btw, did the new Malayalam movie ‘Urumi’ (directed by Santosh Sivan) release there?????I watched the movie in theatre. Its doing good business in Kerala. A good watch, though not great by any standards. But much better than the hugely overhyped ‘Pazhassi Raja’……
SearchIndia.com Responds:
Just checked. Urumi is not playing anywhere near us.
Why don’t you review it for SI?
Oh, I’m really bad at writing reviews…
Btw, I just read your reviews on certain movies.
I liked many of your reviews, but at the same time I was shocked to notice that you didn’t like Lage Raho Munnabhai and Chak De India, two of my favourite movies.
According to me, Chak De India was a very good movie and the performance of Shahrukh Khan was one of the best in his career. As for Lage Raho Munnabhai, it is my most favourite Hindi movie.
But yes, I understand each individual is different and holds a different opinion on everything. Even when it comes to movies its the same and I respect that…………….
SearchIndia.com Responds:
By the lowly Indian standards, we suppose Chak De India and Lage Raho Munnabhai might have seemed like a breath of fresh air but by the global standards of Foreign movies (French, Spanish, Italian, Danish) or many Hollywood films, SRK comes across as a joker. For someone with over 2 decades in the business, he’s hopelessly pathetic.
SRK would be laughed out of theaters here. No one but desis watch the trashy Indian films in theaters here (U.S.).