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| Starring: Mamatha Bhukya, Urmila Dammannagari, Ramachandriah
Marikanti, Krishnamma Gundimalla, Karan Singh, Bhavani Renukunta, Krishna Garlapati,
Prabhu Garlapati, Ram Babu Tarra Directed
by: Rajnesh Domalpalli |
Theatrical release: 2007
DVD release: 2008
Released by: Emerging Pictures Home Entertainment Dolby Digital 5.1
Telugu with English subtitles
Widescreen |
Set in a village in South India, this is the
story of a motherless teenager, the only child of a poor fisherman. His nets have just
been stolen, their only source of income. So Vanaja drops out of school and takes a job as
a maid in the household of the town’s big landowner, Mrs. Rama Devi, an older woman
who was once a celebrated Kuchipudi dancer. To learn this kind of dance is Vanaja’s
real motive. And learn it she does, right before our eyes. With her household musicians,
Mrs. Rama Devi takes Vanaja through the first slow basic steps to a sequence of intricate,
rhythmic, expressive, and spellbinding solo dances. Her future seems full of promise. Ah,
but then the mistress’s son returns from America, vain and arrogant and used to
having his way.
The film is about the rigid class and gender lines in rural
India that Vanaja cannot cross. It is also about South Indian culture, the beauty of its
music, dance, costume, cuisine, and customs. Director and screenwriter Rajnesh Domalpalli
says that most of the films from his region are "big-budget Tollywood, the
Teluga-language version of Bollywood." But for his low-budget film, he recruited a
non-professional cast from the region’s small villages ("hutments") and
labor camps, and he filmed on location in his hometown. He took a year to coach his cast
in acting. Amazingly, Mamatha Bhukya, who plays Vanaja, also learned Kuchipudi dance in
that same year. The result is an extraordinary authenticity.
Also extraordinary is that Domalpalli made Vanaja to
fulfill his MFA requirements in the film program at Columbia University. It went on to win
the coveted Jury Prize for Best First Feature at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, to open in
over a hundred theaters across the US, to be selected by over 100 film festivals, and to
win more than 20 awards. Not bad for a rookie.
And rookie he was. Among the many featurettes are four
shorts Domalpalli made while in grad school, all related to the themes he used in Vanaja.
They seem amateurish and clumsy in contrast. Like his character Vanaja, he mastered a
complex art form quickly. Also included among the featurettes are all the dances in full
that Mamatha Bhukya performs during the film. They alone are worth the price. It is a
mystery how this village girl turned into such an accomplished performer of Kuchipudi
dance in such a short time. She was a real find, a fine actress too. Another featurette is
an across-the-table interview with her in her schoolgirl’s uniform. She looks a
little older but she is very much the ordinary rural teenager, seemingly unaffected by the
success of the film she starred in.
There is no slick surface to this film, of course, but many
images are beautiful. The audio is a nice, crisp 5.1, and the music is captivating. The
subtitles work well -- Domalpalli himself must have written them.
What’s most memorable, though, is the emotional reach
of the story, the tyranny of class, and the strength of the girl’s aspirations. Roger
Ebert gave this film four stars. If he’s just a softie for films about vulnerable but
plucky young girls who are used and betrayed yet triumph, then count me a softie too. |
