Sunday, January 13, 2008

Mungaaru Male...

I don't remember the last time I went to a theater to watch a kannada movie or even saw it on a DVD. The last good ones that I really admired were 'Amruthavarshini' and 'America America'. I know this is almost a decade back but I really haven't seen anything as nice as these till date. I hardly watch kannda movies...unless something is recommended by loads of people.. and am glad I saw this one. Mungaru Male (means pre-monsoon rains) is one of the nicest kannada movies and one of those really rare movies which has used rain as a metaphor thru'out the movie.. This movie generated so much curiosity and now I know that it has lived up to it's expectations. No wonder it's regarded as the biggest hits in South Indian cinema and has a whole wikipedia page for itself! It says..
"The movie set a national record as the first Indian language movie to run for 1 year at PVR Cinemas nationwide"

Everyone will agree that the script is the most important part of any film. The technicalities, glitz, glamor, choreography, item numbers are all just additions which are not required if you have a good script to present and this movie does exactly the same. It's a very simple but a very different kind of a love story which really touches your heart. Screenplay and cinematography are just mind blowing. The shots in the beautiful landscapes of the Malnad (Coorg) region during the monsoon rains make it even more beautiful. I would have loved to watch it on the big screen!! Am sure it will be even better an experience than watching it on TV... I was just looking at some of the subtitles here and there and noticed that the essence of the dialogue is lost in translation... So if you can't understand kannada and u are going to watch the movie with subtitles then you may not appreciate it as much....
The music by Mano Murthy is definitely commendable - almost all the songs are very melodious and hummable...with very meaningful lyrics too! The playback singers sonu nigam, sunidhi, shreya ghoshal and kunal ganjawala add their special touch to the songs of course...The most unexpected moment and the best part of the film is its climax which is one of the realistically best endings that I have seen in a long time... No wonder the movie is still running packed houses... I hope we get to see more of such high quality kannada movies in future!

1 comment:

Harisha - ಹರೀಶ said...

Short and sweet... one of the best reviews i've seen recently..

I am glad that this movie made you watch a Kannada movie again :)