Chitra Varga

“ The only real valuable thing is intuition, ” said Albert Einstein. However, any intuition about a past occurrence would be tantamount to speculation . “ ಮೂಕಜ್ಜಿಯ ಕನಸುಗಳು ” (‘ Mookajjiya Kanasugalu’ , meaning: ‘Mookajji’s Dreams’) is a 2019  Kannada  flick based on a novel of the same name penned, Jnanpith awardee, Dr.  Shivaram Karanth . The film deals with intuitive perception about the past. Numerous awards were conferred on this sublime drama about life and death; right and wrong, and more. The drama subsumes many stories on human foibles and frailties. Mookambika, also Mookajji ( B Jayashree ), was married off before she attained puberty, but was widowed within a couple of days of her child marriage. Now an octogenarian, she lives with her brother’s grandson, Subbaraya (Aravind Kuplikar), and his wife, Sita (Nandini Vittal). Mookajji is endowed with extrasensory perception; with her clairvoyance she narrates the story of any object she touches. The faculty of...

' The way to write a thriller is to ask a question at the beginning, and answer it at the end, ’  the British author Lee Child wrote. Indeed. But, when it comes to a thriller film, it is what you put in between that matters . " ಬೆಲ್ ಬಾಟಂ " (' Bell Bottom ') is a 2019 Kannada film that has lots of suspense; comedy too...and, some romance between the question at the start and the answer at the end . Set in the 1980s, the flick has the right amount of action and anticipation too. It is apparently being remade in Tamil ( 'Sathyasiva' ). The male protagonist, Diwaka ra ( Rishab Shetty ) is obsessed with spy novels and detective stories; he aspires to be a criminal investigator. But, his fater Annappa, a cop, prevails upon him and gets him to take up the drab, humdrum job of a police constable. Diwakara though solves a murder mystery, which impresses his boss, Inspector Sahadeva (Pramod Shetty). Hence, he gets assigned to a high-profile case– one in wh...

“ Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement .” Not my words; but, that of the English director, Alfred Hitchcock– the master of mystery movies. " ಕವಲುದಾರಿ " (' Kavaludaari ', which translates to: 'Crossroads') is a 2019  Kannada neo noir   thriller, which lives up to the hype and hubris technically. The murder mystery is being remade in Tamil (as Kabadadaari ), Telugu (as Kapatadhaari ), Malayalam and Hindi. The flick starts with the portrayal of a murder with sporadic, checkered visuals. A time jump moves the viewer in the present to KS Shyam (Rishi), a zealous traffic cop, who fervently aspires to be a detective in the crime department. The discovery of human bones at a construction site sets Shyam on a criminal investigation without official sanction. During the underwraps probe, Shyam crosses paths with Muthanna (Anant Nag), a retired, alcoholic police inspector. The trail though trends into a tangled mes...

To paraphrase John Lennon, “ life happens while you are busy making plans” . That seems to be the underlying message of “ ಮುಂದಿನ ನಿಲ್ದಾಣ ” (' Mundina Nildana ', meaning: “Next Station” ), a 2019 Kannada romantic drama that critics waxed eloquent about! The protagonists, Partha (Praveen Tej), Meera (Radhika Chetan) and Ahana (Ananya Kashyap) have diverse interests, distinct personalities, different aspirations and disparate professions too. Partha gets into a relationship with self-assured Meera, who is on the lookout for a soul-mate. She wants to settle down in blissful matrimony. Partha though is uninterested in marital commitment. Ahana is a free-spirited and fun-loving medical student; Partha finds her attractive too Each of the three main characters is on a journey to explore, discover and enjoy life. Their paths converge in bizarre ways... and, then diverge too in equally strange ways. But, at the intersection, each one influences the life of the other in some amorpho...

The great comedian, Charlie Chaplin once said that all he needs to make a comedy is “ a park, a policeman and a pretty girl .” Well, producer Rakshit Shetty adds “thugs and a treasure” to take his 2019 Kannada comedy " ಅವನೇ ಶ್ರೀಮನ್ನಾರಾಯಣ "– Avane Srimann ā r ā ya ṇ a , which translates to ' He's only Sriman Narayana '– a couple of notches higher on the “Slapstick Index”. The film is cool 'n funny; it is a potboiler with everything but the kitchen sink thrown in. It is perhaps best described as a ' melange comedy ', for it is a comedy wrapped in a fantasy-mystery shrouded in an action-thriller-adventure ...oh, with a dash of romance and intrigue for the garnish! But, when the chaff is separated from the wheat, the flick has little to offer other than pure, rollicking entertainment. The flick features a corrupt cop, Narayana (Rakshit Shetty) as the protagonist, who has a Sancho-Panza-like sidekick, Constable Achyuthanna (Achyut Kumar). Lakshmi ( S...

The Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist, George Bernard Shaw had apparently said: “ First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity .”  Perhaps he got it wrong, for some may argue it is all about “ a little curiosity and a lot of foolishness ”. " ಗಂಟುಮೂಟೆ " (Gantumoote - meaning “Baggage” ), a critically acclaimed and award-winning Kannada film, explores the theme of innocent “puppy love” and its ramifications. Set in the last decade of the previous millennium, the movie boldly, yet subtly deals with the relationships of a teenaged high school student, Meera, who finds a resemblance between Salman Khan and Madhu, her classmate. That “basal attraction” leads to romantic involvement between the two. But wait! It is no eye-candy, romance, but a tale of hormonal rush and pubescent crush at school– replete with an amalgam of coy glances, awkward kisses, sheepish guilt, boorish bullies and much more...exam blues and burning of midn...

The great Greek philosopher and polymath, Aristotle had observed: “ All human actions have one or more of these SEVEN causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.” The list is interesting and insightful...so too the number SEVEN therein. Days (in a week), notes (to the diatonic scale), colors (of the rainbow), maharishi s, deadly sins, holy steps (to consecrating a Hindu marriage), subtle energies...myriad “lists of seven” exist in every culture. Numeral SEVEN– the biblical number of physical and spiritual completeness and perfection– surely dominates other numerals in symbolism. Little doubt then that it signifies good fortune too! Perhaps numerological considerations played, sub-consciously or otherwise, on the minds of Rishab Shetty, the producer of the Kannada movie “ಕಥಾ ಸಂಗಮ (Katha Sangama – Confluence of Stories)”, for he put SEVEN disparate flicks into the cauldron of this “omnibus film”.The film, hold your breath, features in all 7 direc...