A festival favorite with lovely cinematography

Set in rural South India, this sweet movie with its nice music and dancing and lovely colorful visuals has a disturbing arc that leads to a picture of old social barriers being challenged. Fifteen-year-old Vanaja, the daughter of a drunken fisherman, goes to work for a rich lady, Rama Devi (Urmila Dammannagari), who teaches her to dance. The lady's son Shekher (Karan Singh) comes home from America and he sees Vanaja being fresh with her friend from home the boy postman Ram Babu (Krishna Garlapati), and, thinking she's loose, later rapes her.

Vanaja is pregnant, and when Rama Devi finds out, she punishes her son, insisting Vanaja have an abortion at once. But Vanaja decides she must have the baby (when she does, it's half as big as she is). The girl is wily, and deals with adult sized problems as a young teenager.

The world of this film seems in some ways untouched by modernity; or it could have taken place as well in the 1930's as the 2000's. No televisions or computers come into sight. But maybe Vanaja learned her independence from things happening in India today, even though they don't seem to touch the milieu of the film. The subject is a girl, and the background is light and entertaining, with local color respected but not filled in too elaborately, but this isn't a picture for young people to watch.

It may seem a bit peculiar that the rich woman's hunky son, who has lived in America, would wind up becoming half enamored of a scrawny young lower caste girl, but that's what happens; but this isn't completely impossible: after all, Vanaja's baby is his child. Spoiled and a little weird and violent and not very grown up, Sheker is in sharp contrast to his mother, with her warmth, wisdom, and independence; she's a real Indira Gandhi.

There are scenes of Vanaja dancing for Rama Devi (with her musicians) throughout. The final one, in a big blue room, is quite magical, a triumph of bright color and luminous natural light. Young Mamatha Bhukya's dancing is at its most complete and accomplished in the scene. She acts out a whole drama, with all the expressions and movements. But obviously there is a lot more to this film than the story of a servant girl who wanted to learn to dance.

Vanaja is a festival favorite, being scheduled, I've read, for 22 such screenings in the US. So it ought to do okay in art houses. The cinematography is absolutely lovely, without seeming artificial or overly studied. India is still one of the most colorful places on earth in more ways than one. Domalpalli gets excellent performances, some broader than others, from everyone. There's truth here, but this is far from vérité, and as in so much traditional Indian filmmaking, the director seeks more to entertain us than to hit any profound notes.

"Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of MFA. Columbia University, New York," the end titles tell us. He earned the degree and then some with this accomplished piece, which is notable for its visual beauty. Its weakness is that despite her adult problems, the young Vanaja somewhat lacks depth as a character.

Shown as part of the San Francisco Internation Film Festival 2007.

SHOWTIMES

Sat, Apr 28 / 05:30 / PFA /
Wed, May 2 / 09:15 / Kabuki /
Fri, May 4 / 04:15 / Kabuki /
Sun, May 6 / 03:30 / Aquarius /

_________________
©Chris Knipp. Blog: http://chrisknipp.blogspot.com/.