A Milestone for a Milestone - Celebrating 15 years of Anand

Anand is a well versed and for many, is "Like a Refreshing Cup of Coffee", both literally and figuratively. Hoping that you’ve seen or faintly remembered its plot.

                                                

Early mornings are a beauty, especially as rise and shine goes along with you hearing hums of a Carnatic tune, chill breeze, lush green sight, a small sit-out, a touch of fog and a cup of Coffee, that too if served by your love....feels like an outlandish Fantasy or a yearly holiday to a hill-station. Well, in Shekhar Kammula’s universe of Anand, these atmos are built at your very doorstep.

“Anand completes its loving 15 long years post its release and still feels ageless. Anand will remain as a true legend and a textbook for budding writers and directors in Romantic Genre”

Shekhar Kammula, by far, is a proven director for Telugu Audience in tackling with unadorned and austere stories with the trend, trick and true mix of naturality and entertainment. If we hear it from his characters, Bhanumathi from Fidaa(2017) - she is the only piece or, in vernaculars “Hybrid Pilla”, Kammula is also one such Hybrid story-teller in Telugu. He has this innate and inborn simplicity as a person, which transcends even in his physicality with his skinny frame and thin voice which reflects on his films which are similarly simplistic and breezy watchable.

Writing - Anand, in the league of Kammula movies ranging from his age-old Dollar Dreams(2000) to his newest Fidaa(2017), scores the highest marks both technically and narratively. Its set-up, characters, emotions, male-centric comedy being ripped off, brings the mood along with clichés, hugely getting debunked in Anand as the ball and power both seem to spend more time in the hands of Roopa(our Female Protagonist). That doesn’t mean Kammula has defined Roopa as a stubborn, egoistic and centred woman, Roopa’s life as the movie starts begins with a mistake, a destiny, it’s both her act and fate that walloped her own family in a car accident. This incident becomes a leeway for her mental strength as she grows up with barely support in this big bad world.

 Its Anand who has to sweep Roopa off her feat by literally and figuratively coming into her world, which, generally is not the scene with mainstream, if not, strict romantic movies of that era, a hero’s job generally ends within the first hour as he flatters his girl and the rest is both figuring out together or heroine’s backing of our Hero in their ordeal of romantic turmoil. It’s very proud and gleeful to see someone like Kammula write strong female leads who have an opinion, self-respect and taste of their own and to win their hearts is to respect and please their taste rather superfluously and conveniently changing them to hero’s needs.

“Its set-up, characters, emotions, male-centric comedy being ripped off, ultimately brings the mood of love for the audience ”

Characterizations - Roopa is a Self-made, working woman, rigid and fences her life with the outside world. Anand, on the other hand, is like a chill breeze. He is free, happy-go-lucky, tipsy, the only heir to his ancestral Multinational Company, a humane person in contrast to his material family. Roopa and Anand are contrasting yet complete when together, that’s how Kammula designed both of them. As we move with them, its a treat to watch the relationship dynamics of Roopa and Anand, as they fall in love. 

The characters in the movie mostly get etched out well with good reasoning and drama. This was Kammula as a Story Writer, that is, the movie Anand’s beauty in drama and romance on paper. Now, Kammula as a Director and Technician for Anand.

“It’s very proud and gleeful to see someone like Kammula write strong female leads who have an opinion, self-respect and taste of their own”

Kammulla’s real work of art gets to lime-light only with his direction. His Directorial ability out-weighs his writing and gives the apt and perfect adoring look to his words.

Firstly, Casting and creative liberties they curtail - Casting of Anand is very smart. Especially, Kamalinee Mukherjee as Roopa was nothing short of the personified guise of Roopa on paper. You can see her eyes emote her heart, as she margins with obsitnation ( in general) and fills with love ( as with Anand) but has to make space for the desperation of submissiveness to her circumstances.

“ The film was shot in a real house with no props or storyboards and the team also preferred shooting Guerilla style to make presence feel active and surreal.”

 In a recent interview, Kammula share his consent of doubt in writing the Mother’s Saree conflict which breaks Roopa’s marriage at the start, that conflict initially was not planted, instead was hastily done away with. Kammula felt something amiss and wrote that idea but wasn’t sure as the Mother’s Saree issue was too trivial in general, upon pitching this idea to Kamalinee, Kamalinee insisted to keep that idea as it was very important and emotional from Roopa’s POV and if She were to be Roopa, she would’ve risked her marriage for that.

Link of the Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccQlqKvSf2o

Kammula took in fresh faces and upcoming talent like, Raja, now famous Satya Krishnan and Anish Kuruvilla, for this movie as an experiment which did work to give the movie a good shape as the uniqueness and freshness in its writing got carried to the screens.

“Lyrics from Late Veturi Sundaram Murthy whose beauty of words for rhyme and metaphorical and pensive writing, when they are heard together, create sweet music”

Setting and Imagery – A huge set was planned to be erected at Ramoji film for Roopa’s house and offices etc. Luckily, Kammula got his locale for Roopa’s house at his arm’s distance, at the end of his residing street in Padmarao Nagar. The film was shot in a real house with no props or storyboards and the team also preferred shooting Guerilla style to make presence feel active and surreal. The muted and undertoned cinematography and edit gives a lighter feel to the subject.

“Kammula has a knack for writing dialogues with English lingo added into the Telugu Flavour. Few people those days coined it as T-inglish writing.”

Music, Lyrics and Dialogues – These factors though weren’t distinguished greatly, but added as a bonus for Anand. Music and Background Score by K.M. Radha Krishnan was soothing with tunes backed by lyrics from Late Veturi Sundaram Murthy whose beauty of words for rhyme and metaphorical and pensive writing, when they are heard together, create sweet music. The numbers Vache Vache, Yamunatheeram still ring in the ears as a vintage melody.

Kammula has a nack of writing dialogues with English lingo added into the Telugu Flavour. Few people those days coined it as T-inglish writing. He used this as a tool to keep the dialogues straight-forward and ultra-short so that the point’s clear and this ain’t no Commercial Mass Masala trope to essay paragraphs and paragraphs of dialogue like Balayya does ( No offence to his fans )

The movie has few minor flaws like a slow narrative in the second half, logic and plot holes, these points find no match with the above factors as it was a Satisfying Feel-Good Romantic Saga. Just like how a Critic from Idlebrain then said about Anand –

“This film has lots of freshness and is a class apart. Sometimes, you feel like watching old classics done by the legends like K Balachandar, K Viswanath and Bapu. This film lives up to its caption of 'manchi coffee lanti cinema'. ’’

The movie completes it’s loving 15 long years post it’s release and still feels ageless. Anand will remain as a true legend and a textbook for budding writers and directors in Romantic Genre