Shaakuntalam Review – Rediff.com movies – Rediff.com
The love story of Shakuntala and Dushyant is so acquainted, from textbooks, comics, stage and display variations, that it has develop into a part of our cultural DNA.
If a film-maker thinks he could make it his personal by producing a 3D model with extreme CGI, he achieves nothing however overkill, notes Deepa Gahlot.
The promos give some indication of what to anticipate — a Baahubali-ised model of the Kalidasa epic — however nonetheless, the two-and-a-half hour visible and aural punishment inflicted by Gunasekhar’s Shaakuntalam leaves the viewer gobsmacked.
The love story of Shakuntala and Dushyant is so acquainted, from textbooks, comics, stage and display variations, that it has develop into a part of our cultural DNA.
If a film-maker thinks he could make it his personal by producing a 3D model with extreme CGI, he achieves nothing however overkill.
After prefixing his identify to the title, Gunasekhar doesn’t reinterpret the traditional, if that have been even doable; it seems he simply went together with the present pattern of turning all the pieces right into a spectacle.
Gunashekar has made some award-winning Telugu movies prior to now, but when he aspires to be one other Rajamouli, he has some technique to go.
Shakuntala (Samantha Ruth Prabhu, miscast) is the daughter of Apsara Menaka and Rishi Vishwamitra. The animated backstop is supplied, later a stay motion Menaka (Madhoo) makes an look too, dancing in Lord Indra’s (Jisshu Sengupta) court docket.
Deserted within the forest as an toddler, she was raised by Rishi Kanva (Sachin Khedekar) within the form of fantasy ashram the place deer frolic with tigers and each body full of computer-generated wildlife.
When King Dushyant (Dev Mohan) arrives, he’s referred to as upon to battle with an Asura military (animated backstory added). He defeats them and stays on for some R&R within the ashram.
He falls in love with Shakuntala and has a Gandharva vivaah together with her.
When he leaves, after gifting her his signet ring, promising to return, she is pregnant.
Misplaced in thought, she is cursed by the ill-tempered Rishi Durvasa (Mohan Babu), whose animated backstory is dutifully narrated, to be forgotten by the person she was dreaming about when she rudely ignored him.
Despatched to be together with her husband, she arrives on the capital — filled with gigantic statues — decked up as a bride, and he doesn’t keep in mind her. She has misplaced the ring that will reveal the reality, so she is stoned and solid out by the individuals.
A fisherman finds the lacking ring, Dushyant’s reminiscence is restored, however Shakuntala is nowhere to be discovered.
There are limitless sequences of him staggering about in grief, a prolonged music in his creativeness, one more battle with the asuras, a flashback to point out Shakuntala’s trauma, by which era many viewers have to be mentally begging for mercy.
A lot effort has been put in by the tech workforce however there is no such thing as a freshness to the look of the movie. The identical kitsch reaching the 3D display in 2023, through oleographs, previous motion pictures, tv and Amar Chitra comics.
The whole lot appears to be like pretend and garish.
The music is a drone, and although the traces (horrible dubbing) are written in Sanskritised Hindi (with a few slip-ups), they sound unintentionally humorous.
The makers are calling Shaakuntalam ‘Mythology For Millennials’. Nonetheless, if the love story have been to work in right this moment’s time, it will have reached the much-maligned millennials even when it was achieved with simplicity, magnificence and creativeness.
Right here, the feelings are buried underneath the heavy weight of pointless grandeur, which isn’t even aesthetically interesting.
It’s repeated a number of occasions that Shakuntala was born to satisfy a better function, which seems to be giving beginning to Bharat (performed by Allu Arha), so this movie turns into a Mahabharat origin story.
If film-makers are going to dig into mythology or historical past to offer audiences a large-scale viewing expertise, allow them to additionally rework their storyboards.
Our cinema may do with extra magnificence and fewer tinsel.
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