Jathi Ratnalu, starring Naveen Polishetty, has been hailed as the funniest film of the year, and its blockbuster status at box-office is proof enough that it has found widespread acceptance among the viewers. Actors like Mahesh Babu and Allu Arjun applauded the film for its humour, and Naveen Polishetty, in particular, has become a household name. For the uninitiated, the hype and hoopla surrounding the film might be confounding. After all, one might argue that it isn’t the first such comedy film in years or its plot isn’t remarkable either. Yet, there’s something fascinating about its humour and how the three actors, Naveen Polishetty, Priyadarshi, Rahul Ramakrishna control the rhythm.
Anudeep, writer and director of the film, brings out the contrast between Jogipet and Hyderabad through the eyes of the three characters, who are gobsmacked when they first land in the city. Their dreams of leading a respectable life come crashing down and they keep getting into trouble when all they want in life is to lead a normal life. They are misfits in a world which feels too sophisticated, but for most part, they don’t lose touch with their small town humour and even their series of misfortunes don’t diminish their innocence. The essence of the humour lies in the writing and how well the actors channel all that with their comic timing. There’s a scene where the trio asks a policeman why he shaved his head, and the latter replies that his grandmother died. Srikanth retorts saying, “Did she die because you shaved your head?” It’s silly, but also funny because we realise that the three characters don’t take anything seriously, not even the death of another person.
Another significant factor is how it delves into linguistic humour. Everytime Naveen wants to appear confident in front of a city-bred person, he switches to broken English, which is often grammatically wrong. And each time, he distorts a word or a sentence, the others are either shell shocked or burst out laughing. One of the catchphrases in the film, “Just go to hell and heaven” is just a tip of the iceberg at how language is used in a humorous way. Banquet hall is called blanket hall, constitution is mispronounced as constipation. In another scene, Naveen asks his friend, “Don’t you know where the heart is? Didn’t you learn Maths?” That Naveen calls himself the most intelligent person in Jogipet makes this funnier. This lack of finesse is turned into an endearing trait throughout the film, and both truth and lies evoke laughter.
The linguistic humour in Telangana dialect is part of a growing trend in Telugu cinema where filmmakers, in the recent past, have been making a conscious attempt to bring local slangs and dialects into mainstream cinema. Filmmaker Tharun Bhascker says, “At one point of time, there was a stigma around accents and how comedy should sound because a lot of it is either exaggerated or dramatic. But over the years, colloquial conversations have found bigger acceptance. For filmmakers like me, digital media was a testing ground to see how people react to more local dialects and once we saw a positive reaction, we didn’t have to think twice about using the same style in feature films. It’s something new for the audience too.”
It’s not just the dialects and accents that have changed over the years. Some writers aver that audiences have changed too and it reflects in the kind of comedy which has clicked with them. The Telugu film industry has relied on a demarcation where regions are segregated as - A, B, C centres - depending on how urban or educated the moviegoers are. The kind of films that appeal to each of these segments has varied, although several blockbusters have managed to cut across all these barriers. Yet, comedy isn’t as universal as drama or action in terms of how people perceive it.
Explaining the evolution of comedy, screenwriter Gopi Mohan says, “Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, filmmakers like Jandhyala, Relangi Narasimha Rao created a certain benchmark for comedy films. The humour in Jandhyala’s films was based on a person’s physical attributes and their quirks. Then, EVV Satyanarayana brought in a different style where comedy is laced with a lot of double meaning dialogues. Sometimes, comedy was in the form of characters questioning cinematic cliches as part of the scene. Then, Trivikram Srinivas delivered humour through dialogues, and later, Srinu Vaitla made a mark with his action entertainers, where even the villains have a sense of humour. If you look at each era, the demographics of people who were able to connect with the comedy trends is different, and it has undergone a drastic change with time. In the early ‘90s, a film like Kshana Kshanam was considered too classy and its humour just didn’t work with those in smaller towns and villages. But over time, people have come to a stage where they just don’t want to see crude jokes or slapstick humour. Today, we don’t really have a trend of true blue comedies, but comedy itself has become an integral part of almost every other film. That’s the reason why we see so many horror comedies, crime comedies, rom-coms among other genres.”
From the era where the biggest of stars hesitated to perform comedy to almost every other actor trying to entertain the audience, Telugu cinema has come a long way. Actors like Rajendra Prasad and Chandra Mohan dominated the genre in the ‘80s, and early ‘90s. At one point of time, Telugu cinema saw scores of comedians like Brahmanandam, Suthi Velu, Suthi Veerabhadra Rao, Babu Mohan, Ali, Gundu Hanumanthu Rao, Sree Lakshmi among several others enter the industry and there was hardly a film without their presence. Brahmanandam, in particular, became a star comedian and he continued to be a rage for the next three decades. Around the same time, Chiranjeevi had become an immensely popular star in Telugu and when he began performing comedy, it sparked an industry wide trend where heroes had a comic touch too. Later, in the 2000s, actors like Sunil and Allari Naresh made their own mark in the comedy genre, but once again, the genre underwent a major shift in the last decade.
After Sunil turned hero, and Allari Naresh’s films post Sudigadu (2012) tanking at box-office, there’s been a vacuum in the industry. Although there’s no dearth of comedians, not many full-length comedies were made. A slew of comedy shows on TV made it even tougher for screenwriters to write better comedies for the big screen. “Writing comedy is a hard task, and it’s even tougher when you want to keep it logical. Although there are writers who are good at writing parodies or slapstick humour, there aren’t as many writers who write good humour,” Gopi Mohan confesses. Even though the industry saw several new-age filmmakers exploring different themes in recent years, many aver that comedy has merely been used as a layer in a story. “If you leave aside spoof films and horror comedies, we don’t really have as many full-length comedies in Telugu these days. So, when a film like Jathi Ratnalu, which makes one laugh in almost every other scene, releases at a time like this, people have accepted it wholeheartedly,” filmmaker Sai Rajesh says.
Telugu film industry’s tryst with comedy has a glorious legacy which began right from its inception. Its form has changed over the years, but Telugu film audiences have absorbed it to an extent that people end up quoting comedy scenes and dialogues for every situation in their lives. Filmmakers often quote Jandhyala, who once said, “Navvadam oka bhogam, Navvinchadam oka yogam, Navvalekapovadam oka rogam" (To be able to laugh is a blessing, to make others laugh is an art, and to be unable to laugh is a disease). And Jathi Ratnalu is the latest addition in the long list of films which have given reasons for people to laugh. It’s the stressbuster that one needed in depressing times like these.
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