The Kannada movies produced these days are so meaning less, very poorly scripted, directed and produced despite having good directors. In Kannada they say “Haleyadalla Bangara” that means “Old is Gold”. Oh boy! It is horrible to watch some of these movies with youngsters in the family. I relish the old movies and miss it, they had meaning to the story and well scripted with good screen play. One thing I have noticed is yester year actors like Dr. Rajkumar, and Dr. Visnhuvardhan, movies are so good and there are no one currently to fill-in these shoes. I feel like I lived in that moment of the movie. Some of the movies I particularly liked are Hombisilu, Bandhana and Mathad Mathad Mallige. I also liked Dr Raj movies especially historical ones like Babruvahana, Mayura and Kaviratna Kalidasa.
Directors in the olden days had some social message in the movies. These days the movies are so dull, that I had to leave our living room while watching with my dad who watches it for a laugh. My dad imitates these characters craziness. I think these days even a good actors are made to act in lifeless roles just because directors have different agenda. The movies in recent years have the same story line and silly song sequences and plots. I have also noticed there are some offbeat movies which are really good example; Beru, Naayiya Neralu and Dweepa (kannada).
Movies that were released in 80s and 90s did fairly well. Films that starred Nag Brothers and Ramesh Arvind, are the few good examples. Among the directors I know are Puttanna Kanagal, Girish Kasaravalli and Girish Karnard, they directed very good scripted stories that even today people of my generation like watching with full family around.
Few good Kannada movies released lately ran on an average reviews, like Mr and Mrs. Ramachar. Getting good review is very hard, despite efforts put in by the production team it all depends on the screen play and the direction. I particularly liked one of the old movie ‘Sakshthkara’ which highlights the social beliefs like, superstition that can lead to a tragic end, this movie was written by the famous Kannada novelist Tha Ra Su and directed by Puttanna Kanagal.
Just the other day my aunt was saying that there is a movie based on a true story of an underworld gang leader in Bangalore named “Aa Dinagaly” . The story was written by an eccentric writer Agni Shridhar, The movie was a huge box office success and it was listed as one of top best movie by the Time magazine. There are some good movies which have been released but go unnoticed and only the commercial movies steal the limelight. The majority of the current generations are forgetting the talent and rather focus on lame dances and songs.
The industry introduced many talented heroines. Among the heroines of the yester year are Leelavathi, Pandari Bai, Bharathi, Arathi, Kalpna, Jayanthi and few more contributed to the success of the Kannada movies. The movies of these actresses not only have social message but also entertaining and did contribute to women power.
The villains of those days along with comedians, like Balakrishna, Musuri Krishnamurthi and Vajramuni were so talented and hard to replace. These days even though there are talented actors they were not offered good roles, like Sadhu Kokila, Rangayana Raghu and Doddanna. The main contributing factor for this in my opinion is the western influence on our culture which is contributing to our directors catering to our audience by bringing songs that cheaply imitates western music and also more Hindi and English movies are remade into Kannada jeopardizing the local artists.
Music used to be so melodious in the movies. Huge bunch of them were chart busters. Now-a-days there is no good lyrics and music composition, other than few written by Jayanth Kaikini and Yograj Bhatt. But the silver lining is more talented singers than before have come out from reality shows like Sare Gama Pa and others.
All-in-all Kannada film industry can produce pictures with not only talent but also good script and direction if there is a paradigm shift in the way we produce the movies and deviate from Hindi and Western influence and encourage our local culture and talent.
Love
Rohit
Sinking into Popular Thoughts 