Thursday, August 31, 2023

Aachar & Co

At this time I had plans to blog about a big budget film and its sequel, but in the meantime discovered something unique offering a simple change for a change.  No sex, no violence, not even romance.  How can such a film hold your attention?  It is in what many would consider an odd language, Kannada.

What you get is a family story.  A family with ten children (3 sons and 7 daughters) and a generous indulgent father.  No romance might seem boring, but marriages were arranged in a patriarchal manner with the daughters fantasizing about rich husbands.  The father dropped his youngsters off to school, actually drove his car while they walked or cycled beside him.  And at least one of them snuck off and avoided school.  The father was an engineer and made good money and tried to prepare his children for the future.  One marriage was arranged and paid for.  

Unfortunately he died.  And so did his income.  Nobody could replace his income.  For awhile it seemed nobody could handle the responsibility.  The eldest son was offered a job promotion in far off Delhi and was encouraged to take it.  Arranging marriages didn't go quite as planned.  One prospective groom rejected Suma because her lack of education.  Surprisingly her younger sister was chosen and Suma accepted it. 

The rest of the film demonstrated how they faced adversity and each matured.  Suma is the only one I mentioned by name and in the end she shines.

Below are some of the contributors.  This is the first Kannada film to hire a group of female technicians with the intention of leveraging female equal pay and opportunities.

Sindhu Sreenivasa Murthy was the director, writer and played the role of Suma.  She is little noticed at the beginning, but gradually gets more attention.  She became involved with theatre at the age of 16.  She has 9 film credits as an actress.  She had prepared a 6 minute presentation film to attract the attention of a film production company that led to the full feature.  I look forward to her next film "13 Days" which won a nationwide script contest of 600 entries.

Kanan Gill was the co-writer, best known as a comedian.  There are more than a few moments when you will laugh and it is likely he had something to do with it.  He was a software engineer and entered and won the "Punchline Bangalore" contest following up with another comedic contest in Mumbai.  Quit his job to concentrate on comedy.  He had been the lead singer of a band and became noted for writing funny songs.  He has 9 film credits.  You can check him out in English on Youtube where he has a number of popular clips.

Bindumalini Narayanaswami provided the music.  She has 6 film credits.

Cinematography was provided by Abhimanyu Sadanandan with 5 film credits.

Ashik Kusugolli was the editor with 3 film credits. 

Sudha Belawadi played the mother.  She has 86 film credits.

It seems there is a lot of competition for your attention and sex, violence and romance are tools.  Maybe "Aachar & Co" cannot hold your attention, but if so, examine yourself and how much you crave the unhealthy violence.  Is there more to life?  Family movies are usually boring, but I highly recommend this for appreciating a maturing process as it tangles with responsibility.  

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