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Film Review: Vanaja (2006) by Rajnesh Domalpalli

A film that manages to rise far beyond its financial and logistic limitations, resulting in an intriguing and quite entertaining production, both contextually and visually

's debut feature and thesis for Columbia University's graduate film program was made on a shoestring budget using a cast of non-professional first-timers for two and a half months, but was a crowning success nevertheless, screening and winning awards from festivals all around the world, including a Best Debut one from Berlin.

is screening at Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles

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Vanaja, a 15-year-old girl whose mother has died and her father is a poor, alcoholic fisherman, sees her whole life changing when a soothsayer predicts that she will become a great dancer one day. Rama Devi, an elderly dancing legend and local landlady, takes her in as a servant, but also in order to teach her the secrets of Kuchipudi dance, with the girl and her father also hoping that her wage will alleviate his debts and allow him to buy a new boat. Vanaja excels in the arts under the strict but quite efficient teaching of Rama Devi, who also seems to like the girl, on a level at least. Things change, however, when her son, Shekhar, returns from the US where he was studying, with his mother grooming him for local elections. Vanaja, who has already started feeling the first signs of sexual awakening, finds herself smitten by the handsome young man, and is not particularly able to hide her feelings from him. Soon, though, he is proven to be something completely different than what he lets on, and his interactions with Vanaja end up with her raped and pregnant. Her father tries to get some money from Rama Devi, but the clash between the rich and powerful and the poor victims has just begun.

Rajnesh Domalpalli directs a movie whose narrative unfolds in two axes. The central one revolves around the aforementioned events, through a rather intriguing, and quite dramatic story that also includes a number of sociopolitical comments. The feudal system that is in effect in the Andhra Pradesh state and the inequalities it creates in conjunction with the caste system, is the most evident one, with Rama Devi acting as a queen, a role that all her “subjects” seem to perceive as natural order. That her son feels that he can do anything is another comment that moves in the same direction, although democracy, and essentially election are eventually revealed as a “control method”, despite the way Rama Devi chooses to deal with the issue is evidently a product of corruption.

The rather cruel coming-of-age of Vanaja is another main element of the narrative, with her raping, the birth of her baby, and subsequently the fact that she finds herself having to continue living in the house of her rapist inducing the movie with a rather dramatic but also interesting, contextually, approach. At the same time, though, this is the part with the most significant fault of the movie, that of lagging, since both a number of scenes last for too long, and the way the story unfolds seems to include a number of almost completely unnecessary episodes. Although the pace of the movie is generally fit to the overall aesthetics, some more trimming by editors Domalpalli and Robert Q. Lovett would definitely benefit the movie.

The second axis revolves around Kuchipudi dance, with Domalpalli presenting a number of extended sequences of Mamatha Bhukya performing, in a documentary-like style that works quite well for the film, as it presents both the dance and the music, and adds to the overall realism of the narrative. Bhukya, who gives a rather impressive performance in a very difficult part, truly shines in these sequences, particularly in the way, apart from the movements of her body, her eyes and overall facial expression fit the narrative of the song. Milton Kam's overall quite accomplished cinematography finds its apogee in these scenes, particularly the exterior ones during the night, who are truly captivating.

as Rama Devi provides the second most memorable performance, with her strict, frequently disdainful ways and her love for her son being eloquently portrayed. The rest of the cast, on the other hand, are not that convincing, with the fact that they are non-actors who occasionally have to portray difficult aspects of their characters not helping in particular.

Despite its minor faults, “Vanaja” is a film that manages to rise far beyond its financial and logistic limitations, resulting in an intriguing and quite entertaining production, both contextually and visually

About the author

Panos Kotzathanasis

My name is Panos Kotzathanasis and I am Greek. Being a fan of Asian cinema and especially of Chinese kung fu and Japanese samurai movies since I was a little kid, I cultivated that love during my adolescence, to extend to the whole of SE Asia.

Starting from my own blog in Greek, I then moved on to write for some of the major publications in Greece, and in a number of websites dealing with (Asian) cinema, such as Taste of Cinema, Hancinema, EasternKicks, Chinese Policy Institute, and of course, Asian Movie Pulse. in which I still continue to contribute.

In the beginning of 2017, I launched my own website, Asian Film Vault, which I merged in 2018 with Asian Movie Pulse, creating the most complete website about the Asian movie industry, as it deals with almost every country from East and South Asia, and definitely all genres.

You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

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