Feature debut of Roopa Rao, “Gantumoote” premiered at the New York Indian Film Festival in 2019, where it won the Best Screenplay Award, being the first Kannada film to do so.
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The story is set in Bangalore during the 1990s, and revolves around Meera, a young girl who was isolated since childhood, finding solace in cinema, to the point that she could only see her actual life through a filmic prism. At the same time, she experienced the intense misogynism and patriarchy of the country quite early on, as she was almost molested by an older guy the first time she went to the movies, with the fact that she returned to finish the film shaping her later life, both in terms of mentality and regarding her love for movies.
The majority of the film takes place when she is in high school and meets her first love, Madhu, a boy who is both handsome and quite kind towards her. At the same time though, the bullying girls experience in school from the boys soon found her also, with a number of classmates, and particularly one who was turned down by her, starting a rumor that she is a slut. Again mixing cinema and real life, as heroes beat the bad guys in the former, she cannot understand why Madhu is not doing anything against all the name-calling and comments about her, which sometimes are subtle, sometimes more open. Despite her issues and her confusion, Meera continues on, retaining her place as the best student of the school, and her relationship with Madhu.
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The coming-of-age aspect is quite interestingly presented here, both in connection with the cinema and the social comments Roopa Rao has incorporated in the midst of it. The way Meera eventually learns that life is not like in the movies, filled with happy endings. cements this approach in rather impactful, if somewhat anticipated fashion. The way the combination of all the aforementioned, and the frequent narration of the protagonist’s thoughts, lead to drama is a testament to Rao’s filmmaking.
Despite being obviously older than the character she plays, Teju Belawadi is exceptional in the film, with her beauty and particularly her half smile, and her charisma filling the screen any time she appears on it. Both the moments she is happy and the ones she is fed up or sulking are excellently portrayed, with her being convincing at all of the movie’s instances. The many close ups on her face also help, since she is quite expressive, in an approach that induces the movie with a European art-house approach, courtesy of DP Sahadev Kelvadi. The same applies to the many close ups to the hands of the couple, in an aspect, though, that does become repetitive after a point. In that regard, and although the pace implemented by editor Pradeep Nayak is rather fitting, some trimming would definitely benefit the movie, particularly since the repetition extends to various aspects of the narrative.
Nischith Korodi as Madhu is also quite good, convincingly presenting a character that is as immature as all the boys his age, with his love and lust for Meera being quite realistically portrayed. The chemistry of the two is quite good too, in another of the film’s best traits.
Despite some shortcomings in the presentation of the story, particularly having to do with lagging and repetition, “Gantumoote” emerges as an excellent film, equally original, entertaining and contextually rich, particularly when one considers this is just a debut.
