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June 16th, 2007, 3pm

I arrived at the venue where the biggest Indian film release of the weekend… no wait, not weekend.. biggest Indian film release of the year, had attracted a crowd of 500+ fanatics of all ages, caste, and believe it or not, colour (yes, there were Americans!). The organizers of this film screening tried hard to keep people inside the ropes, as if trying to keep the bulls well-cornered at El Encierro before the stampede let loose. It was an amusing sight to watch, no doubt, but what amused me even more as I was being involuntarily moved along in this mosh pit was the thought of rewinding myself back to the experience of watching a film only a couple of hours before…

January 16th, 2007, 12:30pm

A crowd of one. I’m sitting in my room, happy to have just received my password to watch Confessions of a Filmmaker. I log on, the Java applet loads, and the movie starts. Nice and simple. I’ve connected my laptop to the TV with an S-video cable and hooked up speakers to it in hopes of replicating a make-shift theater. After a double click on the screen to maximize the viewing area, I was disappointed to not get a full screen, and had to get by with the window maximized… don’t forget to turn off that screen saver, I thought to myself…

NOTE: I don’t speak, read, or write Telugu, and I have very-little-to-none understanding of the language, and this is precisely the main reason I titled this post Confessions of a Film “Watcher” rather than a “Reviewer”. I personally don’t feel I’m in any capacity to review a film whose language I do not understand completely, or for that matter… even those that I do understand. I’m just not cut out for writing reviews. These are just my reactions from my first watch of Confessions of a Filmmaker (COFM).

***Warning! Spoilers ahead!***

Words scroll across the screen, relaying news about the death of an actor/filmmaker named Kamal Kamaraju. A few more text scrolls later, we see the man himself on his last day on earth, introducing himself to the camera and in turn, the audience, letting them know they’re about to watch a film, and that he’s the director, producer, writer, actor, and editor of this film. Almost, but not quite correct, since strangely enough, one of the introductory text scrolls had stated that this footage, which had been found near the dead body, had been edited per the instructions of Kamal Kamaraju after his death. (So the editor would’ve had to be someone else, right Anish?). A bald Kamal then briefs us as to how he was betrayed by the Telugu Film Industry (henceforth referred to as the TFI) and like any other sensible person, he has to move on after a betrayal from someone he considered so sacred to him — someone he considered his wife, his best friend, his lover…

The video diary jumps to Day 1, the first of his last 10 days left alive, with a full head (and face) of hair, ready to go off on a film shooting and confession spree, and follows Kamal thru each of his days leading upto the fateful day when he bids adieu to his lover, the TFI, and the world. Each of these days bring about different confessions, actions, reactions, and interactions, as he roams the streets of Hyderabad with his trusty cameraman (Anish Kuruvilla, the actual director of this film, in fine form) asking him to shoot everything in “Discovery channel” style.

I honestly couldn’t break down each of the days if I tried, because the movie though broken up in days, leaves an impression on the mind as more of a series of vignettes. The entire movie is an angry, frustrated rant about the existing mediocrity of the TFI and how it promotes and breeds mediocrity, about how it fails to rank amongst the best in what world cinema has to offer, about how it has no goals to further improve itself, and continues to churn out shit after shit after shit. And though the words are coming from Kamal’s mouth, after having read Anish’s blogs here on PFC, it’s easy to see right through Kamal and realize that it’s really Anish’s voice you hear. And why is this personal for Kamal, and essentially Anish Kuruvilla? Because Anish has spent a good majority of his life — 10 years, to be precise — in the TFI, and has not been able to progress because of the TFI’s dedication to mediocrity and nepotism, among other corruptions. What then, gives him the right to make this video diary as his form of revenge on the TFI? Kamal said it best when he said “Because I’m a filmmaker”.

So take revenge he does. He takes names, talks trash about some of the major who’s whos of the TFI, throws stones at the producer’s house who gave him the runaround, holds up placards that denounce the TFI all over the streets of Hyderabad, and more. Though I was only able to catch Chiranjeevi and NTR in the list of names mentioned, upon discussion with OM, apparently there were more names taken. This brings me to my next point…

One of the things this film required, unfortunately, was an up-to-date knowledge of the TFI, and for an outsider, some of the names wouldn’t strike a chord. Apparently “Babu” was mentioned, which referred to Mohan Babu. The “Bull-shitotsavam” referred to the Vrajotsavam, which was TFI’s 75th anniversary celebration. A reference to Balakrishna, who recently shot a producer, was inferred to when Kamal says “if I get shot, you know who to blame”. I’m sure there were many others that I missed during the first watch. (Thanks OM, for filling me in, and correct me Anish, if I’m wrong.)

The scenes in the film with Kamal/Anish (you realize a couple of scenes into the movie that really, they’re the same person) recalling their favorite films on a “trip” with the songs playing in the background deserve a special mention, as does Day 6 (I think) with the placards. I remember really liking a few of the placards Kamal held up, but alas, my memory escapes me for the moment…

Subtitles were probably the biggest gripe for me in this film. As mentioned eariler, the entire film is an angry rant, so it’s pretty easy to follow what’s going on for the most part and get the jist of things, but in many places, mostly in the second half of the film, the subtitles were missing, and Anish’s thoughts, subtitled in italics (as opposed to Kamal’s spoken Telugu, in regular font) would say something along the lines of “sorry guys, I can’t translate this” or “you’re on your own for this scene”, which left me at a WTF?? moment. How can you ask me to watch a film in a language that’s not mine, and not subtitle it properly?? Again, thanks to OM’s explanation, in certain parts, subtitles would’ve lost the essence of what Anish was trying to convey, which can be understandable, but in my honest opinion, I felt this happened one too many times. Another problem with the subtitles during large portions of the film was that the fonts showed up against the film’s background, as opposed to a black drop shadow at the bottom of the screen. As if watching a film in a different language wasn’t hard enough, I now had to come even closer to the TV screen in order to try and make out the subtitles. A major downer.

The credits read Kamal Kamaraju as Kamal Kamaraju, but really, it should’ve read Kamal Kamaraju as Anish Kuruvilla. Kamal rocks in his performance as the frustrated filmmaker, and does a fine job of portraying someone stuck in the middle of a corrupt system that is the TFI. Anish Kuruvilla as the cameraman complements Kamal to just the right degree, evoking exactly the right reactions out of him, and being the unseen voice of the film that even provides some well-needed humour in an otherwise dark, moody story.

Another plus point of the movie is its music, which balances the mood of the film all the way from its starting credits to the end. A couple of the tracks can be listened to here, at its Internet/PFC Music Release, with a review by PFC’s resident music expert, Tushar. What did strike me about its music was the use of Coldplay and Papa Roach’s music tracks in a few of its scenes, which flashed the copyright bulb in my head. Anish, I’ll leave it upto you to answer how you dealt with this issue.

I’m glad this film was made guerilla-style, and in DV, as opposed to film. It really captured the essence of a documentary-styled-fictional narrative-based-on-a-true-story-but-not-quite. Confessions of a Filmmaker is bold and pathbreaking in the sense that it takes names and trash talks about them and the TFI. This obviously has never been done before. If you’re well versed with this industry, chances are it may leave your mouth agape wondering how Anish could say such things in his movie, but for an outsider like me, I almost didn’t notice what he said, and so maybe in my first watch, it didn’t seem as “controversial” or “bold” as it’s been said to be.

Since this is an internet release, it’s imperative that I talk about the picture and sound quality, which were both adequate on the small-sized screen. Upon maximization, some of the subtitles do tend to get a bit pixelated (another hindrance to the already cumbersome text), not a good combination when mixed in with the background of the film rather than a black box.

Getting down to it, it’s clear that the censor board will never approve a film like this. Which only goes to prove why a film like COFM is needed. It’s stuff you know. It’s stuff you’ve thought. It’s stuff you’ve discussed with friends. But to date, it has never been brought out in the open for everyone to see, and it does take courage to go against the grain. And if people within the industry don’t speak up and make their voices heard, who will?