It is the turn of OTT Giant Netflix to inform that Telugu film Shayam Singha Roy is the first Indian film to be ranked third in the Non English category on a global scale. From Jan 14th to 17th, on Netflix it garnered 35 lakh views. It means no Bollywood film with a global audience and claims to be Pan Indian has ever got this distinction.. The film was dubbed into major Indian languages and put on OTT.
Nani - Sai Pallavi - Kirthi Shetty are the actors. Director is Rahul Sankrityan a software engineer who in 2018 gave a hit `Taxiwala' with Vijay Devarakonda. After that he had been taking his own time to work on the story of Satyadev Janga and came out with the film which has a Bengali backdrop in the flashback, As it was a Telugu film and had no great promotions , I skipped the film and more so as many said it was dragging. Add to this the supernatural element and other world experiences that I found in the synopsis made me give it a miss. Now after reading Netflix South tweet, I sat to watch why it was No 3 globally in Non English category ?
As a Tamil film buff, I found this storyline very similar to Kamal Haasan- Shobana- Sripriya film Enakkul Oruvan. directed by S P Muthuraman. Now this film is nothing but the remake of the musical hit Hindi film Karz. In those days when English films screened only at major cities, not many knew that Karz was am `inspiration' of Reincarnation of Peter Proud. Now all this happened in 1984, today's Netflix viewers have taken to it in a great way.
In Tamil, Kamal is a dancer and has all girls drooling over him. Shobana is a virulent critic of his dance. But he likes her for the criticism. To cut a long story short, Kamal is son of Shobana's father's friend and so it is wedding bells. Now the couple goes to Darjeeling to take a break after Kamal who saw his wife on stage as a Bharathanatyam dancer gets illusions. In this hill station , he gets more disturbed and finally meets the girl that comes in his illusion and it is Sripriya who in previous janma (birth) was his wife. He was a rich Nepali biz man and his mother was a Tamil ( played by Pandari Bai). Sripriya's uncle ( Sathyaraj) murdered him and now how does the justice be carried in this janma ?
Come to Shyam ----- Roy, Nani is an aspiring film director called Vasudev. He has to make a short film and show it to impress producers. He finds it in a girl at a cafe and through her father gets her to act in the short. ( Girl is Kirthi Shetty who had a hit in Uppenna) He gets a three film deal from producer after his first film is a hit. Now comes the twist- the subject was plagiarized from a story Bengali writer - revolutionary Shyam Singha Roy.. ( was the plagarism bit to tell those who saw Karz ?). Vasu has not heard of Roy and goes in search of him .In comes a world of Devadasi and the beautiful Sai Pallavi in all those Bengali cottons ( though my girl friends swear by it , it was after Shyam --- that I knew they were right ). Hats off to costumer.
Now this flashback is something that is a visual treat. First credit goes to Sanu, the cinematographer . For OTT guys, he cranked the camera for Fazil's Malik. Next is music director Mickey J Meyer . I heard that Rahman said no to this film. Mickey music is just superb. Pranavalaya shot on Sai Pallavi and Sirivenella lyrics is just magic. Nani in dual role pulls it off but when you finish the movie , it is Sai Pallavi that lingers in your memory. Oh yeah, we have Madonna Sebastian too in the film.
Rahul should be complimented for not taking any of those fancy styles of narration and gives a non linear style that does not give your brain any work. A perfect way to keep it simple.
In short, I still do not know what to make out of Netflix viewers of Non English language films ?. Anyway, Dont expect me to review Ram Asur .
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