Imagine Rajamouli as our most trusted Chef.
We have enjoyed his meals (movies) over the past decade. And man, his meals are a complete package. Delicious starters (herosim), mouth-watering main course(Action-scenes), tongue melting Biryanis(dramatic-revenge-stories) and finally some Relieving desserts(sentiment) giving us the most satisfactory cinematic burps of all time. We trusted him blindly even if he offered 'Eegas' in our plates. And to be honest, we have enjoyed his Eega meal the most. He is the best chef who knows the exact recipes that will satisfy our appetite and offers more than we can imagine every single time. Even his simplest meals like Curd Rice (Maryada Ramanna) are deliciously enjoyable. Such has been his consistency of vision and originality over the years.
So one day, our beloved Chef announces that he is going to make the best meal of all time. He says he is gonna work on it for three years and serve it in two parts. We customers sleeplessly wait for that day to come. We embrace his Hard work and follow him on his journey till the end. We see all those behind the curtain videos of him struggling day and night trying inspire his magnificent team to keep up the enthusiasm for three years. We surrender our awe to his commitment, while he bears the burden of the biggest promise he has ever made for us. But We don't expect our chef to beat Hollywood. We only expect him to deliver his promise and beat all his previous meals in terms of taste.
And finally the Day Arrives, the show time. The movie starts:
He starts us by serving delicious starters. And boy they are Magnificent. (Magnificent shots of Waterfalls and Prabhas Rock-climbing) True sights of visual slender to behold. The story starts with that once-upon-a-time kind of template signifying the epic recipes to come. We customers begin to feel that our chef is weaving his magic once again. We are busy imagining the hot and spicy mouth-watering dishes and biryanis that are about to follow. And then suddenly, he throws half baked coconut at us to eat. We are a bit surprised at this unusual interference. But in our chef we continue to trust. But, then he follows it with needless Coffees and Teas and sugar cane juices in between. Unnecessary song additions, forced Half Boiled romance, unconvincing acting by Tamannaah, unusual drag of scenes with no significant outcomes, makes us customers restless for a true Rajamouli package. We only get 30% of that package in the first half courtesy of the action scenes in snow, waterfall scenes and the Rajamouli's signature post interval Bang.
But we still trust in our chef. As nothing exciting happened in the first half, we are sure our chef saved the best for the last. And yes the second half starts good. Breath-Taking visuals of the Mahispati kingdom. Top notch computer graphic shots. At this point we see a glimpse of Rajamouli's dream and the way his imagination-creativity graph as a director has only expanded upwards from Student No.1 to Baahubali . His three years of effort reminds us why he is our master chef. But again, he serves us the last week's left over Pastry, the item song. By this time we customers are in "enough is enough mode".60-70% of movie is over and story is still crawling like a snail. And that's where the Rajamouli Magic begins. The story gathers its lost pace and all culminates to a huge build-up of an epic climax. And hence, the Mother of all Battle Scenes in the history of Indian cinema begins. A complete Hyderabadi Chicken Dum Biryani with yummy Sherwa-Raitha is served by Rajamouli. Purely Indian made, No Hollywood Copy Cats. These Battle scenes have a spectacular sense of speed and brutality in them. Such an epic-scale of sheer awesomeness for a climax battle has never been witnessed before in Indian Cinema. That's where you stand up salute and Rajamouli's Brain. We are satisfied that the money was well spent with a heart of sincerity behind it.
But then, when you are half-way enjoying this mouth-watering Biryani, Rajamouli suddenly snatches our plates and says "come back in 2016". Thats unfair. Because we were starting to have that little bits of fun that we waited for the entire movie. But rajamouli has other plans. So we have to wait. And we will wait, because we trust in that SS Rajamouli stamp. We are sure that, Rajamouli is preparing the audience for the set up and build up of a bigger story in part 2. So we forgive the junk that was served in the name of Establishing characters.
Baahubali proves one thing for sure. If you put a 1000-crore budget in Rajamouli's hands, it wont go for a waste. Because by now, He has developed the imagination and the method of excecution to spend that money for the best. Thats what Hollywood Directors do too. Telugu people can be proud that Rajamouli is the only Indian director on par with Shankar who has the courage to make big promises. Hands down applause to their Boldness and enthusiasm to take their audience to a different world. And very rarely do they Mis-fire and deviate from their vision of pushing the bar of popular Indian cinema to new heights.
So if you are casually asking someone how's Baahubali, There are two ways of asking it:
1) Hows is Baahubali the beginning, just as a stand-alone movie for a Sunday evening ?
2) Hows is Baahubali the beginning in context of the combined story of Part-1 and Part-2 ?
The 2nd question cannot be answered unless we watch part-2. The best guess is, its gonna feel like those three parts of Lord of the Rings. 1st part may be a drag, second may be awesome, third may be half-drag-half-awesome but overall. WE LOVE Lord of the Rings as a wholesome story. Lets hope the Same thing happens with Baahubali after the Part-2 is released.
But if you are asking the first question, here's the answer:
It felt like Hobbit part 2. 60% of needless drag but when the rest of the 40%'s Dragon awesomeness begins, it super-seeds the drag part and takes your senses to next level. But, just when you are about to get consumed by its awesomeness, it suddenly ends on a high but abrupt note, only to leave you gasping for more. It might make you feel cheated, but also, it might make you feel hopeful for a better second part to come.
Since the part 1 has cleverly done its job, Bring the Part 2 already. And this time, it better be better than the first. It better have that proud SS Rajamouli stamp on it.
Because how many of you have observed that, the iconic stamp dint come banging in the end ? Like Sharukh Khan said in the Om Shanti Om, " Picture Abhi Baakhi hai mere dost".
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