Agnyathavasi, How Far Would You Go For Love?

Rating: *** ½

 Apart  from an unconvincing finale, Agnyathavasi  in Kannada directed  by Janardhan Chikkanna in his third  outing as  a feature director, is everything that cinema  should be: original, thought-provoking and  most importantly, challenging  the status quo, both  within and outside  the cinematic  universe.

  The setting is an idyllic  disturbingly  tranquil  village in Karnataka where nothing happens. The police  station is  nearly-defunct. No crime. What’s there to steal?! Who’s there to kill?

 Director  Chikkanna takes  some time to get to the point. The  slow-burn approach in  what purports to be  a Shakespearean  crime  drama  involving among  other things, a long-distance  relationship, the “evil” advent of the computer era(the film is  set  in the 1990s)  and  matricide, is  a  bit of a damper.

   I mean,  we want to see  the characters  grow, not groan, when there is  so much in store for them.

 Ironically I found the principal  character of a fossilized cop Govindu ((Rangayana Raghu) to be the  most uneasily written. It is clear the cop is hiding something terrible  from the village.  The cops in his jurisdiction whisper  and snigger against his back. When we first meet  the  cop  he is  mourning on his  mother’s twentyfifth  death  anniversary.

The tonal shifts especially in the  first fortyfive minutes , are  distracting and incongruous.Some  characters’ presence, for example the old woman Achimma  on crutches who hangs  around the  police station, is not justified.She needed help.

It is  only when  the love story  kicks in that the directors gathers his wits and  harnesses his creative energy into  a tell-able  tale of  desperate love. Paavana Gowda as Pankaja an abandoned lover-girl willing to go to  any lengths  to get her love back, is  a prized find, though admittedly  a tad too glamorous  for the rustic part. But she is  an interesting  blend of  seduction and innocence.

Siddu Moolimani as  Rohit, who becomes the medium between  Pankaja and  her fugitive  love, is  just right as the  first computer geek in a  village  which  is  unwilling to  come to terms with the new technology knocking at the door.

 The plot would have done well  for  itself had it restricted  its spatial harmony to the  love story. The parenthetical beginning and ending takes  the sting away considerably from the  narrative  heft. However, what remains is  persuasive  enough to applaud  the endeavour .

I am not surprised Hemant Rao, the director of the stunning Sapta Sagaradaache , is  a producer on this one.Agnyathavasi  takes Kannada cinema  a notch ahead. But be warned: you may not want chicken for your meal after  watching this for a while.