Lights,Camera,Ketchup

You would think that the man really couldnt care less if you come and see his film or not. But its far more probable that that shrug-of-the-shoulders persona has been cultivated for shock value. RGV knows the importance of being in the headlines,and staying in them,particularly when his films are about to release.

Gore is great when it comes to sticky eyeballs. Quentin Tarantino knows that like no one else,and he declared his intentions from the word go. His first film had characters lying in pools of their own blood,in the back of a car,in a warehouse,in a chair. Hes gone on like hes begun,using blood almost as a character which occupies volume and space,saying things that cant be said in words.

But the relentlessness of the bloodbath in Rakta Charitra is not the same as in a Tarantino film,not even the bloodiest of them all,the Kill Bill series. Because Tarantino takes care not to let the red stuff overwhelm his story,even if you can barely see his characters for the ketchup. In Rakta Charitra,though,you are nearly blinded: was that another limb that was just severed? And quick upon that thought: do I really care?

Because this is what can happen if you let the most potent of life forces flow so freely. As the body count piles up,you can get numb. And you can just check out,letting things pass by on the screen without any active participation. Rakta Charitra marks the return of Ram Gopal Varma to strong storytelling,but it teeters dangerously close to the brink: you have to make an effort to see the story for the blood. Gummy eyes do not make for clarity.

RGVs come out of a longish fallow period,where nothing he did,bad horror and worse action,really worked. Rakta Charitra,a biographical sketch of slain Andhra leader Paritala Ravi,brings the filmmaker tantalisingly close to the position hed taken for his own when he first came to Bombay: a force disrupter,who changed the way films were made in Hindi cinema,for good and bad.

The man is a triumph of contradictory forces,able to crank out junk and instant classics,all in the same breath. A re-visit to his debut film Shiva shows his inexperience,but its also the declaration of a crackling new voice. Nagarjuna wears his jeans high over his waist,such a rage in those days,but his kicks were higher. Amala started the trend of the RGV heroine: short dresses,long hair,good-looking appendage. The tight close-ups,such a Ramu trademark,show up. The fascination with soundtracks is here too. You can see why Shiva,first made in Telugu,and then dubbed in Hindi,was such a hit.

He had to wait till Rangeela to get his first Bollywood blockbuster. He then made Daud,more self-indulgent nonsense than a road movie. Then came Satya,which blew the hinges off the mafia movie,and with that he went careening merrily down an on-off,good-bad path.

In setting up The Factory,RGV cocked a snook at the cosy camps that Bollywood thrived on it still does,but theres been a dent,and much of the credit goes to Ramu. In going with fresh talent,he took on the hegemony of the Khans and the Johars and the Chopras. In handing out films to fledgling directors and scriptwriters,he went where no one had dared to go. His biggest strength is in the way he can come at a subject with complete irreverence,making it new; his biggest weakness is how his hubris can come in the way.

shubhra.guptaexpressindia.com