Sri Ramadasu - movie review

This is a picture directed by sri Raghavendra rao
It was in the old mould of annamayya only with slight changes.
Story as every body knows about Bhakta ramadas and no need to discuss.
only thing is we have to discuss how he deviated from the original story.
Raghavendra always try to sell for both mass and class which is
impossible,normally.
Because the needs of both classes are different. But if you comprimise
in quality of directon
for the sake of commercial values, you land somewhere. You can never
bluff the masses, because
they encourage you with some silly hits and throw you in to ditch for
your taken for granted attitude.
If you dont comprimise for masses and collections alone, but use your
skills to make a good picture, chances of hit are very high , or
otherwise, you would get a good name atleast.
Mr Raghavendra rao always trys to compromise and try to commercialise
and the result would be some thing which none expected nor wanted.
This is also another example of that
When you depict kabir by giving that role to ANR, you can create great
wonders, but this picture misses it. A lay man thinks that kabir is
just a muslim phakir or beggar . Kabir is atleast as great as Ramadas
and he influence entire India for Bhakti cult.He is a great mystic
poet. Not even a single dohe was used here, which is a directional
mistake or failure.
Ramadasu is also a great devotional poet and wrote wonderful lyrics
which entire Andra remembers for centruries to come.
But his other songs, dialogues are of avarage person. There is one
incident in the movie. He throws a riddle to Tanikella Bharani. This
scene was left unused, and the riddle thrown was a silly,native one.
Had he thrown wonderful ,poetic imaginative samasya, it establishes
his command over the language or interest in the language.
Nagarjuna appearence is ok and good. we love to see him. He seems
healthy and energetic.His wife role by sneha is just ok. character not
well established.
Good things to see:
Graphics looked good and enjoyable
The imagination scene when ramadasu finds every where the role players
of ramayana in the panchavati ,near bhadrachalam is good and a new
trend.
commedy by Dharmavaram and AVS are good. Dharmavaram created another
new variety in his way of creation of variations of comedy.
AVS is now a days doing very well many roles. This movie also, he
moulded well his small role.
The song "O rama nee nama mento ruchira" really makes you dance and
this it was shown by making ali and venu madhav to sing and dance this
again in front of the muslim jailwarden.
This is really wonderful. Actually the same song and tune was sung by
great madhavapeddi in old movie and acted by Ramana reddy. Then also
it was very good.
Undigestable things:
It was not clear whether ramadasu misutilized the sarkar funds for the
temple or not. The scenes and dialogues confused the issue. The caging
of parrot episode could have been overlooked as that saying among the
people may be not true, because anybody who tames a parrot definitely
keeps it in a cage and it need not lead him to imprisonment. A man who
ties his buffalo to a post need not be punished by tieing him to a
post.
Nageswara rao's role should be utlized in better way which can bring
more audience to hall.
The song or dance between the hero in initial part thrown us in to
dilemma if we are watching modern social movie or ramadasu.
The last scene of ramadasu asking the darshan of rama frantically is
not convincing if we consider the stature of ramadasu. He is one of
the great devotee who knows very well where to find rama, he will
never try to kill himself just for not finding rama manifested.
Suman is not very impressive in rama role.
killing the devotees son throwing him into ganji gunta became common
in every story. If you see one dozen devotee movies, you find this
incident in half of them.
Many sweet lyrics of ramadasu were left untouched. They should have
touched at least by their pallavi to introduce to Andhra young
generation. Mainly Ramuni varamu,maa kela vicharamu, ninnu
ponichchedana.. etc. Even in tyagayya movie, bapu made tyagayya to
cite this ramuni varamu stanza .
Over all verdict: all have to spare 60 rupees , watch this movie and
encourage producers to make such movies in the interest of preserving
and promoting our culture.