Film: Kiragoorina Gayyalligalu
Cast: Shwetha Srivatsav, Sukratha Wagle, Sonu, Manasa Joshi, Karunya Ram
Director: Sumana Kittur
Rating:
When Poornachandra Tejaswi wrote the novel Kiragoorina Gayyalligalu, he was reflecting on a real thought which had boldness as its core subject, but what made the impact more profound was that the courage came from the traditionally believed class of lesser might humans, the women.
With the movie, the profoundness gets escalated to epic proportions and Sumana Kittur has aptly given a pragmatic display of the fact that creativity has no gender. In fact, she has raised the bar of storytelling and filmmaking to a level that will have many filmmakers look not for money, but to achieve higher forms of filmmaking.
Boldness is replete in her attempt to tell a story of what happens when women takes the law into their hands. Unlike popular route taken by the scriptwriter, she has stuck to the pulse of Tejaswai’s novel, and has expanded on the subject while restricting the story to the rural landscape, which is the strength of this movie.
The story is set in a small village, Kiraagoru, where a few farmers live in harmony without giving much credence to caste differences. To split them apart comes Shankara (Achyuth Kumar), who acts as a mediator between the government, the village and a Swamiji (Sharath Lohithashwa).
An untoward incident creates a difference and the twist comes when a married woman runs away from the village, only to come back the next day. How the rest of the women stand by her, and what the reason was for her to leave the village brings us to the climax.
Though for the ardent follower of Kittur’s films, this may not be as intense as her previous films, the attempt is laudable. Her strength lies in her preparation which included choosing the location, the casting, and opting for the village dialect. Agni Sridhar’s signature is evident in the screenplay and dialogues. The profanities used in the film's dialogues have been muted by the Censor Board, which distracts the viewers.
The actors too seem to have well understood the story and have accordingly acted to the director's expectations. With no lead pair, the star cast including Shwetha Srivatsav, Sukratha Wagle, Sonu, Manasa Joshi, Karunya Ram bring the rural lifestyle alive. Equally competing with them are the male actors: Kishore, Achyuth Kumar, Anantha Velu, Yogi and Rahul Madhav.
Without any song, the background score by Sadhu Kokila gels with the theme. Cinematographer Manohar Joshi has followed the director's instructions well and his picturisation of the village environment is laudableFor the packed city population, Kiragoorina Gayyaligalu will be ‘going back to the roots’ experience while the village folks will definitely relate to the film.