Phanindra Narsetti’s Manu (2018) Movie Review

Star Cast: Raja Goutham, Chandini Chowdary, Aberaam Varma, Darbha Appaji, John Kottoly, Srikanth, and Mohan Bhagath.
Music Composed by Naresh Kumaran
Cinematography by Vishwanath Reddy
Directed by Phanindra Narisetti

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INT.  Epilogue   (Day/Night)

( -+ Scene within a scene… )

EXT. When Krishna was about to narrate Geetha (Day)

Arjuna was concentrating on one thing that his chef made him eat and Draupadi called it “Over-stuffed Veg Biriyani“. He wants to fight with all Kauravas but this question is on his mind all the time since the night. He started walking off from the battleground looking at all the bigwigs, unable to decide on whom to ask.

We go for close-ups on all and in long wide, Arjuna is walking off the field. Close on Krishna. He starts following him and we capture it with extreme wide over the shoulder of Bheeshma who is watching all this from a distance.

In a mid-wide shot, we finally see that Krishna caught up with Arjuna, and they start speaking…

“Hey! Krishnaa…”

“Yes, my dear Arjunaa…”

“What do we call over-stuffed Veg Biriyani?”

“In simple words – Paneer fest.”

In Phanindra Narsetti words – When you go to a cow, check first if it is a cow or an ox. Some Oxes come with single milk pouches, these are rare breeds you need to be careful.. see that the pouch definitely gives milk and whatever gives milk is a cow.

(Pause for BGM to take over)

Now, milk the cow and explanation on how to make paneer (please google it… can’t write so much… still there is a movie to be discussed)… 

(Change over in BGM to Interstellar mix with heavy bass)

Now as they call Paneer, Veg Chicken, pour it in the frying pan and take this much, follow chemistry textbooks before putting a fry pan and know what is the volume of gas, at how much pressure will it burn to know exactly how much you can heat the pan before boiling Panneer.

And… “

Hits Arjuna who dozed off .. in a two shot

“Don’t you want to respect knowledge?”

“I think it is better for me to kill off all 1,35,000 warriors there than listening to you… Thanks.”

“Hey… Stop!! I did not even start actual Geetha…”

“Can’t sir. You will start talking about topics that are not about soul and explain how a dog eats food rather than stating the irony behind it… Better I use the sharpened wooden stick with a brass tool attached at the top of it with another shapely cut wooden stick that can handle force I generate by tying both the edges of the wood to a strong thread and pull it in an angle so that the parabolic motion is triggered with enough velocity and momentum. Inertia should be in the exact middle of the stick and we need to escape gravity for 10 seconds to get it higher so that when gravity takes over the sharp-edged weapon that is also called arrow pierces through the opponent’s heart that is placed on the left side of his body. The length from his lungs and distance from his brain are very important and also as he is muscular… “

Perplexed Krishna questioned me, the writer,

“Phanindra … Where is my Arjuna?“

                                                                 – CUT TO –

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INT. Actual Review  ( Day/Night )

Passion needs compassion. From the outside world in the form of opportunities and from within us in the form of knowing exactly how to control the urges of sharing what you know and sharing what exactly is required. Because I can do this, because I can say this way, because I am this good, if I keep trying to fill the space with words and frames with colors, it won’t become an example of my passion. The thin line between maturity as a craftsman and amateurish, raw talent lies in exactly knowing when to hide and when to seek.

You can’t just judge a person’s caliber of understanding even before you present them with your work. In this case an art form. MF Hussain as an artist will have all the time in the world to explain his modern art painting but he doesn’t do it to every random person. He lets you see his art, dissect each stroke, understand your passion with compassion and then lets you find out what was on his brain while stroking it on paper. Even Picasso cannot draw a stroke and start explaining the value of a stroke in the Universe before finding an audience. Art needs audience because it is a form of expression, a way to represent an idea, not a place where an assumed intellect describes the process even before we experience it.

INT. Example No. 3 to make a point clearly (Day / Night)

Imagine going to a romantic dinner to a restaurant with your partner and ordering the best dessert. The presentation of the entire thing with ambiance creates a memory and makes you appreciate the chef and restaurant. Whenever we think about romance, whenever we think about going out, that memory we experienced with our loved one, leads us to the same place to re-visit and re-experience.

If the Chef rather than letting us experience and save the memory, starts explaining how to cook it, what drove him to think about presenting in such form and what ingredients he used, you may appreciate his effort but you definitely will never want to return back to the place. So, a good and shrewd chef knows the importance of experience but an intelligent yet over ambitious and overtly talented yearns for appreciation even before creating an experience.

Phanindra Narsetti, unfortunately, has become the second type of Chef. He forgot about first letting an audience member be in awe of his work and then, explain it. He tried to explain it while showing us itself, hence the detailing needed time and killed the pace of a thriller love story about Moksha with a key to escape. He used high-end concepts like Karma Siddhantham, how we all are in despair when we lose a loved one and seek a purpose-key to escape from all misery while hiding our truth.

But like he himself said we concentrate only on a small black dot in a big white paper, he couldn’t understand that white paper is the experience and dot is his judgment of people sitting before him, listening and watching to him. Great Irony! Yes, like my above small exchange using mythological characters, even Krishna is Phanindra and Arjuna is also Phanindra. If Veda Vyas, thought he needs to be seen in all characters, then we definitely would not have had the pleasure to witness Krishna through his words in our imagination and interpretation. Yes, he is writing about him, but we could find a character there rather than the knowledge of Vyasa in him and everyone.  There is a difference between novel and cinema. The novel can let the creative writer take over but audio-visual needs eyes and ears both to make a memory. However great are the words were spoken, if they are unnecessary they are UNNECESSARY.

Rather than concentrating why these leads prefer to bring other characters to one place and they thought it is important to create a memory of them so that they won’t attain Moksha and gets locked in the shadow of their deeds, he just goes on explaining how clever their deeds are and how did they pull off certain things. Which doesn’t require too much of run-time. For once we would like to shout concentrate on necessary not on unnecessary.

—- Spoiler Alert —- (read after watching)

Necessary – the purpose of their deeds, Why they were still in hell? why only they got stuck? why their desires were important and pure? What are the objectives given to them and by whom? How come a clever girl couldn’t understand that someone is helping her? What made them so lonely? Why they hide and seek?

Unnecessary — How to catch a rat? {Even if it is a metaphor to catch the Rats like villains/perpetrators} How mercury can poison? {Even though killing them in a certain has certain meaning and purpose, if it is not progressing the story, or not setting the mood of the auditorium – unnecessary detailing} How to make a perfume? { Even if it explains her character, by that time, audience are already not in the mood for extra details} How to preserve a body? { An advanced organic chemistry book can give even more detailed description}

All these metaphors are great in a novel and in an audio-visual, just like how Inception makers dumbed it down to last wish of the person’s father and that too in a dream for him to subconsciously think it is all true and came from his head, he needed to dumb it down.

—- Spoilers End —–

In conclusion, like a snake eats its own egg as the labor of laying an egg blinds it, in his labor of creating an artistic experience, Phanindra blindly killed it himself. While every character needed Moksha and key was with lead Manu, every person in the theatre needed  to experience the film but the purpose-key was in the hands of a narrator who undermines the ability of the person whom he is talking to and requested in the first place to spend a price for EXPERIENCE.

Theatrical Trailer: