Naa Bangaru Thalli Review

The National Award-winning 'Naa Bangaru Talli' (Ente in Malayalam) may not be a masterpiece but it has its share of haunting moments.  It may not be artistically fabulous but it is gritty and melancholic.  Its glory lies in the film winning three National Awards.  But its success surely lies in telling a slice-of-life narration.  Anjali Patil in a deglam role may not have delivered a memorable performance but the writing manages to make the audience empathise with her.

Durga (Anjali Patil) is a brilliant girl at studies.  Her doting father (played by Siddique) has always been her biggest friend and he has apparently brought her up as a conscientious mini-crusader.  For her, her father Sreenivasan is a role model who does good to people around him by whatever means.  Durga dreams of making it big by studying in a city college against her father's wishes.  When she goes to Hyderabad to attend an interview, her life threatens to be shattered forever when she finds herself dragged into sex trafficking.

'NBT' is not very artistic for a film of its achievement.  There is nothing superlative when it comes to performances or dialogue.  This is not to say that 'NBT' is just any other art-house movie.  The storyline is gripping and the pace is fast enough not in the first half, but in the second.

Rajesh Touchriver and writer Sunitha Krishnan (herself an activist who has rehabilitated a number of girls/women forced into flesh trade) pen a neat screenplay that doesn't play to the gallery.  There is no vulgarity in the name of presenting a raw and true-to-life film.  However, the script is not helped in any big way by plain dialogues.  In a bi-lingual like this, expecting total nativity would be wrong but one feels there is so much of unTeluguness about the father-daughter rapport in the first half.  Anjali's demeanour and acting style is unTelugu by any stretch of imagination.  There is a trace of unnecessary dramatisation on her part in the first half.  It's in the second half that she essays a difficult role with aplomb.

Here too, the writing was somewhat found wanting.  When Durga finds herself in an unimaginable situation, something almost a nightmarish one, her expressions should have told us two things: dread/fear because she has met violent people, unspeakable agony because someone dear to her might be the one behind her tragedy.

There is no melodrama as well, in the name of catering to women.  There is nothing preachy about it, either.

Where the writing is rather splendid is in driving home the message that certain women have retained their humanity and generosity even though they were at the end of masculine terror.  When the father says 'Naa bangaru talli..', contrite and grief-stricken, he almost sounds like devil chanting Goddess' name.  This is the script's achievement, undoubtedly.  Films like these serve the purpose of raising our consciousness and there is no better way of conveying the point other than narrating a tragedy from the victim's standpoint.  The film does just this.

If Anjali, the debutante, is convincing, Siddique is not really for the Telugu audience.

Sharreth's music is OK, and Shantanu Moitra's BG score deserves credit.  Ramathulasi's cinematography and Donmax's editing are fine.

Verdict: A heart-rending film that has one of the best climaxes in recent times.  Watchable for its slice-of-like character.

Rating: IG decides not to rate this film which has made us proud by winning 3 National Awards.  Suffice it to say that it is soul-stirring.

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