Neeya (Nag Panchami Film Fesssstival)

My (sort of) goal for the Nag Panchami Film Fesssstival is to try and write up a snake film from all of the different Indian regions/film industries. So to kick things off, I'm starting with the 1979 Tamil film:

In this remake of the Hindi Nagin, a pair of serpents frolic about in the woods in human form. When the male serpent, played by Chandra Mohan* is attacked by the most cheesy looking eagle/hawk/monster ever, a young biologist named Kamal (Kamal Hassan) shoots the eagle and saves him.  By way of thanks, the serpent reveals his true nature to the biologist and there's more snakey dancing.


At a birthday party that evening, Kamal and his friends are hanging out in the woods, smoking, drinking and spying on the snake lady dancing in her human form (as you do at birthday parties.) When the male snake approaches her in snake form, Kamal's friend freaks and shoots the snake.

The female snake (played by the human Sripriya) vows to avenge her lover's death. She follows the friends back to the city, takes the form of various ladies, and one-by-one kills the friends. After each death, there's another song where she flashes back to dancing with her snake-lover. (But there are no dances with Kamal Hassan, which I don't understand.)

What I most enjoyed about the vengeance scenes was that each of the actresses got an opportunity to play the predatory snake spirit.

She just spit venom into the wineglass,
 and is about to hand it back to her prey.

She lured her quarry into the bedroom.

Once the friends catch on, they go to a questionable swami, who gives them all charms and then does something (tests the charms?) with a snake:

As the bodies pile up, the friends become more fearful. One of the men arrives home to find his wife/love interest reading this book, and accuses her of being possessed by the snake spirit:

Kamal is equally confused by the behavior of his lady love (is she another snake?)

At the end, Kamal flees with the surviving child of the dead friend and is pursued by the snake onto a wire/rope strung between two buildings:

Stunt Snake?

A few images of the snake in her serpent form. See how she blends into the carpet?

Heeeeyyy!

 In the end, our snake woman is reunited with her snake man:

As far as I can tell, it's the same Chandra Mohan who I've seen in a dozen Telugu films as a father/uncle. If it's too bad he doesn't get to dance anymore.

Shub Nag Panchami!

Happy Nag Panchami! The Film Fesssstival gearing up, and we already have one contribution with more coming in the next two weeks.  Check out Jenni's "Filmi Snake Spotter Field Guide" over at Cinema Chaat.

Frequently Hissed Questions:

What is this all about?
Nag Panchami Film Fesssstival

Where will the posts be collected?
http://www.delicious.com/dustdevil.liz. I'll do a wrap-up post here in late August.

Is there a twitter hashtag?

#nagfilmfest seems like a short enough one. (Unless you are trying to steer clear of  Nagarjuna superfans...)

To kick things off, enjoy "Naag Panchami Aayi," from the Kannada film Maha Shakti Maya starring Pandhari Bai. 

Shameful Pleasure Week: Sumanth

This summer is turning into a good blogging workshop, what with all of the "weeks" and "months" going on. This week, it's Rotikapadarum's Shameful Classics/Pleasures Week (2nd Annual Edition), which could not have come at a more fortuitous time, since I just got an order of DVD purchases and rentals featuring my shameful pleasure: the films of Telugu actor Sumanth.

It's not that there's anything particularly shameful about Sumanth's movies. Godavari and Golconda High School were quite good, and he's been in a number of perfectly enjoyable Telugu action movies. However, what is slightly shameful is how much happiness I seem to get from watching his movies.

Maybe it's the ridiculous outfits that make me happy:

Or that he often shares scenes with gym equipment:

Or it might be the...enthusiastic dancing:

("Mila Mila" from Chinnodu)

("Chalre Chalre" from Pourudu)

I was inordinately pleased earlier this week to learn that there is a Telugu remake of the Malayalam hit Classmates, starring Sumanth!

The one oddity about Sumanth's filmography is that Prakash Raj doesn't seem to have been in any of his films, which is pretty unusual, considering the ubiquity of Prakash Raj in Telugu films. (And perhaps this is why I feel slightly shameful about watching films that don't advance my blogging goal...hmmm.)

Nag Panchami Film Fesssstival

August 4 is Nag Panchami, the "festival of snakes", and to celebrate this auspicious event, there will be a Film Fessssstival in filmi-blogland.  During the first two weeks in August, I and (I hope) other fans of the nagin/a genre will be blogging about our favorite snake-themed Indian films, and snake-themed scenes in films.

Once things get underway in August, I'll create a list of posts.  Folks can email me or tweet their links (#nagfilmfest seems like a good enough hashtag.) In the meantime, please feel free to post in the comments if you want to call "dibs" on a particular film or topic, or if you have a suggestion for a good nagin/a movie. If you are looking for inspiration, the BollyWHAT thread on Snake Films is a great place to start.

If you are curious about the Nag Panchami itself, I found all of these links very interesting:

• Wikipedia- Nag Panchami
• "iloveindia" festivals
• theholidayspot.com
• Festivals of India
• Wikipedia- Nagula Chaviti (this is a Telugu regional celebration of Nag Puja, and it falls on October 30 this year, which will give me a chance to repost the links, and if you miss the August date, feel free to create something for October.)