My Year of Prakash Raj: Film Festival

Showing posts with label Film Festival. Show all posts

Monday, September 5, 2011

Nag Panchami Film Fessstival Final Round Up

As promised here's the round-up of posts and reviews for the 2011 Nag Panchami Film Fessssstival.

There were many more post than had I imagined when we started talking about this in the spring--thanks to everyone for participating. I was hoping to crank out a few more posts myself (between wrapping things up at my job, going on a trip, and having family in town, August was crazy!), but I have lots of idea for next year, and I have my fingers crossed that each of the Indian film industries will crank out five more snake films in the coming year. Please let me know if I've missed anything!

(All the links can also be found on delicious: http://www.delicious.com/dustdevil.liz.)

Cinema Chaat:

Beth Loves Bollywood

BollyWHAT posts

more!!

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Devi (Nag Panchami Film Fessstival)

My final entry in the film festival is the Telugu film Devi (1999, directed by ), which I watched in the Hindi dub as Goddess. I first watched this about a year ago, and again for the fesssstival, and I actually liked it a bit better the second time.

From the back cover of the dvd:

Spectacular special effects and sumptuous musical numbers will take your breath away in this Bollywood fantasy-thriller! A rich and handsome man falls in love with a charming, beautiful woman... but he doesn't realize that she is the snake goddess Devi in disguise. Devi must battle to protect her lover from the vicious, evil snake deity Dantra in this classic Hindu story brought to vibrant life. In Hindi with English subtitles

Hmm, I'm not entirely sure about the "classic Hindu story" part, but this story did align nicely with some other mythological films, in that the divine characters were there to help and protect the faithful human characters.

Bangla Snake Fight! (Nag Panchami Film Fesssstival)

My quest to watch a Bangla snake film did not fully succeed (lack of subtitles, really poor video quality, and other things to do proved too much of a hurdle.) But I did end up slithering down some interesting paths of internet video, which I will share here:

At first I set my sights on Beshea Vora Nagin, but I was distracted at part 5, with this epic fight between the two snake-women:

It caught my attention because a) it's awesome, and b) my googling had found a youtube hit for "bangla nagin fight", so I was sure that it must be this scene from the movie. But NO! It's a different, but very, very similar snake fight, from another film:

Two immediate questions, which perhaps Jenni can answer in the Second Revised Edition of the Filmi Snake Spotters Guide:
-In the first video the snake ladies writhe around head-to-head (like the snakes), but in the second they are feet-to-feet. Which is the correct snake-fighting method?
-In the second video, it seems that one of the ladies is sometimes a snake, sometimes a mongoose. Are mongoose-nagin-ladies a unique subspecies of Bangla films?

More searching turned up this song in which a child sings soulfully to a snake:

And this song, which is a more traditional "snake couple in love" song:

I also found Dui Nagini, which is posted in full on google video, in which an awesome lady, who I assume is the Nagini, sports a snakey-patterned blazer, hotpants, and headband combo and rescues maidens from guys with bullwhips:

Looking for images from Dui Nagini led me to a small image of the dvd cover of Naach Nagini Naach Re--love the nagin/naach combination!

This led to more discoveries of Hindi films with nagin and naach in the title:

Naach Nagin Gali Gali Naach Nagin Baje Been

Definitely lots to look forward to for the 2012 edition of the Nag Panchami Film Fesssstival!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Tiny Snake steals the show in Anandabhadram

The Malayalam entry for the Nag Panchami Film Fessstival is Anandabradram (2005, directed by Santosh Sivan, based on the novel by Sunil Parameswaran.) For a more thoughtful questions about Malayalam snake films, check out Katherine at totallyfilmi's post on a song from Sarpakkadu.

Here's a synopsis pulled from the film's website:

The story begins with Anandan, played by Prithviraj, who makes a maiden trip to his native village, Sivapuram. His purpose? To make good his promise to his recently deceased mother that he would dissolve her ashes in a river near Manthrikapura, a mystical garden, and light a lamp in Sivakavu, a strange and dark place in Sivapuram. Interestingly, Anandan, when he was young, had heard so many bedtime stories from his mother about the people and the places in Sivapuram. However, as soon as he lands in Sivapuram, Anandan finds out that what he heard and what he sees are two different things. To start with, the villagers warn him not to light the lamp in the forbidden Sivakavu. Since Anandan doesn't believe in anything supernatural he enters Sivakavu but only to find out that his life would never be the same again. Is there really anything supernatural happening to Anandan? If yes, then what is really happening and who's doing it? Is it Bhadra, his uncle's daughter and his lover? Or is it the enigmatic Digambaran, a mysterious person? Or is it Bama, Digambaran's lover? Or is it Chemban, her blind brother?

Are there real Yakshis, ghosts, in Sivakavu? Is it possible to transmigrate to another's body? Will Anandan succeed in dissolving his mother's ashes? Come and experience it all and unravel the mysteries behind the story. Find out about Sivakavu and the enigmatic Digambaran in a stunning film that would transport you to the mystical world of Sivapuram and leave you mesmerized by the magic of Santosh Sivan's visual poetry.

Yes, the film has Prithviraj, and Riya Sen, and a crazy sorcerer, and beautiful Santosh Sivan visuals, but the star of the film was the tiny serpent, Kunjootan.

The film starts in Anandan's childhood, as his mother tells him the story of the evil sorcerer who seeks to steal the nagamanikyam (a jewel on a serpent's head), which is protected by a tiny cobra.

(The audio is a bit off in this video, so you can also watch this scene without subtitles here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deDXbpnnMiU&feature=related.)

We next see Kunjootan when Anandan and Bhadra go exploring in the magical cave.

Prithvi is also thinking "A tiny cobra, how cuuuute!"

After lots of machinations by the evil sorcerer, hyper-rational Anandan comes to appreciate the power of the supernatural, and there is an epic showdown fight in the cave. Anandan is pretty thoroughly trounced by the sorcerer, until Kunjootan pops his head up, and give Anandan the power/will to defeat the sorcerer.

You can tell from his expression that Kunjootan is thrilled to have the nagamanikyam back in his care.

And we wrap things up with Anandan and Bhadra lighting the lamps in Sivakuvu.

Watching all of these snake films is making me more and more curious/obsessed with the snake handling. Did they actually find a tiny, juvenile cobra? Is this just excellent scaling cinematography with a regular-sized snake? (The way that they made the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings movies look small compared to Gandalf.) In his miniaturized form, Kunjootan was less menacing and more adorable than other film snakes.

If I ever meet Santosh Sivan, I'm afraid I will only pester him with these questions. That, and I'll ask him to explain his thing for waterfalls.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

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.