EEGA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013 - A Joyous Warning About EEGA

GREG KLYMKIW'S EEGA MANIFESTO (and review)

SAMANTHA PRABHU - EEGA BABE

EEGA (2012/2013) ***** Dir. S. S. Rajamouli
Starring: Sudeep, Samantha Prabhu, Nani

Review By Greg Klymkiw

EEGA is such a fresh, original and wonderful movie entertainment, I issue the following WARNINGS to all who know NOTHING about it. BEFORE SEEING EEGA:

1. DO NOT READ ANYTHING ABOUT IT EXCEPT THIS REVIEW - AVOID ARTICLES, REVIEWS, THE PROGRAM NOTES AT ANY FILM FESTIVAL, THE MAGNIFICENT WEBSITE, THE IMDB, ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET (INCLUDING FACEBOOK, TWITTER, GOOGLE +, PINTEREST ETC. NOTHING! READ THEM ONLY AFTER YOU SEE EEGA!

2. DO NOT LOOK AT ANY STILLS (SAVE FOR THOSE INCLUDED HERE) OR POSTERS OR ADS OR BILLBOARDS OR ANYTHING FROM EEGA. AGAIN, YOU CAN AND WILL WANT TO DO SO AFTER YOU SEE EEGA!

3. DO NOT WATCH ANY TRAILERS FOR EEGA. IF A TRAILER PLAYS ANYWHERE, CLOSE YOUR EYES, PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

NANI & SAMANTHA PRABHU
EEGA HUNK and EEGA BABE

4. IF ANYONE DARES TALK TO YOU ABOUT EEGA PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

5. IF YOU'RE AT A FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2013) AND, GOD FORBID, ONE OF THE FINE REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE FESTIVAL (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE DELIGHTFUL ADAM LOPEZ OR A TADFF COLLEAGUE) DARES SAY TOO MUCH ABOUT EEGA DURING AN ON-STAGE ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE DAYS LEADING UP TO ITS UNVEILING, SIMPLY PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

6. IF YOU ARE AT A FILM FESTIVAL SCREENING ON THE DAY AND VERY SHOW EEGA PLAYS (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE TORONTO AFTER DARK FILM FESTIVAL 2013) AND, GOD FORBID, ONE OF THE FINE REPS FROM THE FESTIVAL (SAY, FOR EXAMPLE, THE DELIGHTFUL ADAM LOPEZ OR A TADFF COLLEAGUE) DARES SAY TOO MUCH ABOUT EEGA DURING AN ON-STAGE INTRODUCTION TO THE FILM, SIMPLY PLUG YOUR EARS AND SING "WE WILL ROCK YOU" AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS!

7. IF YOU UNDERSTAND TELUGU, IGNORE THE TITLE.

I saw EEGA knowing nothing save for its inclusion in the 2013 edition of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival (TADFF). This afforded me the luxury of experiencing one of the most joyful, endearing, romantic, hilarious and utterly heart-rending tales of vengeance I have ever experienced in my life. That the film is the ONLY joyful, endearing, romantic, hilarious and utterly heart-rending tale of vengeance I have ever experienced in my life is but the extra infusions of jaggery and ghee in my Poornalu.

The stunningly gorgeous Samantha Prabhu plays the sweet, innocent, intelligent, good-humoured and committed Bindu. By day, she devotes herself to bringing educational supplies to the poor of India and by night, she is a highly skilled micro artist. She has been romantically pursued by the charming, goofy Nani for two whole years and she is on the cusp of finally accepting his professions of love. Sudeep is a powerful corporate chieftain who holds investors by the short and curly hairs with his brilliance and prowess at commercial real estate development. He is also a handsome, sexy Cocksman of the highest order and ALWAYS gets whatever woman he wants. Always.

This trio comprises a love triangle that is about to turn deadly. When the unthinkable happens - all seems lost, but good Karma rears its happy head and soon we become embroiled in one of the most relentless tales of vengeance imaginable. Throughout the proceedings there is much danger, but there is also considerable tears, romance and hilarity.

Oh yes, and there are grand musical numbers.

The number of vengeance-filled activities in this film seems almost incalculable. We experience revenge like it's never been experienced before and a good deal of the film's running time is devoted to every conceivable form of payback extraction. The final third of the film is also unbearably suspenseful - so much so that I was desperate to relieve myself of certain viscous fluids, but clenched myself with a fury I did not realize was even possible. I could not take my eyes off the screen for one moment.

There isn't a single element of the film that isn't absolutely first-rate. The trio of star performances are pitched to utter perfection, Rajamouli's direction is so astoundingly buoyant and skilful he gives Steven Spielberg a good run for his money, the screenplay co-written by Rajamouli and Janardhan Maharshi (with expert script doctoring by S.S. Kanchi) delivers one delicious narrative surprise after another, K.K. Senthil Kumar's exuberant cinematography is always impeccably lit and composed, Kotagiri Venkateswara Rao's cutting delivers superbly on all the visual story beats with aplomb, the special effects by Makuta VFX are always thrilling, imaginative and imbued with a lovely days-gone-by quality rendered in cutting edge style and the musical score by the great M.M.Keeravani renders one magnificent tune after another.

EEGA is a class act all the way. You'll definitely leave the cinema agreeing with me that you'll have NEVER quite seen anything like it - the picture soars with supreme entertainment value and for a movie overflowing with vengeance, I'm happy to report that it's also A-1 entertainment for everyone - yes, the WHOLE FAMILY!!!

Telugu is the second largest language following Hindi in India and its film industry, oft-referred to as Tollywood, might technically be considered second to Bollywood, but if EEGA is any indication of the sheer joy, invention and entertainment value employed in this region of India, I suspect we'll be looking - not to HOLLYWOOD or BOLLYWOOD for tremendous bigger-than-life entertainment, but Tollywood. And leading the charge is a Telugu-speaking director who has all the potential to make Steven Spielberg so much dust in the wind.

Oh, even if you have an inkling what EEGA is about, you'll still love it.

"EEGA" is playing at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival 2013. Visit the TADFF website for more details HERE.

AUTUMN (HARUD) - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 3 Years after its premiere, this great film remains unavailable.

Autumn (AKA Harud) premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2010. It's not only one of the most extraordinary first features of the new millennium, but an exquisite work of film art which can be spoken of and remembered in the same breath as work by Satyajit Ray, Carl Dreyer and Yasujiro Ozu. The movie has been on my mind of late - especially given the degree to which racial and religious strife continue to plague the world. I am especially sickened and appalled to note that not a single Canadian, American or UK distributor has had the taste, intelligence and/or cojones to bother making this terrific film available. I urge you to petition your local art cinema, film society or cinematheque to do everything in their power to programme this film.

If you want to buy it sight unseen, I've seen DVDs available in various Toronto India Town stores (and assume other cities have such outlets). I suspect these are probably bootlegs, so you might wish to order an import copy via Amazon which appears to offer it via affiliates carrying the film from what appears to be an official Indian distributor. Better yet, petition distributors and/or cinema programmers to do their fucking jobs and acquire/play it. An avid audience exists for this movie. With some elbow grease (uh, a bit of work), its audience might even be more substantial than merely "avid".

Autumn (2010) ****
dir. Aamir Bashir
Starring: Shahnawaz Bhat, Reza Naji

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The proper pacing of a movie can be a seemingly amorphous goal for many filmmakers. The whole problem, I think, is in the notion of whether something is too slow or not fast enough and what precisely defines and contributes to an audience detecting, then reacting to a picture when it lugubriously shuffles along. That said, and where the confusion can come in is when even a break-neck speed in terms of cuts, movement and/or line delivery contributes immeasurably to creating a dragging effect. Audiences (and I'd argue most reviewers) aren't always aware that it's a supersonic speed that, more often than not, induces boredom and/or sore asses.

I have often tarred and feathered the cinematic output of Iran (and recently added Kyrgyzstan to my ass-numbing-by-country list), but of course, it has less to do with my desire to be obnoxious than with the fact that there ARE rules to the grammar of cinema - the biggest being that a filmmaker must ALWAYS be serving the story (or structural framework) and its forward movement (even when it means moving here, there and everywhere), and furthermore, serving the dramatic beats in a style and manner that hammers them home in the best fashion.

Autumn (AKA Harud) is a stunning film from India that is, for the most part, snail-paced. In spite of this, I cannot recall a single moment when my mind wandered or when my eye strayed to my iPhone to check email. My eyes were super-glued to the screen. I couldn't take my precious asymmetrical globes off the picture if I tried.

Part of this is director Aamir Bashir's desire to tell his story in a manner in which it's all important for us to experience the minute by minute, hour by hour, day in and day out emptiness in the lives of Kashmir's young men. Living amidst violence, terrorism, poverty and a bleak future, our central character Rafiq (Shahnawaz Bhat), after an unsuccessful try at militancy following the disappearance of his brother exists in a perpetual walking cat-nap, alternately loafing with his friends and working a dead-end job (morning newspaper delivery). Life for Rafiq moves slowly and is punctuated only by bursts of violence around him.


Through the course of the film, scattered gunshots are heard, bombs go off and at one point, he and his buddies find a man on the verge of dying with a gaping bullet wound to the belly (which eventually leads Rafiq to a slightly better job after they save the man).

Though haunted by his brother's disappearance, Rafiq wishes to move on. There is the overwhelming feeling of the inevitable - that his brother has been kidnapped by the security forces and/or killed and certainly, Rafiq seems to accept this, but his parents refuse to believe their eldest son is dead. This cloud of non-acceptance hangs over their home like a heavy, dark cloud. At one point, Rafiq's father Jusuf (Reza Naji) suffers a nervous breakdown - adding more strife and tragedy to a situation foreign to most of us in the West, but a matter of course in so many other parts of the world.


This is the story of a world where death, destruction and corruption are endless and by extension, while life is cheap and can end very quickly, life, while it goes on, seems to be an endless, plodding state of aimlessness and despair.

Director Bashir captures this so eloquently through a camera-eye that seldom moves and captures the day-to-day mundane activities of Rafiq - it's as if the very act of living feels like an eternity - like death itself. Shots will often hold longer than audiences might be used to, but the detail and observation within these shots is so exquisite that we experience a highly evocative portrait of a life lived merely for the sake of survival.

This is NEVER boring - it is the stuff of great drama - etched with the kind of command one usually experiences in the work of such masters as Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray or Carl Dreyer, but almost never in the work of young, contemporary filmmakers. Bashir is, by trade, an actor, but I sincerely hope he continues to find subject matter that inspires him as much as that on display in Autumn so he can give up his "day job" and dazzle us again and again with his astounding command of cinematic storytelling.

This is a story that DEMANDS a measured pace. The picture is almost neorealism in extremis and there is little by way of overt lyricism - save for the few lyrical moments in the lives of the characters; most notably when Rafiq's chum sings a haunting song as the young men laze about under the autumn sky and the lads encourage him to enter a television variety show for amateurs with talent and, most importantly, when Rafiq becomes drawn to taking photographs using his late brother's camera. The pace is what PRECISELY allows for small moments like these to take on almost mythic proportions within the narrative itself.

Too many art and/or independent films almost annoyingly wear their slow pace like some badge of honour. This is why such pictures give this slower approach a bad name - their "artistry" feels machine-tooled.

Not so with Autumn. This is one of the most stately and profoundly moving films I've seen in recent years. It is replete with compassion and humanity, using an exquisite, delicate pace to examine and remind us how precious every second of life on this earth is.

"Autumn" ("Harud") premiere4d at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2010. Disgracefully, no North American or British distributor has ever bothered to pick it up. The film is available only from an Indian distribution source via affiliates with various Amazon sites.