Tragedies in Telugu Comedy

When I ask my friends whether they liked a movie, I often get the answer “good comedy scenes”. Well, if it’s only for the comedy scenes, why not buy a tape with only those parts with the remaining story edited out? Let us have comedy albums like song albums. I’m tired and falling sick of the comedy in most of our movies, their makers, and their patrons.

Consider Puri Jagannath’s Pokiri, a towering example of everything that is wrong with the comedy in our movies today. The characters played by Brahmanandam and Ali are an insult to the intelligence of the public.

Giving due credit to the director, I presume that he believes in story arcs. After a scene with a lot of action, emotional or otherwise, it’s not unusual for writers to dip the arc, to let the patrons catch a breath. But they are supposed to be natural, not jolting, and certainly not like advertisement breaks. I observed while watching Pokiri that immediately after several highly intense scenes, came Brahmanandam, sometimes with the heroine’s brother, sometimes with Ali. Outrageous. Doesn’t the director have a minimum courtesy to think of something more natural? Has he declared that this verbose crap is all the audience deserves?

I have another complaint. Comedy is a subtle craft. You mock a section of the society, mock body image, make lewd and scatological comments but do it intelligently like Seinfeld or play safe.

This wasn’t his first time. Ali is a regular in Puri’s movies, often in similar entirely unrelated and unnecessary roles. Why does he repeat it? Is he incapable of observing its futility? Or has he been forced to notice the gusto with which the audience embrace such humiliation?

I don’t intend to say that one director is all to fault. Even our esteemed directors do it. Jandhyala did it though he might not have dwelt in it. Maniratnam did it in Geetanjali and Gharshana. KRR does it all the time, did it even in Annamayya and Sri Ramadasu. Dasari was probably the one who pioneered the concept of comedians kicking each other with his Mamagaru. Puri Jagannath, VV Vinayak (Adi, Lakshmi), Srinu Vytla (Venky, Dhee),…

It is not that they get away with it. It is that the audience embrace it and thereby encourage it. The filmmakers to come tomorrow get influenced by this, making similar mistakes. And as a rule of evolution, everybody gets used to it.

In these times, I wonder whether ugAdi pacchaDi is a misunderstood metaphor. We unsubtle gults perhaps take it too literally. All the metaphor stands for is a life with all emotions, and ups and downs. It does not mean that every event, every significant event, should have all emotions, and ups and downs. A movie is not very different.

Every movie need not have sentiment, songs, fights, and comedians. Especially comedians. But almost all our movies do. Writers, taught and self-taught, learn that every sentence (at least every paragraph) should serve at least one of three purposes: move the plot, deepen a characterization, enhance a setting.

How do we decide whether the presence of a comedy scene in a movie is justified or not? It’s not very difficult. Here are a few necessary conditions that come to my mind:
1. At least one of the involved characters should have a well-defined purpose in the plot. (Ruling out scenes with only Brahmanandam and Ali.)
2. The comedy should not be out of place and character. (Ruling out joke contests simply because the movie has been serious for a while.)
3. The comedy should be situational and seem natural, not forced. Even when situational, if the scene makes the audience forget the rest of the plot, it means that it is too long. (Ruling out the repetitive and long scenes.)

In fact, if a comedy scene has a functional role, that’s more desirable. Take Gunasekhar’s Arjun, e.g. The scene where the heroine tells her father her decision to marry the hero, the one where the heroine’s sister slaps a classmate who proclaims his love for her, it’s hilarious. It’s also functional. (I watched the movie last Friday in MAA TV.)

Comedy is not and should not become a default ingredient of a dish called movie.

Image Courtesy: Cinegoer.com

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