Vanaja

Vanaja (2006), written and directed by Rajnesh Domalpalli, is an extraordinary film from South India. Mamatha Bhukya plays 15-year-old Vanaja, who lives in a rural area with her loving but alcoholic father. If she is going to succeed in life, she will have to overcome the liabilities of low caste and poverty.

I went to the film expecting the depiction of a wretched girl who is crushed by society. This isn't what "Vanaja" shows us. The young woman is attractive, intelligent, and ambitious. She won't accept her fate with tears or simple resignation. She wants to succeed, and it's never clear that she won't succeed, despite the odds.

The acting that Mr. Domalpalli draws forth from his cast of amateurs is miraculous. Mamatha Bhukya is outstanding in the title role, and Urmila Dammannagari does an exceptional job as Mrs. Rama Devi, the wealthy landowner who is a formerly famous classical dancer.

In the film Vanaja learns South Indian classical dance, as she did in real life. I couldn't tell how good Vanaja's dancing was by Indian standards, but the many dance scenes were spellbinding. (Don't think Bollywood--this is classical dance. It's also very different from ballet, because in ballet the dancer lifts her heels away from the floor. In South Indian dance, the heel is the primary contact point.)

This is a movie that is not to be missed. It will work on DVD, but will be better on a theater screen because the dancing will be shown to better advantage. However, if DVD is your only option, then see it that way. Just be sure to see it.

This is not your typical Indian film. There is some great sense of humanity, and the characters are pretty realistic. There is great dynamism in the interpersonal relationships, and there is a sense of guilt, grief, passion, passivity among the many characters. While seeing this, one gets a feel for the heavy burden of the 5000 years of layers and layers of history of social existence of one of the oldest civilizations. The final scene of an elephant walking away in the rural area was a great footnote to such a ancient civilization, and yet, human relations are still preserved and nurtured. Saw it on DVD, the two interviews with the director and the main actress are very interesting. Was surprised to learn that the movie has not done well (or not being shown) in India (... but maybe not too surprised). The artistic patrimony of rural societies is being slowly lost and its inheritance not picked up by younger generations, as some of the older musicians in the movie are no longer living today. Great film.

This was his master's thesis project at the film department of Columbia university ... and the total cost of making of this movie was only $20,000.... the protagonist was an 8th grader girl back then with zero experience in acting... and the movie won numerous awards and got recognition... dark side of the life .. exploration of low caste girls, slow-paced but great deftness by the director and superb performance by MAmtha Bhukya who was only 14 then...

Vanaja is a film of superlatives. It has an exceptionally well thought-out cast with Mamatha being the crowning jewel, a superb production and possibly pre-production with Rajnesh at the helm, a fantastic journey of rural Southern India through the eyes of a 15 year old, a remarkable mixture of song and dance, traditional and modern, blended perfectly, and a beautiful backdrop of lush color of the flora and fauna that make up the magnificent experience. What a towering achievement for a debut director!! The casting was absolutely dead-on. I wish India would come out with more of such films. This film will remain as one of my top favorites for my entire life. 9/10.

"Vanaja" depicts a spirited 14-year-old rural South Indian girl who possesses an uncanny common sense intelligence which she puts to use to try to improve the lot of herself and her poor fisherman father. Writer, director, and co-editor Rajnesh Domalpalli wrote the story as part of a first semester project at Columbia University and completed it as his thesis for a Master of Fine Arts in Film.

The film highlights the plight of the working poor, an unfortunately universally understood situation of hard work concomitant with escalating debt and a systematic lack of control over many aspects of one's life. Filmed in Andhra Pradesh, lead Vanaja (Mamatha Bhukya) and other villagers are vassals of landlady Rama Devi (Urmila Dammannagari). Her natural self-confidence boosted by a prophecy that she will be an accomplished dancer, Vanaja secures household employment with Rama Devi to help pay the father's debts, as well as to see if she can manage to get some dance lessons.

Things seem to be going well when the landlady's son, Shekhar (Karan Singh) returns from the United States, groomed to run for local politics. His unhealthy attraction to Vanaja proves an overpowering match for her innocent strength. The outrageously common mentality of blame and shame foisted on a victimized woman is somewhat mitigated when the landlady comes to understand the resulting situation and confronts Shekhar. There is an uneasy truce after the baby is born with Vanaja sometimes returning for work. In interests of quelling political innuendo, Vanaja's father is paid a hefty bribe and the baby is to be brought up in the comfort of Rama Devi's home.

The remaining narrative, though somewhat predictable, is interesting and driven by the lead character's strong willpower. One leaves the film feeling muted sadness, desiring that opportunity and social mobility can quickly permeate and make the study of caste purely a historical one.

My own appreciation of the film was greatly enhanced by having access to a press kit, including a beautifully presented booklet about the film. For example, I learned that one of the many challenges in making the film was finding talent among common people; placing ads just wouldn't work as the crew were already being rumored to be after stealing organs and body parts. So they placed ads for household help, such as "female, aged 35 to 50, needed to care for elderly parents" and gauged potential among respondents. Urmila Dammannagari, for example, married at age 9 and a widow with four children, was working as a bottle sealer for a while but unemployed when she saw the ad; "shocked and completely taken aback when she found out the real motive of the ad, she nevertheless took on the role" of the landlady "and the 25km commute, quickly becoming not just an assured actor, but a mother-hen to a brood of young actors in training".

The film owes a lot to the excellent and very natural acting of the lead, Mamatha Bhukya. Just as Ms. Dammannagari came into her aristocratic role so surprisingly smoothly, so did Ms. Bhukya, who had no dance or acting background. In fact, the film changed her ambition from that of being a doctor to pursuing acting and Kuchipudi dance.

I found all but one of the actors to be quite convincing, and am awed knowing of their very simple backgrounds. Karan Singh, however, a Wesley College-educated model, delivered a disappointing performance. His sneering, detached aloofness was not realistic, and his entire character as heir apparent seemed totally unfounded by any political ability. I also found the editing at times to be somewhat abrupt; continuity would have been enhanced with the use of recurring motifs or more of a soundtrack.

Vanaja is not a feel-good film and is not suited for children or perhaps teenagers. While it has its flaws, it is a remarkable film in the context of the local "actors" used and their magnificent performances, as well as considering that this is a thesis. I look forward to seeing future films that Rajnesh Domalpalli, IIT-Mumbai computer engineer turned artist who divides his time between New York and his hometown of Hyderabad, may create.

Vanaja's U.S. premiere is August 31 in New York. A DVD as well as musical soundtrack are expected to be released in 2008.