Films on film industry fail to strike a chord

Ace director Sukumar’s second film as producer ‘Darsakudu’, which introduced his nephew as a hero had an interesting premise of a director falling in love with art director. Despite the premise raking up interest the film failed to win the audience, like many films which are based on film industry.

Audience may be interested to know about inside stories of the industry but films with stories based on industry are hardly patronised. ‘Darsakudu’ joins the rather infamous list of films like Puri Jagannadh’s ‘Neninthe’, Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Katha Screenplay Darsakatvam Appalaraju’, Teja’s ‘Oka V Chitram’ and the like.

All the three films chronicle the trials and tribulations of a person, who wants to be a director. While Ravi Teja starrer ‘Neninthe’ takes a rather serious note in telling the story, Sunil starrer ‘…Appalaraju’ was a satirical take and Adi Pinisetti starrer ‘Oka V Chitram’ which is inspired from Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy flick ‘Bow Finger’ (1999), portrays struggles of a fan trying to make a film with a hero. ‘Bow Finger’ was a massive hit and ‘Oka V Chitram’ didn’t work at any level

Though these films are typical rags-to-riches stories with film industry as a setting, they failed to strike a chord with audience. However, film like ‘Khadgam’, which has a part of its setting in the film industry worked but Ramcharan’s ‘Bruce Lee’ in which he plays a stuntman, didn’t work despite its bit part setting in film industry.

Summing up the losing charm for film industry-related flicks, director Meher Ramesh says “Majority of the audience believe that film industry is loaded with glamour, money and flamboyant lifestyle but when you show struggles of actors and directors, they are unable to digest it.

They like to believe that all the directors and actors have achieved stardom overnight without any struggle, whereas, we all struggled to reach this position. Probably, there is a some missing link, we need to study it,” he concludes.

By Aditya Parankusam