Mumbai film festival is over! My mind is filled with the sweet memories of visuals of great movies, new friendships, witty discussions and a master class from Jane Campion herself.
The movies which floored me were Caterpillar, Aftershock, Face, The Professor and his beloved equation, Ayla, Biutuiful and many many more. I tried to earn maximum visual experience as much as I can with my single pair of eyes.
There is long list of movies which challenged, shocked and confused me as a viewer. One of them is from a young independent director Srinivas Sunderrajan titled as ” The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project”.
The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project
Movie is about passion of a software professional Kartik Krishnan who has this burning desire to break away from his routine life and join the bandwagon of world class movie-makers. His love for cinema makes him to take initiatives to call a director (Srinivas Sunderajan) and requesting him to help in realizing his dreams, asking his love to join as leading lady but as it happens to most independent dreams, things start getting screwed up at every front for Kartik and finally he escapes into some rare phenomenon. Movies doesn’t end here, it descends to another level of consciousness called reality where the real director Srinivas Sunderrajan ( played by the director himself) seems to loose control on his real and dream world both and left with not much in his life ( Again, the after- effects of reality versus dreams ).
While watching the movie, you wonder sometimes if the director deliberately tries to surprise or shock his audiences. The frequent blank screens in the movies which are deliberately extended for those few moments seem like a plan to frustrate the viewers. Does he try to make a fool of us?? Is he deliberately trying to give us a piece of nonsense and then enjoying the intellectual interpretations of highly intelligent critics ??? Does it really matter for an audience to know what was his personal struggle while making the movie?
Well, answers of these questions are not easy. According to Srinivas Sunderarajan and Kartik Krishnan, they never got a chance to make a movie which they actually planned for many different reasons and ” Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project” is something which eventually came out while walking through the road of making a movie.
You can not ignore the fact that every movie is a story of a person, real or imaginary. In my personal opinion, Srinivas Sunderrajan can be called a genius filmmaker who brilliantly picked up the threads from reality and imagination and knitted them well to create a visual experience which can be called a frustrated journey of an Independent filmmaker who has talent to make it but our Bollywood “System” is all set to break him and his dreams. He is almost broken down with almost no hopes ( the extended blank screens) and then surprisingly made it on the strength of sheer will, hope and determination.
If cinema means art and art means to express oneself and inspire others , then this movie definitely succeeds. This movie encourages you to come out with idea which really means to you and don’t care if it seems absolutely absurd. After screening of ” The Untitled Kartik Krishnana Project” , I immediately started thinking about my absurd but truthful experiences and dare to think that I could turn it into a movie someday.
Srinivas Sunderrajan may be just 26 years old but he is not new to fim making. He has already made two short films ” Tea Break ” and “Vaapsi”. His “Vaapsi” won best short film award in 2008 in Mami festival.
Srinivas receiving his award for best short film"Vaapsi" at MAMI
One more reason to see this movie could be the absolute mind-blowing performances from Kartik Krishnan, Vishwesh K, Swara Bhaskar and D Santosh ( who played Rajguru in The Legend of Bhagat Singh). Dialogues are witty with a flavor of dry sense of humor , written by the actors themselves and supervised by Srinivas Sunderrajan. Camera work by Hashim Badani, music by Sujil Sukumaran, vfx/sound design by Vijesh Rajan who also got a credit as script consultant.
And , on a lighter note, Kartik Krishnan can easily be called a star of shoe- string budget movies. He recently worked in a movie ” Auto Madar ###” by Vasan Bala for filminute with a budget of just Rs 200. ( $5.00) and now a whole feature film with a budget of just Rs. 40,000.00 ( $1000.00). (Guinness book of world records?)
A message to all those Mega budget star studded mind-less shit film makers that wonderful cinema can be delivered in a thenga -budget if few strong -willed, dedicated artists join together.
Rahul Katyayan
