| Anand | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Sekhar Kammula |
| Written by | Sekhar Kammula |
| Starring | Raja Kamalinee Mukherjee Satya Krishnan Anish Kuruvilla |
| Music by | K. M. Radha Krishnan |
| Cinematography | Vijay C Kumar |
| Editing by | Marthand K. Venkatesh |
| Studio | Amigos Creations & NFDC |
| Distributed by | Amigos Creations |
| Release date(s) | 15 October 2004 |
| Running time | 180 minutes |
| Country | India |
| Language | Telugu |
| Budget | 1.5 crore (US$285,000) |
Anand (Telugu: ఆనంద్ ) is a 2004 Telugu film that was directed, produced and written by Sekhar Kammula. According to Kammula, the film means ..contentment, happiness.[1] The lead roles are played by Raja and Kamalinee Mukherjee. The film was well received by critics and owing to its success at the box office, it was remade in Tamil as Ninaithale.[2][3] The film's basic story was also chosen as the subject for Sekhar Kammula's thesis screenplay which was as a part of a requirement for his successful completion of his Masters in Fine Arts at Howard University.[4][5]
The film begins with the death of the family of a young girl as a result of a character's drunken driving. The film sketches the path of the young girl growing up into a woman who lives her life independently and with self-esteem. The protagonist enters the woman's life and how they fall in love with each other forms the rest of the story.
The film went on to win the Nandi Awards among several other prominent awards. If the award-winning[6] Dollar Dreams (2000) set the tone, then Anand introduced the legacy of successful films made with simple stories.[7] A noteworthy mention is of the film's soundtrack which was well appreciated for its soft melodies.[8]
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The film opens with a young Rupa studying for her examinations while her parents and brother get ready to leave for a marriage function. On their way to the function, they meet with a fatal accident owing to drunken driving by Anand's father, Gopalan. The scene shifts to 8 years later where young children are learning Carnatic music from Rupa (Kamalinee Mukherjee). Rupa, who's working in an advertisement agency, is engaged to get married to Rahul (Anuj Gurwara), Managing Director of the agency. There enter Anita (Satya Krishnan), her neighbor and the kids who form an integral part of the humor quotient of the film. The kids, Samatha and Srikanth constantly quarrel with each other. Maamma (English: Grandma), who lives with Anita, takes care of Samatha and Srikanth. Along with Anita, Rupa hangs out with a group of friends Radha, Ram, Ali and Patel.
Rupa begins to pool up money for her marriage. One fine day, she gets to see the domineering nature of Rahul's mother and confides into Anita about her fears about the marriage. She decides to go ahead with the marriage assuming that Rahul's presence will eventually prevail over his mother's nature. Coincidentally, while they are speak at a temple, they notice a person who seems to be mentally challenged (Anand's father) ogling at them. When Rupa gives him the holy prasadam, he says "Thank you, Rupa". Shocked at how he knew Rupa's name, they quickly exit the temple.
Anand is a happy-go-lucky guy who returns from America. His mother insists on him getting married and on one humorous instance, Anand meets Venkatalakshmi. Unfortunately, Anand doesn't like her attitude towards the poor and this marriage proposal falls apart.
All seems well and the day for Rupa's marriage arrives. Incidentally, Anand and his father are also on the list of invitees. Just before the marriage, Rahul's mother creates a fuss about Rupa's marriage attire. Rupa retorts back and this enrages the lady. Rahul suggests Rupa to go according to his mother's wish for the moment and that, he shall take care of her later on. Rupa, in tears, agrees to go ahead and apologize to his mother. On her way, she overhears Rahul convincing his mom that after the marriage, she can exercise control over Rupa. In spite of this, she goes ahead and apologizes. But, Rahul's mother launches a verbal assault on her and embarrasses her. Rupa, unable to bear the humiliation, calls off the marriage. Anand happens to be a silent witness to this. He decides that she's the kind of girl he'd like to marry. Eventually, he moves into a portion of Rupa's house.
Rupa tries to recover while Rahul keeps coming back once in a while asking her to reconsider. Whereas, Anand settles down at his new home. He befriends Samatha and slowly starts making friends with the rest. On one occasion when Rupa's friends, Ali, Ram and Patel get into a fight with the local goons over a game, Anand manages to save them by calling the cops. This helps his attempts to gain friendship with them. Occasionally, Anand makes several attempts in speaking to Rupa, but she doesn't entertain him. Anita realizes that Anand likes Rupa and suggests him avenues to befriend Rupa.
Late one night, upon the death of Rahul's mother, Anand drives Rupa to Rahul's house. She comforts Rahul while Anand stays back for her. Rupa is thankful to Anand for being around and driving her back but, she realizes that he is jealous of Rahul. She slowly realizes that she began to like Anand. The story progresses and on Rupa's birthday, a drunken Rahul comes to Rupa's house and tries to sexually assault Rupa. Anand saves Rupa and throws Rahul out of the house. Anand gets angry at Rupa for bringing such a situation. He argues that she could have kept a safe distance from Rahul instead of exchanging regular pleasantries. Anand even brings her a birthday present and takes it back leaving behind a sad Rupa. Anand leaves the house and Rupa is dejected.
After a brief hiatus, Rupa's happiness sees no bounds when sees Anand at a party. She expresses her love for him and the both rejoice. Anand introduces his parents to Rupa. Anand's father, who's negligent driving killed Rupa's family, is introduced saying that he was rendered mentally challenged after that fateful night. Rupa is devastated to hear to this and ponders on her marriage. Eventually, she realizes that the past can be forgotten as fate had served punishment to the responsible. She embraces her love and all ends well.
After Sekhar Kammula's first venture, Dollar Dreams (2000), he began meeting producers with his stories. When he initially told them a story, they felt that it was too simple. Then, he began giving them a bound script of Anand. Unfortunately, none came forward to produce it. Upon someone's suggestion, Kammula approached National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and they came forward to fund a part of the project.[9] This set a precedent because it was the first time that NFDC entered into commercial Telugu cinema.[10]
Anish Kuruvilla, who played Anand's cousin in the film, was the executive producer for the film and Kammula's following film, Godavari (2006).[11]
Kammula preferred actors who suit the roles than writing characters for established actors. Hence, the choice of the cast were non-established actors.[12] The search process lasted 3 months.[13] The casting for Raja was simple. Kammula wanted someone without melodrama in acting and it just came as a plus when Raja appreciated Kammula's directorial abilities.[13] The choice for an actress made Kammula visit Mumbai and Bangalore, but he could not get the appropriate one. On knowing about Kamalinee Mukherjee, he subjected her to a screen test. After the test, he selected her as the actress in the lead role.[13] The choice of location was first thought as Ramoji Film City and Nanakramguda in Hyderabad. So, these thoughts were quashed because the need was for a suitably big house and an outhouse situated adjacent to it. Since Kammula stayed in Padmarao Nagar, a prominent locality in Hyderabad, a location there made it all the more accessible for him.[13]
Kammula's primary inspiration came from the Indian middle class. He was of the thought that this section of people were wrongly represented in films. He wanted to represent them appropriately and this was achieved with Anand.[14]
Kammula sat with Veturi for writing songs for the film. Kammula said that he could see thousands of expressions expressed as a couple of words in lyrics. Eventually, they ended up with six beautiful songs penned by Veturi. For Anand, Veturi took a month to come up with the lyrics as against his usual penchant of coming up with lyrics spontaneously.[13]
Being a Bengali,[15] there was a need for someone to dub Kamalinee Mukherjee's voice for the film.[16] This was provided by a well-known singer and television host, Sunitha. The voice of Sunitha blended so well with the screen presence of Kamalinee that she went on to win an award for it.[17]
With most of the cast not well-versed in speaking Telugu, Kammula faced challenges in their dialogue delivery. It just happened that most of the cast couldn't speak Telugu. The crew had to face a slight loss of the performance owing to this fact. To overcome this handicap, the dialogues were altered slightly to improve the actors' diction.[14]
Anand had a relatively low-profile release unlike the huge banner releases of the Telugu film industry. Made with a modest budget of Rs. 15 million, Anand was a refreshing film of its time. Kammula wasn't sure of the outcome of the film and said "I knew that it would either be a huge hit or a huge flop".[18] It evoked a decent response from the critics. Idlebrain.com, a popular entertainment website for the Indian audiences gave the film a 3.75/5.[19] The website review goes on to recommend this film to the film-going audiences. On the other hand, IndiaGlitz, another popular film portal, said that the film was "good, but could have been better". However, ample praise has been poured into Kammula's abilities.[20] The film released on the same day as Shankar Dada MBBS released. Both these films went on to become box-office successes. Even though latter was a low budget film as compared to the former, Anand managed to give the producers of Shankar Dada MBBS a run for their money by drawing more crowds.[21] It also figured among the top five grossers in the Telugu film industry for the year 2004.[22] The success of the films in India being measured in the number of days the film has been screened in the theaters, Anand completed one such milestone. It completed 100 days of screening on 28 January 2005.[23] Another website says that the film was realistic in its depiction and goes on to given instances in the film that do happen (unlike some of the fictitious and dreamy Indian films).[24]
The film was awarded with 6 Nandi Awards by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh in 2004.[17] The awards that were won are Best Film (Silver Nandi), Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Satya Krishnan), Best Child Artiste (Bakhita) and Best Female Dubbing Artist (Sunitha). It was also given the Best First Film Heroine, Best Male Singer and Best Editing awards by a popular Telugu magazine, Santosham, in 2005.[25] The film was thoroughly applauded for its story and it went on to win the Best Family Story Film and Best New Music Director as an appreciation for the lovely soundtracks from the film.[26] At another prestigious award ceremony by MAA TV, a popular Telugu entertainment television channel, the film won the Best Director, Best Actress Debutant and Best Actress in a Supporting Role awards.[27] Stepping out of the stereotype, according to Kammula, seemed to be the formula for success of the film.[28]
The DVD Release is a Special Edition 2 disc pack Released by KAD Entertainment.[29]
Disc 1 contains the theatrical version of the film primarily with subtitles in English, both in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. As an add-on, it also contains the Director's Cut, 35 minutes worth of deleted scenes. KAD
Disc 2 contains a trivia game about the film, the saga of the film, that is, from the film Dollar Dreams where it all began to conceiving Anand, raising of finances for the film, selection of the cast and location, dubbing, choice of the music director, lyricist, cinematographer and choreographer. It also has a brief informational biography about the director, actors, about the choice of the caption, the encountered pre-release blues, the day of release, the best scene from the film, favorite song, memorable moments during the film, the post release scenario and the Director's Cut. It also contains the 100 days celebrations of the film with Dr. Dasari Narayana Rao's congratulatory speech. The film trailers are also included in this disc.
This film possibly is the first Telugu film to be released in a 2-Disc Special Edition DVD that also features the director's cut version of the film. KAD also won the best DVD award for this special edition.
The film has six songs composed by K.M. Radha Krishnan,[30][31] and according to one repository of Indian songs, "all the songs but for one assume classical and Carnatic music in it."[31]
| No. | Title | Singer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Vachhe Vachhe" | Shreya Ghoshal | 4:37 |
| 2. | "Yamunatheeram" | Hariharan, K.S.Chithra | 4:10 |
| 3. | "Nuvvena Naa Nuvvena" | Shreya Ghoshal | 4:54 |
| 4. | "Charumati I Love You" | Lucky Ali | 4:09 |
| 5. | "Telisi Telisi" | Shreya Ghoshal | 4:28 |
| 6. | "Yedalo Ganam" | Hariharan | 4:55 |
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