Shaakuntalam Review

Imagine, if you will, the archetypal school play that is based on a mythological tale. Kids stumble onto the stage in homespun costumes: kings in plastic crowns, commoners in rags, and sages in saffron lungis carrying canes and tiny kalasams. And under the harsh glare of stage lights, these hapless young actors sputter their memorized lines with feverish intensity, flailing their arms about in exaggerated gestures. Sitting in the audience are the poor parents, bored beyond the telling of it, and yet still watching, with their eyes glazed over in a kind of benign torpor, purely out of love for this cast.

Now imagine the kids were replaced with professional actors, the cardboard animals with computer graphics, and the 10 x 20 stage with sprawling studio sets, and you'd be pretty close to what director Gunasekhar has created with Shaakuntalam: an 80-crore soulless stage drama, that has little appeal for anyone but stans of Samantha Ruth Prabhu, the leading lady of this mythological adaptation.

It's easy to see where things went wrong. But it's certainly not from choosing the wrong subject. Shakuntala's story is one of the great romances of the Mahabharata. As the myth goes, Shakuntala, the comely daughter of celestial nymph Menaka, falls in love with Dushyantha, the king of Hastinapura. They secretly marry. There is clandestine love-making, tearful separation, and a fervent longing for a reunion that is thwarted by a sage's curse. The beats of this story, written two millennia ago, are still dazzling and audacious.

No, it's not the story - it's Gunasekhar's unsteady adaptation that fails. It's unclear who Shaakunthalam's intended audience is. Is it for grandmothers who lament that Telugu cinema has forgotten its traditional roots? Well, no - not unless ammamma enjoys watching intimate scenes and doesn't mind the camera's infatuation with Samantha's slender curves.

Then was it made to introduce a new generation of kids to the spell-binding stories of our mythology? Again no - which kid could grasp the weighty grandhika Telugu dialogues of this movie, much less enjoy them?

So it seems that Shaakunthalam was made for Samantha superfans, which would be fine, except that from a technical standpoint, the movie fails further.

Sekhar Joseph's cinematography is flat, plagued by harsh glares or indiscernible shadows. The CGI is heavy-handed and tacky - idyllic scenes set in a forest where young Shakunthala pines for her lover resemble the kind of olden still-life paintings that are overfilled with wildlife and foliage. Characters seem to be drowning in their costumes, particularly Shakuntala, who is adorned in flowers, and made to look like a vase.

And in scenes set in the Hastinapura palace - ?introduced in the second half when a heavily pregnant Shakunthala seeks out her husband - everything is inexplicably tinted orange.

Some parts of the movie are distinctly anachronistic. There is a messily edited war scene that takes place between Asuras and Dushyantha, during which the combatants drop their swords and punch each other as in a contemporary mass masala movie. And in a dance sequence, Dushyantha and Shakuntala frolic in CGI Himalayas reminiscent of the romantic movies of the '90s.

While Mani Sharma's soundtrack has its moments (such as the captivating "Madhura Gathamaa", sung by Armaan Malik and Shreya Ghoshal), it is not quite enough to save the movie.

The fussy script and the garish sets seem to have a dulling effect on the performances. While Samantha, who plays Shakunthala, is sensational in the film's emotional scenes in the later half, she struggles with the subtler romantic scenes in the first half, appearing like a porcelain doll. Dev Mohan makes a handsome Dushyanth, but his aloof stage presence, complete with choreographed hand flourishes, seems more suited for theatre than the big screen. Dev and Sam share almost no chemistry, and the real-life power differential between the two actors - with Samantha perhaps at the peak of her career and Dev a relative rookie - comes through.

With the exception of Siva Balaji and Satya, who have minor roles in Dushyanth's court, most actors labour through the cumbersome dialog - Samantha in particular struggles to get its intonations and pauses right.

Admittedly, adapting any mythological story is a daunting task that few filmmakers have even dared to attempt, and for that Gunasekhar deserves credit. Yet it is disappointing to note that even some 45 years after its release, the mythological classic Maya Bazaar is no close to being dethroned as the pinnacle example of this genre. And Shaakunthalam, of course, is not even close to being in the same bracket at this classic.