A sincere hard-hitting film which could have still been done away with clichés
‘Sindhooram’ just like the title suggests is a film on the growing terrorism, police atrocities and conflict between government and people. Having got national award for the year 1997, luckily, I got the film with subs. I guess only because it got the national award, I was able to see subs for the film. Anyways good for me. Nowadays few old films are coming up in internet, hope more such things come up. There are few in my list where I couldn’t get subtitles at all anywhere.
The film opens with a Naxal group setting up a bomb for police vehicle, we get to see a sneak peek into the lives of policemen, when one of them narrate about their family. So, the first instance of sympathy goes to the policemen but with the title it’s not tough to gauge whom we’re going to root to, in the film. We then see, one of the Naxals ready to die after he expresses disappointment of what just happened. So, this is how the film starts, telling how what a vicious circle it is.
We see an honest short-tempered man Bulliraju (Brahmaji) training to become a police officer. Chanti (Ravi Teja) on the other hand is a wayward youth in the same village. A kind of love triangle happens between Baby (Sanghavi) and them both. For a serious film, that could have been avoided or any other interesting method had been employed to develop a story, if the director didn’t want to directly jump into the serious part of film i.e. Most of the things which happen in the first half between them doesn’t work. Add to it there were a lot of songs to spoil the flow.
Things start getting better when Bulliraju joins the Naxal group. The immediate conflicts post that form the best part. His mentor (Bhanu Chander) gets appointed as the officer to hunt him down. If given a chance they both could have talked it out and made peace but the circumstances force them to be apart. I especially loved the juncture where Bulliraju comes to talk to the mentor and the police fires without taking order from Bhanu Chander, which makes the Naxal fire back and save him. Icing on the cake was the scene where they both try to save the kid. So, the emotion is same, they both want to save the people but get torn by the people around them.
Post that Chanti joining Bulliraju and Lakshmi (Soundarya) getting raped and eventually joining them were all inevitable. It’s something we know from the first. It’d have been better if a proper lead had been given to why Chanti always looked up to Bulliraja. Bulliraja then gets to lead the gang and play Naxal with the heart of gold but things don’t last long as one of them gets caught by police which makes them to kidnap a politician.
The inevitable again happens where Bulliraja gets shot even though Bhanu Chander warns them not to. But instead of a lengthy monologue in the end and trying to forcefully draw a conclusion, the film ends with the remaining Naxals trying to escape with the captive. I loved the ‘End, really?’ caption. It was ideal for the situation. The dialogue between Bairagi (Paruchuri Venkateswara Rao) and Bhanu Chander, got me reminded of the epic scene between Kamal and Nasser in ‘Kuruthipunal’. Even though both came in 90s, the level of maturity which ‘Kuruthipunal’ had was much more than ‘Sindhooram’ and on top of it, the way the same subject was deftly handled with style and punch was excellent. Wish ‘Sindhooram’ too had been made sans the usual glamour of masala films which would have elevated it even higher.
constantscribbles 