Silicon City gone to seed

Rhaatee
Kannada (U/A) Cast: Shruthi Hariharan, Dhananjaya, Bullet Prakash, Suchendra Prasad, Mohan Juneja, Uday, Bhavani Prakash
Director: A P Arjun

Violence has always been reprehensible in cinema. However, violence, in its most abhorring form, turns metaphor in Rhaatee, mirroring the malaise that has set in the country’s Silicon City. Violence, in Rhaatee, also epitomises the nadir Kannada filmdom has fallen into, celebrating and glorifying machu and langu culture impervious to its detrimental effect on audience.

Ironically, Rhaatee is about how its heroine Rani’s idolisation of Challenging Star Darshan, and her fateful visit to Bengaluru to watch the icon in action, result in her and her beau Raja’s bloody end. Depicting the seamy underbelly of Bengaluru, director A P Arjun ends Rhaatee on a highly disturbing and graphic note, indirectly symptomatic of the times. 

By pointedly focusing on cinema tickets floating in the puddle near the butchered couple, Arjun draws the audience’s attention to the sordid state of affairs among the filmmakers of today and their wanton justification of violence. Through Rhaatee, director Arjun drives the homily on cinema’s harmful effects on the psyche of audiences.

Wonderfully shot by cinematographer Satya Hedge and beautifully acted by the lead pair, Rhaatee is cerebral cinema, to be appreciated not only for its take on an industry and city gone to seed but extol the cinematic acumen of Arjun who could have raised the bar for himself. Yes, Rhaatee is to be watched to encourage similar meaningful enterprises in Sandalwood.