Credit: Special Arrangement
Yogaraj Bhat and producer E Krishnappa reunite for the first time since their 2006 hit ‘Mungaru Male’. However, the result of ‘Manada Kadalu’ is far from the same. Bhat, once known for his streak of hits, seems to have lost his touch.
The film follows Sumukha (played by Sumukha), a fourth-year MBBS student who loses faith in medical science after witnessing a peon's death from heart attack at his college. He drops out and spends his days wandering the beaches of Karnataka, swimming, and watching sunsets. His life takes a turn when he meets and falls in love with Rashika (Rashika Shetty), a cricketer.
He follows her to Bengaluru, where she disappears after asking him to meet her in six months. He looks for her and finds her at an archaeological site with her friend Anjali (Anjali Anish), an archaeologist. There, he learns that Rashika is terminally ill. The film then follows Sumukha’s efforts to heal her.
Santhosh Rai Pathaje’s cinematography is a visual treat. The offbeat locations and the Murud-Janjira Fort look stunning. Unfortunately, that’s where the best part of the movie ends. The film is packed with too many elements — romance, alternative medicine, life, death, and history. Even the humour is in poor taste. In many scenes, logic is absent.
Music, once a strength of Bhat’s films, is another disappointment. The set design and choreography of the songs feel old-fashioned and sluggish.
The film is enjoyable in parts but becomes preachy towards the end, like many recent movies attempting to glorify Indianness.
What irked me the most, however, was the misrepresentation of Adivasis. Let alone misrepresentation, Bhat reduces them to mere props for crass comedy and even imposes the Kannada language on them — unexpected from a director as sensible as Bhat.