Ee Bannada Lokadali
Kannada (U) ¬¬¬
Director: V Ramrao Putaane
Cast: Ramesh Bhat, Rekha Das, Biradar, Moogu Suresh, Veena Sundar, Ramesh Pandit and others
There have been a few films focusing on theatre, its artistes, their triumphs and tribulations and the like with Ranganayaki and most recently Aitalakadi coming to mind.
Putaane’s Ee Bannada Lokadali steers clear of such labelling, instead offering slice-of-life comedy. Comedy that is mostly healthy with Putaane’s dialogues trashing all that’s bawdy.
Putaane keeps his plot simple: A TV team is about to visit a village to shoot a drama and the village-actors led by the younger brother of the village headman rope in a natakada meshtru and predictably, chaos ensue. Each character comes with his/her own baggage and the film shows how each of them deals with it — to better or deteriote their lives further.
Led by Ramesh Bhat, known, not-so-known and practically little known actors like Rekha Das, Moogu Suresh, Biradar, Veena Sundar, Ramesh Pandit and others put up a cracker of a show.
Though the film appears to drag a bit, the comic situations do not at any point appear stilted and contrived — a great achievement these days. Dinesh Kumar’s music complements the plot well and Ravindra Soragavi, Malathi Kanavi and other singers enrich the experience some more.
Lack of marketable faces and 80s style-story and making may put some people off, but Ee Bannada Lokadali definitely puts some colour into wan cheeks.
