Ranganayaka movie review: Guruprasad sure loves his voice and thoughts, but why should we?

1.5/5

Ranganayaka movie story: A past life regression session on Director Guruprasad during a TV show reveals that he had attempted to make Kannada’s first motion picture – Ranganayaka – way back in 1911 and the challenges he faced therein.

Ranganayaka movie review: Director Guruprasad led the promotions of his latest film Ranganayaka and steadfastly refused to talk about the story of the film in each of his interviews. Instead, he put the focus on his intellect and his clever way with words, which now makes sense, because he has nothing by way of story in the film.

Ranganayaka is Guruprasad’s conversation with the audience; well, he does all the talking and he does a lot of it. The filmmaker, no doubt, has an impeccable command over the Kannada language, which he has often spoken about and does again in the film. This is Guruprasad’s commentary on Kannada and Kannada cinema, where he is like a bullet train with brake failure, thundering away at breakneck speed.

When I walked in to buy a ticket for Ranganayaka, the girl at the counter looked at me in bewilderment as she could not find the title on the system. Apparently, it’s called Navarasa Nayaka in and as Rangayanaka; for what joy, I have literally no idea, because this is more of a Guruprasad solo show than a Jaggesh movie.

Well, the Navarasa Nayaka is in the film doing yet again what he’s been doing for quite a while – delivering sex joke after sex joke in a particular tone, rolling his eyes and making facial gestures to give the adult humour ‘more effect’. It’s really got me wondering why he’s still called Navarasa Nayaka, when the focus is on a single rasa all the time. His lines are a collection of sexual inuendo selected from what I’d imagine is from the ‘boys-only’ Whatsapp groups on Guruprasad’s multiple phones.

There is really no redeeming factor in the film and the proceedings do become unbearable within a few minutes into the ‘narrative’. The movie hall I was in had a slightly better occupancy than Karataka Damanaka – that’s not saying much because it was still about two-thirds empty – and the film did elicit a chuckle here and there, but is that going to be enough? I doubt that Kannada audiences really need a trip to Ranganayaka for this fix of sex jokes.

Ranganayaka movie verdict: Was director Guruprasad hoping that his self-proclaimed intellectual prowess would leave audiences awe-struck and ready to swallow all that he presents onscreen? Ranganayaka is a film that leaves one with a bitter aftertaste of enduring 2 hours of Guruprasad’s love for his own voice and thoughts.