Synecdoche, New York English Movie
Swathanthra Palya directed by Venkat once again proves that many producers in the Kannada film industry still carry illusions of a big success for gangster based films. The success of a few gangster films based on some real incidents of the Underworld has triggered off large scale production of gangster films in Kannada. Perhaps Venkat has been influenced largely by the success of Kalasipalya starring Darshan and Rakshitha which was battered by the critics, but went on to become a big hit.
As of now the success stories like OM, Daasa, Kalasipalya and Jogi are the thing of past, and what we are seeing now is a crude imitation of some successful underworld based film. A rough estimate would reveal more than twenty percent of films made last year were gangster based films, though many of them had to bit the dust because of poor story content and nonsensical narration.
Swathanthra Palya is one more addition to the ever growing list of badly made underworld based Kannada films. The story lacks freshness and there is little substance in the screen play of the film. Director Venkat looks ill equipped to make a commercially entertaining film and what you see is the glorification of gangsters through badly written dialogues and low quality fight compositions. Swathanthra Palya ends up as a continuous irritation heaped on the hapless audience.
Venkat also insults the sensibilities of film audience by his crude narration which includes a rape and fights wherein gangsters ruthlessly butcher the innocent people with sickle and swords of different sizes.
The story of the film revolves around a youngster Ajju who dreams of becoming a software engineer in the silicon city. But he lives in Swathanthra Palya which is dominated by hoodlums who are out to exploit poor and middle class people. Ajju and his family members wants to lead a peaceful life, but the goons would not let them live with dignity. Ajju's father gets killed by a Don who is terrorizing the people of the locality. An enraged Ajju kills the Don and becomes a leader of an underworld group. Later the film ends with a message that youngsters should not take up arms despite extreme provocation. But this message is only a camaflouge as there are many number of murders and ghastly attacks in the screenplay written by the director.
Young Arjun who had done well as a child artist has a very weak role in this film. He has worked hard in the action sequences, but he is handicapped by a poor script. Daamini has hardly a few sequences in the film to show her talents. Veterans like Sudarshan, C.R.Simha have been wasted. Nothing could be specially written about either Sathyajith or Killer Venkatesh who look monotonous.
Krupakar's music or Manohar's camera work does not warrant any special mention.
Swathantha Palya is an utterly irritating film and watch it only if you can endure one hundred fifty minutes of gore and nonsense.
