The Paradise was released in theatres amid unprecedented hype for a Tier-2 hero movie in the history of Telugu cinema. Its humongous openings, befitting a Pawan Kalyan movie, has caught everyone by a huge surprise. A day before the movie's release, none other than Telangana CM Revanth Reddy made it a point to mention director Srikanth Odela's regional identity. The anticipation was that The Paradise would herald a new chapter in the evolution of the Telangana sub-genre. That Nani is of non-Telangana origin didn't matter.
The substandard content, disorienting clichés, and overly cinematic narration of the armed uprising by the Savari community in The Paradise, however, have effectively ended any hopes of it contributing to the emergence of an unofficial Telangana cinematic universe.
By now, everyone knows that the Telangana filmmaking community hasn't come out with anything meaningful in the last 12 years. Yes, actors like Vijay Deverakonda and Siddhu Jonnalagadda are delivering their lines in the regional dialect. Yes, Sandeep Reddy Vanga and Nag Ashwin have become very popular. But then, speaking in the dialect alone doesn't make for a sub-genre. Rehashing a Telangana folk song doesn't count either. We have to remember that these are done purely for entertainment reasons. They don't convey any message about the soul of the land.
We are supposed to be talking in terms of themes.
Balagam, directed by Venu Yeldandi, could be said to have captured the regional soul. It was a poignant family drama that told us how a death is mourned in some pockets of Telangana. Can we say the same about, say, an entertainer like DJ Tillu? It was just a crime comedy that happened to be set in Hyderabad.
We are told that Telangana is a land of revolts. Showing rebellions, popular movements and armed resistances in cinema is important. But how you ground them and contextualize them for contemporary times is far more important. In The Paradise, the Savari community has no access to treatment in government hospitals. Unless you are prominently raising the question of how many poor people in Telangana receive quality healthcare in government hospitals, you are merely capitalizing on the regionalist emotion without showing the spine to question the gross neglect of public healthcare in today's Telangana.
In the Telangana-set films, some characters are drunkards. If your movie doesn't utter a line about how alcoholism destroys families, your regional pride is shallow. It's like a pro-BJP filmmaker making a patriotic drama, but pissing in his pants when it comes to questioning the government.
For decades, filmmakers from Andhra have set their films in the Godavari sub-region. What exactly have they achieved by showing the villagers in these regions as fun-loving, jobless idiots? How often have they explored poignant or substantial themes that concern the region? They may have contributed to the feeling that the sub-region is full of scenic greenery, but revelling in Nature's gift is something even the primitive man did. That's not an achievement. You don't give the Nobel Prize to someone for being a world beauty.
