A good change in Tollywood

Last week, went home for Diwali vacation; and did not celebrate Diwali. Watched three movies, one per day, just to kill time. Not taking laptop to home is good.

This was the third movie I watched in the vacation: Kotha Bangaru Lokam. From the first look at posters, I thought it’s yet another routine teen (junior college – yeah, saw the chemistry book in Swetha’s hand) movie, but when I asked people around, the feedback was quite good. The movie was well received by many. These days, I stopped watching movies of big stars in Tollywood, just to avoid watching meaningless fights and listening to dialogue that no gentleman will talk in real life. My attention turned towards comedy, entertaining (Asta Chamma was a good one) and teen movies. Here I have to mention that teen movies are also notorious for meaningless content – hero just gets everything he wants, students comment lecturers in class like no where, etc. etc. To mention a few in the recent times- Godavari, Bommarillu and Happy Days were excellent movies that set a trend. Godavari portrayed love between adults, Bommarillu showcased love and also relationship between parents and children, and Happy days reminds us of the good old college times. I enjoy this change in Tollywood. Not very long ago, was there a time when half of the cinema halls in my town were showing Hindi movies.

Coming to the latest hit Kotha Bangaru Lokam – I tried to get a ticket to watch this movie on three days, I could get it only on the third day. The first half of the movie is good, with regular teen movie stuff with a nice college backdrop. The dialogue of the study class instructor (That annamata matteru) is fun. The second half of the movie is excellent.

Balu and Swapna are two students of the same college who meet by accident for the first time. As always, it starts with small fight between the two. The two are raised by different kinds of parents – Balu by a lovable middle class parents, who give unconditional love and full freedom to the child; and Swapna by rich parents who are very strict. The two meet in college and fall in love. Swapna’s father comes to know of their love in an unwanted manner through news paper and takes her back home. Second half is about how they come together again.

The movie makes perfect sense, except that the rich father doesn’t search for his daughter for four years after she eloped. It portrays feelings and mindset of parents and teens very well.

It’s a very good movie to watch. The music adds to it. Swetha Basu’s (Swapna) performance is awesome in the movie. (Eekada is simply cute and funny)

I give it 4/5.