Anand (2004 film)


Anand is a 2004 Indian Telugu-language drama film that was directed, produced and written by Sekhar Kammula. The film has the tagline Manchi coffee lanti cinema meaning a movie that is like a cup of good coffee. The lead roles were played by Raja and Kamalinee Mukherjee. The film was well received by critics and became a Cult Classic at the box office, it was remade in Tamil as Ninaithale. The film's basic story was also chosen as the subject for Sekhar Kammula's thesis screenplay which was a requirement for his Masters in Fine Arts at Howard University. The film was screened at the International Film Festival of India in the mainstream section.
The film begins with the death of the family of a young girl as a result of a character's drunken driving. The film sketches the path of the young girl growing up into a woman who lives her life independently and with self-esteem. How the male protagonist enters the woman's life and how they fall in love with each other forms the rest of the story. The film went on to win the Nandi Awards among several other prominent awards. If the award-winning Dollar Dreams set the tone, then Anand introduced the legacy of successful films made with simple stories. A noteworthy mention is of the film's soundtrack which was well appreciated for its soft melodies.

Plot

The film is a story of a modern-day girl Roopa. She begins her day with classical music lessons for kids in her neighborhood followed by her day job in an ad agency. She along with her close friend Anita work on weekends at a nursery. Roopa is shown as a woman who stands for her self-respect, determined at her decisions and yet lovable and sensitive.
Roopa loses her parents in a tragic accident and from then on has had to fend for things herself. She falls in love with a colleague, Rahul, a rich marwadi, and almost gets married until she realizes how this marriage is going to separate her from her freedom and individuality. Anita has sensed this much earlier after meeting Rahul's mother who is an orthodox north Indian. Her worries come true on the day of marriage when Rahul's mother confronts her about her wedding sari. Roopa says she has always wanted to wear her mother's sari for her wedding. In spite of wearing the sari in North-Indian style as per her instructions, she is not happy. And this grows into an argument and during all this Rahul tries to convince Roopa, but never supports her. Roopa soon realizes how things are going to be if she marries him and takes the painful decision to call off the marriage.
Anand is the son of a rich industrialist who unintentionally killed Roopa’s parents, due to which he lost his mental stability. Anand brings his father to Roopa's wedding hoping that his blessings for the wedded couple would bring solace to his soul. When he sees Roopa, he decides that she is the woman for him. At the marriage hall he witnesses the turn of events and wants to try his luck in wooing Roopa. In this attempt, he drops his studies in the US and decides to move into a room next to her house. They frown, fight, argue with each other all through his stay there. Anita who is aware of his love for Roopa, helps him by giving him some tips.
A few months later, Rahul's mother dies and Roopa is the first one he approaches to ask for some help. She gives all the support as a friend to him during his difficult days. On the other hand, the affection between Anand and Roopa is on and off, with arguments on trivial issues. Anand continues to put in his efforts till one day drunken Rahul appears at Roopa's house only to forcibly convince her to marry him. Anand gets frustrated and kicks him out of the house and blames her for choosing Rahul over him. Trying to win back the love of Anand, she cooks for him. He simply rejects and leaves the house. After a few days, they both meet again at Dandiya Night, where Roopa confesses her love him. Later, Anand reveals that his father is responsible for her parents' death. She gets shocked by this but decides to forgive that event and move on with her life and agrees to marry Anand.

Cast

Financing

After Sekhar Kammula's first venture, Dollar Dreams , he began meeting producers with his stories. When he initially told them a story, they felt that it was too simple. Then, he began giving them a bound script of Anand. Unfortunately, none came forward to produce it. Upon someone's suggestion, Kammula approached National Film Development Corporation and they came forward to fund a part of the project. This set a precedent because it was the first time that NFDC entered into commercial Telugu cinema.
Anish Kuruvilla, who played Anand's cousin in the film, was the executive producer for the film and Kammula's following film, Godavari.

Casting and locations

Kammula preferred actors who suit the roles than writing characters for established actors. Hence, the choice of the cast were non-established actors. The search process lasted 3 months. The casting for Raja was simple. Kammula wanted someone without melodrama in acting and it just came as a plus when Raja appreciated Kammula's directorial abilities. The choice for an actress made Kammula visit Mumbai and Bangalore, but he could not get the appropriate one. On knowing about Kamalinee Mukherjee, he subjected her to a screen test. After the test, he selected her as the actress in the lead role. The choice of location was first thought as Ramoji Film City and Nanakramguda in Hyderabad. So, these thoughts were quashed because the need was for a suitably big house and an outhouse situated adjacent to it. Since Kammula stayed in Padmarao Nagar, a prominent locality in Hyderabad, a location there made it all the more accessible for him.

Miscellaneous

Kammula's primary inspiration came from the Indian middle class. He was of the thought that this section of people were wrongly represented in films. He wanted to represent them appropriately and this was achieved with Anand.
Kammula sat with Veturi for writing songs for the film. Kammula said that he could see thousands of expressions expressed as a couple of words in lyrics. Eventually, they ended up with six beautiful songs penned by Veturi. For Anand, Veturi took a month to come up with the lyrics as against his usual penchant of coming up with lyrics spontaneously.
Being a Bengali, there was a need for someone to dub Kamalinee Mukherjee's voice for the film. This was provided by a well-known singer and television host, Sunitha. The voice of Sunitha blended so well with the screen presence of Kamalinee that she went on to win an award for it.
With most of the cast not well-versed in speaking Telugu, Kammula faced challenges in their dialogue delivery. It just happened that most of the cast couldn't speak Telugu. The crew had to face a slight loss of the performance owing to this fact. To overcome this handicap, the dialogues were altered slightly to improve the actors' diction.

Release

Critical acclaim and reviews

Anand had a relatively low-profile release unlike the huge banner releases of the Telugu film industry. It was made with a modest budget of Rs. 15 million. Kammula wasn't sure of the outcome of the film and said "I knew that it would either be a huge hit or a huge flop". It evoked a decent response from the critics. Idlebrain.com gave the film a 3.75/5. The website review goes on to recommend this film to the film-going audiences. On the other hand, IndiaGlitz said that the film was "good, but could have been better". It also figured among the top five grossers in the Telugu film industry for the year 2004. The success of the films in India being measured in the number of days the film has been screened in the theatres, Anand completed 100 days of screening on 28 January 2005. Another website says that the film was realistic in its depiction and goes on to given instances in the film that do happen.

Awards

The film was awarded with 6 Nandi Awards by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh in 2004. The awards that were won are Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Child Artiste and Best Female Dubbing Artist. It was also given the Best Film, Best Male Singer and Best Editing awards by a popular Telugu magazine, Santosham, in 2005. The film was thoroughly applauded for its story and it went on to win the Best Family Story Film and Best New Music Director as an appreciation for the lovely soundtracks from the film. At another prestigious award ceremony by MAA TV, a popular Telugu entertainment television channel, the film won the Best Director, Best Actress Debutant and Best Actress in a Supporting Role awards. Stepping out of the stereotype, according to Kammula, seemed to be the formula for success of the film.

Home media

DVD

The DVD Release is a Special Edition 2 disc pack Released by KAD Entertainment.
Disc 1 contains the theatrical version of the film primarily with subtitles in English, both in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. As an add-on, it also contains the Director's Cut, 35 minutes worth of deleted scenes.
Disc 2 contains a trivia game about the film, the saga of the film, that is, from the film Dollar Dreams where it all began to conceiving Anand, raising of finances for the film, selection of the cast and location, dubbing, choice of the music director, lyricist, cinematographer and choreographer. It also has a brief informational biography about the director, actors, about the choice of the caption, the encountered pre-release blues, the day of release, the best scene from the film, favourite song, memorable moments during the film, the post release scenario and the Director's Cut. It also contains the 100 days celebrations of the film with Dr. Dasari Narayana Rao's congratulatory speech. The film trailers are also included in this disc.
This film possibly is the first Telugu film to be released in a 2-Disc Special Edition DVD that also features the director's cut version of the film. KAD also won the best DVD award for this special edition.

Soundtrack

The film has six songs composed by K.M. Radha Krishnan, and according to one repository of Indian songs, "all the songs but for one assume classical and Carnatic music in it.". All songs were written by Veturi Sundararama Murthy.

Awards

;Nandi Awards
CeremonyCategoryNomineeResult
54th Filmfare Awards SouthBest FilmSekhar Kammula
54th Filmfare Awards SouthBest DirectorSekhar Kammula
54th Filmfare Awards SouthBest Actor – FemaleKamalinee Mukherjee
54th Filmfare Awards SouthBest MusicK. M. Radha Krishnan
54th Filmfare Awards SouthBest Supporting ActressSatya Krishnan
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54th Filmfare Awards South---
54th Filmfare Awards South---
54th Filmfare Awards South---