July 10, 2012 Y. Sunitha Chowdhary
It's party time for director Sunil Kumar Reddy, his film Oka Romantic Crime Katha is a hit and it's raining money in all the single screen theatres in the State but there is a glint of sadness in his eyes; The critics have slammed his film as raw and violent.
He is puzzled by the hypocrisy, "On one hand we talk about free society and communication and on the other hand when you are telling a girl to think why her boyfriend wants her in his room it is a crime. We don't mind watching heroes holding designer axes and the heroines smooching them but when a youth kills a person out of social frustration, with a boulder to cover up his crime it is shocking. He killed with what was available within the vicinity, he had his own wrong reasoning.
An educated criminal is more dangerous than an uneducated one, white-collared crimes have gone up because the knowledge is misused, it's the parents responsibility to channelise it but the biggest tragedy here is to ignore the issue altogether. Aren't we reading of rave parties everyday, parents are shocked that it is their child involved.
I want the parents to do the cross checking and don't want such things to happen. I could have but didn't glorify the love making scenes. Everyone talks about the sensual element but not the other side of the coin, the painful element."
Ask him why his award-winning and critically-acclaimed films didn't have an audience he explains, "This movie is closer to their age and reflects their emotions. Sontha Vooru and Gangaputrulu are equally honest films like this but it dealt with economic issues and the implications were far. I could have made this film far more hard-hitting but was conscious that my mother and sister would watch it. Fifty seven lakh illegal abortions happening in our country every year and we can't afford to trivialise it."
Why is the film working only in single screens and not multiplexes he attributes it to a middle class phenomenon and the urge to cover up their guilt in a closed atmosphere. The director has promised himself that this time it will be technically better as he has covered all the losses he incurred from his previous films.
