Review of movie C/o Kancharapalem

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Rating:4/5


It’s a noisy-little suburb in a big town, a close knit community that stands by each other in the time of need, united by their love for art. Trains pass between two parallel colonies through the day, everyone has an opinion on almost everything that surrounds them- a lot about Kancharapalem is heartwarmingly simple, ordinary and most importantly identifiable. It’s rare for a film to do a commentary on religion, stature, age and love while never stating the obvious, C/O Kancharapalem shows more than it tells and you want to pick up a piece of the place as you leave the film.

In a unique Habib Tanvir-like filmmaking experiment where the director Venkatesh Maha predominantly uses local residents as artists for a project, staying with them and telling their story to a wider audience, C/O Kancharapalem may seem another artsy-indie film on paper. However it’s the sincerity, the ability to look at the beauty behind their ordinariness that leaves behind an impact. A manager insisting that an attender sit by her side during lunch as a statement of equality, the suspicion in the community about a man’s sexuality for remaining unmarried at 49, a boy’s belief that his God has been instrumental in getting him acquainted with his lady love, these are the stories that we hear.

Anthologies aren’t alien to Telugu films-the more recent ones being Chandamama Kathalu and Vedam, yet the seamlessness with which its four sub-plots are tied up springs a surprise, that also remains the only quintessential twist in conventional-film terms. The first obvious takeaway from the film is the filmmaker’s idea of age, how your belief system changes with setbacks.