Rakhta.Charitra.movie.day.

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Rakhta Charitra—Bollywood gangster

– Context: Just like other countries have Yakuza and Triad films, there are gangster movies that portray the “Underworld” in India. The relationship between the real underworld in India and the film industry has been an interesting and a close one: the former put their “black money” in the film industry and then make more profits; the latter is curious about underworld lives and produce more depictions of it as a recurring genre. (ref. No. 2) Notable actors remains a personal relationship with the members of the underworld, even attending their parties; nevertheless, it sometimes has proved to be fatal—some were assassinated. (1) To look at the genre of gangster itself in India, it has gone through several stages. For example, Deewar was a breakthrough in this genre in which altered the set portrayal of “protagonist vs.antagonist” as “good vs. bad” respectively. Today’s movie, Rakhta Charitra, too, also has something special about it.

– Varma and his style: Rakhta Charitra is a gangster movie based on the true story of Paritala Ravindra, who avenged for his father and brother through killing people and then later rose to political power as a cabinet minister in India, but who was later assassinated by his enemies. The director, Varma, has focused on the gangster/crime genre for years. His unique style of genre filmmaking is quite evident in RC which is considered to be quite impressive and innovative among contemporary Bollywood directors: the use of high volume film score, the “shadow play” in cinematography, swift editing, and unconventional camera movements, etc. (3) Also, unlike other Indian directors, he’s not dependent on stars when marketing his films.

– Example: One of his style that stood out for me was his use of high volume(h-v) film score. I feel like that throughout the whole film, my ears almost never got to rest as if I’m listening to a concert. In the scene above[2′-3’30”], Pratap started his vengeance. The music begins quite epically, almost glorifying Pratap as a hero. Then, it gets louder with a short pause in the middle before it becomes more and more dramatic. The score here is loud, exaggerated and really determined which has strongly portrayed Pratap as a powerful male hero doing a justified killing. One can compare the experience watching this h-v scene to having some Indian food(the curry). It is so intense and almost excessive.

– To conclude, Rakhta Charitra is an unconventional gangster movie due to Varma’s use of unique filmmaking techniques; one of which is the high-volume film score that features quite evidently throughout the movie to communicate emotions effectively.

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– One More Thing: One more note, the second part of this movie is about how a guy tries to kill Pratap to avenge his father—quite similar to the old Pratap. So, one lesson, perhaps try to break the cycle of revenge? ↘︎↘︎↘︎↘︎↘︎

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References: 

1. Ronak D. Desai, “Bollywood’s Affair With The Indian Mafia”, Forbes, Published March 3, 2016, <https://www.forbes.com/sites/ronakdesai/2016/03/03/bollywoods-affair-with-the-indian-mafia/#59039de4aa62>.

2. Ranjani Mazumdar, “Gangland Bombay” in Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City, University of Minnesota Press, (2007), <http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttt34b.10>, 150.

3. Vamshi Vemireddy, “Ram Gopal Varma as an Auteur”, Journal of Creative Communications. Vol 6, Issue 1-2, pp.195 – 202, (2013), 200.