Aithe released in 2003. For those used to telugu cinema until then, it slapped you right out of your senses and made you sit up and notice. There was a whisper that went around. The indies are here in telugu cinema. Good cinema shall prosper.
Anand came in 2004. The not so indie-indie.then the original master delivered again with Anukokunda Oka Roju. Then came the Heroine centered Godavari in 2007. Gamyam followed in 2008 with Vedum in 2010. The promised indies were far and few with limited success. The commercial movies rolled on. Not a dent on their success or style of making. The formula kept working. The quality of commercial cinema deteriorated but not their collections. No hope or respite in sight.
Post 2012, the smaller films came in more numbers. Success was limited but there were a generation of directors who wanted to make them irrespective of it. Then 2016 happened -Pelli Choopulu & Kshanam. These achieved a rate of success that was unusual for small films. Yes, there was Anand but in hindsight it always felt like a lost child in a playground. PC felt like it belonged to this generation. Kshanam made a statement — If you have a good thriller then no matter the cast, it will be lapped up.
2017 gave us Arjun Reddy, PSV Garuda Vega and The Ghazi Attack. Post these three movies there have been a ton of small movies based on interesting concepts that have found success. Some not so well made movies have been appreciated for their effort but politely told that being an experimental movie is not enough. It still has to be good. Case in point Awe!
The story though is not about these smaller movies that are now finding success. The story is about the regular commercial cinema failing to find success. And that is why this new trend since 2016 truly feels special and makes you beleive we are in for good times.
This year we have already been enriched with Goodachari and C/O Kancherapalam. The movies made by the big heroes have been washed away. Not good enough declared by the audience. The medium budget movies that have “tried” to be different sticking to the same commercial format have also been rejected. Not good enough! This has not happened before. Not so consistently that over 2 3 years several big hero movies have failed continuosly. The one big movie that did find success was Rangasthalam. That many will agree was a well made drama. No formula. That and Baahubali over the past few years have given hope that in the failure of commercial cinema on a regular basis will make it reinvent itself into better storytelling even if it remains true to its masses. The worst phase of bad commercial cinema is probably over. The bad movies are being rejected every friday irrespective of the starcast.
Both can coexist. But only if well made will both feed off each other and give enough space to exist. That did not happen in the 2000s as even bad masala films found success tempting away directors and producers to place safer bets on them rather than take a chance with a new age film. Now the tables have turned. The industry still needs the big hits so the commercial cinema will continue but hopefully with all its rejections in the past two years, it will in a direction dictated by the indies.
