Reputed small screen host Suma Kanakala returned to the silver screen with a film titled, Jayamma Panchayathi. Directed by Vijay Kumar Kalivarapu, the film had a theatrical release today. Let’s see how it fares.
Story:
Jayamma Panchayathi revolves around the life story of a lady named Jayamma ( Suma Kanakala) from a rural area in the Srikakulam district in Andhra Pradesh. Hailing from a middle-class family, Jayamma will be in neck-deep financial hurdles. What will she do to overcome the family related problems? How will the village panchayat play a key role in solving Jayamma’s problems? To know that, you have to watch the film in the theatres near you.
Performances:
Though Suma Kanakala is away from the silver screen for more than two decades, she still managed to impress with her performance. Her terrific screen presence adds realistic texture to the screen. Not only in aggressive scenes but also Suma impresses big-time in emotional episodes.
Her comic dialogues in typical Srikakulam slang bring authentic flavour to many scenes. In one word, Suma did whatever she can do for the film with her performance.
Director turned actor Devi Prasad gets a meaty role and did his part convincingly. Other supporting and new artists who are seen in key roles as villagers are okay with their performances.
Technicalities:
MM Keeravani’s music is good but that great. While all his songs are situational and passable on screen, the background for a couple of scenes registers well.
The cinematography by Anush Kumar is nice as he tried to capture the village atmosphere nicely through his lens and lighting setup. While the editing work by Ravi Teja Girijala is okay, production values by Balaga Prakash’s banner are good for this limited budget movie.
Analysis:
Vijay Kumar Kalivarapu directs Jayamma Panchayathi. While the director’s thought of making a rural drama based on Jayamma character is good, his narration is not up to the mark. Firstly, he has chosen a thin storyline that revolves around the family problems of Jayamma and tried the proceedings on slow formate.
Instead of focusing more on Jayamma’s problems, the director would have worked on writing multiple sub-plots and interlinking them with the main them with some comedy coated narration. Sadly, Vijay Kumar ignored this aspect due to which more of the film looks like a single point stretched narrative.
To summerize, Jayamma Panchayathi is a rural drama that has a few fun and emotional episodes in both halves. While Suma Kanakala just lived in the character, the unengaging screenplay and presentation stand tall as demerits.
Verdict: Suma shines!
Rating: 2/5
