Balagam (Prime Video)
Cast- Kavya Kalyanram, Sudhakar Reddy, Kota Jayaram , Kommu Sujatha, Muralidhar Goud, Priyadarshi
Rating: ** ½
A death in the family triggers off a chain of reactions, some genuine , largely artificial. Writer-director Venu Yeldandi tries to capture all the humour and hysteria ,all the bickering and the playacting that are unleashed keeping in mind the solemnity of the occasion.
The trouble is , the mood of exacerbated emotions, floods into the narration so torrentially it is hard to tell which of the two is more hysterical: the characters or the way they are projected into the tragic circumstance .
Everyone is hamming. So is that the chosen mood of the characters? Or are these simply bad actors giving bad performances making the characters look more melodramatic than they are meant to be?
The shrieking and breastbeating are enjoyable for a while. But then the theatrics refuse to go anywhere. The interweaving of the characters’ bereavement,fake or otherwise, lacks any shred of grace.It is essentially a free for all, and fun only if you are a fan of the Ramprasad Ki Tervi brand of ghoulish humour.
Sadly, the death-related jokes in Balagam are more foolish than ghoulish, more madcap than sensitive. The writer-director is convinced that one death can set off a chain of events and that one person’s death is an occasion for the family to lose all self- control and squabble dramatically.A daughter-in-law brings up her husband’s share of the family property. But in time at all,she is sobbing in repentance .
When the raunchy grandfather Komurayya(Sudhakar Reddy) dies suddenly, he leaves behind a family of belligerent relatives. The only one who exercises remarkable selfcontrol in the midst of the loud melodrama is Komurayya’s son Ailayaa(Jairam). This is the only performance that shows any restraint. Every other actors pulls out all stops, drenching the drama in a torrent of theatrics.
The deadman’s grandson Sailu(Priyadarshi) is grieving more about his interrupted marriage than his grandfather. Towards the end, his priorities change. Sailu suddenly becomes the weeping warrior . The family shrieks,weeps, shrieks some more. There is no element of a deeper understanding of tragedy and bereavement beyond the surface squabbles and bickering.
Finally it is up to a sulking crow which flies overhead in sullen protest, to put an end to this family’s wailing woes. Balagam tries hard to be funny about bereavement. But the thing about family tragedies is that they are amusing only to the outsider. In this case ,even objective bereavement is a far cry.
