Anand (2004 film)

Anand
Directed by	Sekhar Kammula
Written by	Sekhar Kammula
Starring	Raja Kamalinee Mukherjee Satya Krishnan Anish Kuruvilla
Music by	K. M. Radha Krishnan
Cinematography	Vijay C Kumar
Editing by	Marthand K. Venkatesh
Studio	Amigos Creations & NFDC
Distributed by	Amigos Creations
Release date(s)	15 October 2004 (2004-10-15)
Running time	180 minutes
Country	India
Language	Telugu
Budget	1.5 crore (US$330,000)

Anand (Telugu: ఆనంద్  pronunciation ) is a 2004 Telugu film that was directed, produced and written by Sekhar Kammula. According to Kammula, the film means ..contentment, happiness. The lead roles are played by Raja and Kamalinee Mukherjee. The film was well received by critics and owing to its success at the box office, it was remade in Tamil as Ninaithale. The film's basic story was also chosen as the subject for Sekhar Kammula's thesis screenplay which was as a part of a requirement for his successful completion of his Masters in Fine Arts at Howard University.

The film begins with the death of the family of a young girl as a result of a character's drunken driving. The film sketches the path of the young girl growing up into a woman who lives her life independently and with self-esteem. The protagonist enters the woman's life and how they fall in love with each other forms the rest of the story.

The film went on to win the Nandi Awards among several other prominent awards. If the award-winning Dollar Dreams (2000) set the tone, then Anand introduced the legacy of successful films made with simple stories. A noteworthy mention is of the film's soundtrack which was well appreciated for its soft melodies.

Plot

The film is essentially the story of a girl Roopa (Kamalini Mukherjee). She begins her day with classical music lessons for kids in her neighborhood followed by her day job in an ad-agency.

Roopa is no ordinary girl, with an ordinary life. She has had to grow up the hard way. She looses her parents in a tragic accident and from then on has had to fend for things herself. She is a true woman of today. A survivor.

The story begins where most end. Roopa is about to get married to her colleague in the ad-agency, Rahul, a rich marwari. Her close friend Anitha (Satya Krishna) worries that Roopa will have to compromise on her freedom after her marriage into the orthodox north indian family. Her worries come true on the day of marriage itself when Roopa’s to be mother-in-law makes a big deal about a trivial issue and Rahul doesn’t show enough courage to support Roopa. Roopa then realizes she will have to lose her individuality if she marries Rahul and takes a painful decision to call off the marriage.

Into her life moves Anand.

Anand is the son of an industrialist and its his father who is responsible for the accident that kills Roopa’s parents. His father, consumed by guilt, becomes mentally handicapped. Anand brings his father to Roopa’s wedding without her knowledge and witnesses the events that lead to the marriage being called off. When he see’s Roopa, he sees in his mind the idea of a perfect woman. He’s done the rounds of seeing women that his mom wants him to marry, and is pretty disillusioned about the whole idea. He decides that Roopa is the woman for him. Anand leaves his studies in the US and decides to move into a room next to Roopa’s house.

Their relationship thereon. Their first communication. Their first fight. Their first re-conciliation. Their eventual friendship.

The attempt of the film was to juxtapose the very simple things in life one yearns for, like a beautiful early morning, a cool evening breeze, a chilly moon lit night or a beautiful rainy day, while sitting at your porch and relishing a hot cup of good coffee.

Anand is a film which is littered with such warm, cosy moments. Moments that we tend to miss out on in this rush hour age.

Cast

• Raja as Anand. A next door guy who represents the innocence of love and how he goes about marrying his love.
• Kamalinee Mukherjee as Rupa. The love interest for Anand. The character showcases the independent Indian woman with self-esteem.
• Satya Krishnan as Anita. Plays the friend of Rupa first and then Anand. A very cool woman with funny overtones.
• Anish Kuruvilla as Anand's cousin. Always to Anand's rescue whenever Anand is dejected or in need.
• Anuj Gurwara as Rahul. Initially plays the fiancé of Rupa and pursues her even after their engagement is called off.
• Bakhita Francis as Samatha. Naughty little girl who loves to eat toothpaste. At her angry best when she sees Srikanth.

Production

Financing

After Sekhar Kammula's first venture, Dollar Dreams (2000), he began meeting producers with his stories. When he initially told them a story, they felt that it was too simple. Then, he began giving them a bound script of Anand. Unfortunately, none came forward to produce it. Upon someone's suggestion, Kammula approached National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) and they came forward to fund a part of the project. This set a precedent because it was the first time that NFDC entered into commercial Telugu cinema.

Anish Kuruvilla, who played Anand's cousin in the film, was the executive producer for the film and Kammula's following film, Godavari (2006).

Casting and locations

Kammula preferred actors who suit the roles than writing characters for established actors. Hence, the choice of the cast were non-established actors. The search process lasted 3 months. The casting for Raja was simple. Kammula wanted someone without melodrama in acting and it just came as a plus when Raja appreciated Kammula's directorial abilities. The choice for an actress made Kammula visit Mumbai and Bangalore, but he could not get the appropriate one. On knowing about Kamalinee Mukherjee, he subjected her to a screen test. After the test, he selected her as the actress in the lead role. The choice of location was first thought as Ramoji Film City and Nanakramguda in Hyderabad. So, these thoughts were quashed because the need was for a suitably big house and an outhouse situated adjacent to it. Since Kammula stayed in Padmarao Nagar, a prominent locality in Hyderabad, a location there made it all the more accessible for him.

Miscellaneous

Kammula's primary inspiration came from the Indian middle class. He was of the thought that this section of people were wrongly represented in films. He wanted to represent them appropriately and this was achieved with Anand.

Kammula sat with Veturi for writing songs for the film. Kammula said that he could see thousands of expressions expressed as a couple of words in lyrics. Eventually, they ended up with six beautiful songs penned by Veturi. For Anand, Veturi took a month to come up with the lyrics as against his usual penchant of coming up with lyrics spontaneously.

Being a Bengali, there was a need for someone to dub Kamalinee Mukherjee's voice for the film. This was provided by a well-known singer and television host, Sunitha. The voice of Sunitha blended so well with the screen presence of Kamalinee that she went on to win an award for it.

With most of the cast not well-versed in speaking Telugu, Kammula faced challenges in their dialogue delivery. It just happened that most of the cast couldn't speak Telugu. The crew had to face a slight loss of the performance owing to this fact. To overcome this handicap, the dialogues were altered slightly to improve the actors' diction.

Release

Critical acclaim and reviews

Anand had a relatively low-profile release unlike the huge banner releases of the Telugu film industry. Made with a modest budget of Rs. 15 million, Anand was a refreshing film of its time. Kammula wasn't sure of the outcome of the film and said "I knew that it would either be a huge hit or a huge flop". It evoked a decent response from the critics. Idlebrain.com, a popular entertainment website for the Indian audiences gave the film a 3.75/5. The website review goes on to recommend this film to the film-going audiences. On the other hand, IndiaGlitz, another popular film portal, said that the film was "good, but could have been better". However, ample praise has been poured into Kammula's abilities. The film released on the same day as Shankar Dada MBBS released. Both these films went on to become box-office successes. Even though latter was a low budget film as compared to the former, Anand managed to give the producers of Shankar Dada MBBS a run for their money by drawing more crowds. It also figured among the top five grossers in the Telugu film industry for the year 2004. The success of the films in India being measured in the number of days the film has been screened in the theaters, Anand completed one such milestone. It completed 100 days of screening on 28 January 2005. Another website says that the film was realistic in its depiction and goes on to given instances in the film that do happen (unlike some of the fictitious and dreamy Indian films).

Awards

The film was awarded with 6 Nandi Awards by the State Government of Andhra Pradesh in 2004. The awards that were won are Best Film (Silver Nandi), Best Director, Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Satya Krishnan), Best Child Artiste (Bakhita) and Best Female Dubbing Artist (Sunitha). It was also given the Best Film, Best Male Singer and Best Editing awards by a popular Telugu magazine, Santosham, in 2005. The film was thoroughly applauded for its story and it went on to win the Best Family Story Film and Best New Music Director as an appreciation for the lovely soundtracks from the film. At another prestigious award ceremony by MAA TV, a popular Telugu entertainment television channel, the film won the Best Director, Best Actress Debutant and Best Actress in a Supporting Role awards. Stepping out of the stereotype, according to Kammula, seemed to be the formula for success of the film.

Home media

DVD

The DVD Release is a Special Edition 2 disc pack Released by KAD Entertainment.

Disc 1 contains the theatrical version of the film primarily with subtitles in English, both in Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS. As an add-on, it also contains the Director's Cut, 35 minutes worth of deleted scenes. KAD

Disc 2 contains a trivia game about the film, the saga of the film, that is, from the film Dollar Dreams where it all began to conceiving Anand, raising of finances for the film, selection of the cast and location, dubbing, choice of the music director, lyricist, cinematographer and choreographer. It also has a brief informational biography about the director, actors, about the choice of the caption, the encountered pre-release blues, the day of release, the best scene from the film, favorite song, memorable moments during the film, the post release scenario and the Director's Cut. It also contains the 100 days celebrations of the film with Dr. Dasari Narayana Rao's congratulatory speech. The film trailers are also included in this disc.

This film possibly is the first Telugu film to be released in a 2-Disc Special Edition DVD that also features the director's cut version of the film. KAD also won the best DVD award for this special edition.^{[citation needed]}

Soundtrack

The film has six songs composed by K.M. Radha Krishnan, and according to one repository of Indian songs, "all the songs but for one assume classical and Carnatic music in it."

No.	Title	Singer(s)	Length
1.	"Vachhe Vachhe"	Shreya Ghoshal	4:37
2.	"Yamunatheeram"	Hariharan, K.S.Chithra	4:10
3.	"Nuvvena Naa Nuvvena"	Shreya Ghoshal	4:54
4.	"Charumati I Love You"	Lucky Ali	4:09
5.	"Telisi Telisi"	Shreya Ghoshal	4:28
6.	"Yedalo Ganam"	Hariharan	4:55

Awards

Nandi Awards

• Best Film (Silver Nandi) - Sekhar Kammula
• Best Director - Sekhar Kammula
• Best Actress in a Leading Role - Kamalinee Mukherjee
• Best Actress in a Supporting Role - Satya Krishnan
• Best Child Artiste - Bakhita
• Best Female Dubbing Artist - Sunitha Upadrashta

External links

• Anand at the Internet Movie Database
• Anand - Amigos Creations