TeLuGu HaNgOuT

Movie: Shh...
My Rating: 2.75/5
Banner: Apoorva Chitra
Art: Madhu Rebba
Music: Sri Vasanth
Cinematography: Murali Mohan Reddy
screenplay & Direction: Hari Charan Prasad
Editing: Ravindra Babu
Producer: Hari Charan Prasad & Sukanya
Cast: Shafi, Mithuna, Madhavi Latha, Siva Krishna, Roopa Devi & Rallapalli etc
Release Date: 23rd Jan 2009
Review

Story
A doctor (Shafi) comes to a village along with his family to serve the villagers as a part of his social service activity. When he visits a temple, the priest over there makes him to see things that are not visible for a naked eye. He also gets premonitions that enable him to see the glimpses of future. A ghost contacts him. The rest of the story is all about how the doctor unearths a murder mystery.

Artists Performance:
Shafi is good as the doctor who goes through psychological transformation. Though his Telugu is good, he need to get his pronunciation right with perfect diction. He has a strange style of delivering dialogues. Mithuna is adequate as an understanding wife of Shafi. Madhavi Latha doesn’t have much role to play in the film though her character is pivotal for the film. Rupa Devi who did the role of an occult practicing woman is highly convincing. Siva Krishna and Rallapalli are adequate.

Technical Departments:
Story of the film is good. The story is based on an English novel called ‘Stir of Echoes’ (1958) written by Richard Matheson. This novel was made as Hollywood film with the same title in 1999. Richard Matheson is a celebrated writer who wrote novels which were later adapted into popular films like I am legend, The legend of a hell house etc.
irection is adequate in parts. Narration of the film is slow. Screenplay of the film should have been written in an interesting way. The flashback episode which shows the murder of the girl is not effectively shot. If we carefully look at the threads in the film, all of them possess ingredients of an interesting thriller. But the director could not use all these threads to give a proper ending in the climax. These interesting threads are –

1. Baby girl speaking with the spirit.
2. Hero communicating with spirit.
3. Premonitions and the ability of the hero to foresee the future events.
4. Occult practicing woman following the hero and inviting him to come to her at the time of difficulty.

Our horror/thriller film directors use dimly lit place and darkness to create chilling effects. But the director Hari Charan stayed away from using such tricks and he stuck with the content. Another interesting thing I observed in this film is overt affection between the couple in the film. Husband and wife hold their hands and affectionately touching when they go out. We don’t see such practice in our Telugu commercial films.

Other departments:
Songs scored by Sri Vasanth are good. But songs are not required in this film, especially the hero’s love and wedding song (no relevance to the story). Rerecording and sound mixing is very good. But at times, sound was used excessively. Cinematography is adequate. Editing should have been better. Dialogues are ok.

Final Analysis:
The story idea is good. But the director didn’t adapt it onto the screen properly. A better screenplay and an interesting narration would have helped the movie to reach the crowds effectively. This kind of story has commercial appeal to it, but the director treated it more like an art film.