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Review
Ravichandran's O Nanna Nalle boasts rich production values, but is that enough?
Ravichandran's latest offering can't be faulted on production values. O Nanna Nalle features a rich orchestra, and every note played by the violin ensemble is acoustic and true. Not many can afford such a lavish acoustic orchestra these days. The silken richness brings to mind the scores of Ilaiyaraja in his heyday. But is a lavish orchestra enough?
Ravichandran is himself the music composer, lyricist, dialogue and screenplay writer, and hero of this film. Like Dev Anand, Ravichandran is stuck with a lover boy image from which he has never tried to escape. From Premaloka till his latest film, he is the same hero prancing about and making chauvinistic conquests of women, and preaching in a middle class sort of way, as in Manedevaru, his film with Sudharani. If only he had attempted other themes, he might have grown at least into a showman like, say, Subhash Ghai, if not into an auteur like Kishore Kumar.
Kanasugarana ondu kanasu kelamma echoes Yaare neenu from Ranadhira. Stray lines like Hoove illada loka namage ekamma, naguve illada loka namage ekamma (Why do we need this world if it has no flowers, why do we need this world if it has no laughter) impress, and there is even an attempt at satire in Dudde doddappa, but you realise that Ravichandran is not capable of the sustained wit of Hamsalekha, the music director and lyricist he worked with for over a decade, and whom he has now abandoned. Nor is he a lyricist in the same class as R N Jayagopal.
Rangu rangena has some subtle sax fill-ins. Nothing fresh, but for the rhyming of 'rangu' with 'thati ningu'! The title track O nanna nalle is sung by S P Balasubramanyam on an Arabian beat and with a chorus that sings soft harmonies.
C V Sharada Prasad
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