“The good news about computers is that they do what you tell them to do. The bad news is that they do what you tell them to do” Ted Nelson. And that just about sums up a quaint little film on the early days of the internet and computer.
ASHOK’s FIVE reviews #Mail now streaming on the Telugu platform #Aha. Directed by #UdayGurrala and produced by #PriyankaDutt and #SwapnaDutt, this sweet little film caught me by surprise.
First, the thing about Telangana is that this is South India’s best kept secret. Popular Telugu films in the past have generally been centered on Coastal Andhra with a few characters from Telangana thrown in for comic relief. The names, food, culture and dialect of this region has a very distinctive culture of its own and it is absolutely refreshing to see this coming through in the new Telugu movies.
#Mail is set in Kambalapally village in Mahabubabad district in Telangana in the early 2000s. Hybath (Priyadarshi), the owner of a photo shop brings a desktop computer to the village and opens it for people to use and play games. Ravi (#HarshithMalgireddy), a young man is bitten by the bug and will do whatever it takes to learn how to operate it. He enters a deal with Hybath and provides him liquor for time to work to on the machine. He creates his own email id and receives an email which changes his life and those of the people around him.
#Mail is all about Honesty. The setting, the characters and the production design are all perfect. The characters are earthy, real and innocent. Not naive. There is simplicity, honesty and a leisurely pace to the film that takes you back to the nineties. There is also subtle comedy, some excellent acting and really fun dialogues that keep you hooked. Yes you could say that the film is perhaps half an hour too long but then that's the nature of the beast. Unhurried, uncomplicated and unadulterated fun. The climax is neatly done and leaves you chuckling.
The village scenes are depicted beautifully. The parents toil in the fields while the children are either in college or just laze around. The ranks obtained in the examinations determine the respect hierarchy amongst the youth in the village. There is a budding romance at the college as Ravi who aspires to be a software engineer falls in love for Roja (#GauriPriya) who aims to become an athlete. Meanwhile, Ravi’s good-for-nothing friend Subbu (#ManiAegurla) is quick to turn allegiance over when the news of the lottery comes in. And the village loan shark Shivanna (RavinderBommadarla) is quite a character.
It is delightful to see the computer with keyboard, screen, UPS and CPU, a relic of the 2000s. The machine evokes various reactions from the villagers ranging from curiosity to suspicion. Social hierarchy is determined by familiarity with the new technology. #Priyadarshi is a maverick and delightful to watch on screen as he wields new-found power in the village.
#Mail does not go into serious territory. There are no lessons in how the internet can corrupt or beguile the unsuspecting. It is a pure and simple throwback to the times when the computer just did what you told it to. And the problems arose because it did precisely that!
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