Republic of Akhanda: Where fiction gets real!
In early 2021 I wrote a blogpost called “The Age of Bhakti” . The summary or core theme of the post was this: When society and its institutions fail...we have no other option but to depend on the divine. The recent Telugu blockbuster ‘Akhanda’ is a manifestation of the same concept in an over-the-top commercial format. Most movies operate in the first part of the summary I shared — where society’s institutions fail and a do-gooder hero who is usually above the law of the land comes in to fix things. In the process our heroes even break the laws of physics as if it is their birthright, and we accept it without questioning or wondering how such things are possible. The whole act of watching movies is a process of suspension of disbelief. The legendary actor Balakrishna is known to do these gravity and logic defying acts in the most convincing manner and his two previous collaborations with the director Boyapati Srinu have been huge blockbusters at the box offic...