Olave Jeevana Lekkachara directed by writer and film director Nagathihalli Chandrashekhar exposes the duplicity of pseudo intellectuals and sends a warning to gullible youngsters who spoil their life on account of intellectual discourse and indoctrination.
Nagathihalli has based his Kannada film on a story he'd written two decades ago which created some controversy at the time of its publication.
The story goes like this: Balu alias Balachandra goes to Hallikote for his college studies. Once there, he is heavily influenced by a pseudo revolutionary lecturer who misguides his students with his half baked theories on almost every isms in this world.
Balu, who is in love with a girl Rukmini, cheats her on the advice of his lecturer. He runs away after robbing her of her ornaments and money. Later on, with the help of a committed lady lecturer, he is reformed. He finds out that the intellectual lecturer he so revered is a big fraud and he repents.
Nagathihalli has focused mainly on how the lives of unconnected people will be affected through the games played by so called intellectuals in the society. But his attempts to blend the film with commercial elements have certainly not given good results as in his previous films like Amrutha Dhaare and America America. In that way OLJ proves to be a mixed bag. Quite dry in the first half, but engaging and thought provoking in the second.
Hats off to Nagathihalli for selecting the right artists -- Kitty, Radhika Pandit and Rangayana Raghu -- who make a powerful impact with their performaces. Nagathihalli shows his brilliance as a writer with some crisp dialogues like "Karl Marx and Krishna are cousins" and 'You were talking about revolution earlier, but now you are vomiting spirituality'. And he has written some good sequences to expose the split personality of the revolutionaries too. The repentance of the hero in the second half in several stages also makes a good impact.
However the negative point of the film is that the film starts off by sounding too preachy in the first half. So many sequences in the first half, particularly the college sequences, are very weak. And misplacement of songs is also another weak point though Mano Murthy's two song compositions stand out. Nanna Preethiya Geleya and the first Rail song are well shot. Krishna Kumar's camera work perfectly suits the mood of the film.
Overall, Olave Jeevana Lekkachara is a must watch.
Rediff Rating: