Review of the film Hola Venky!
Hola Venky!
What are a Spanish greeting and an Indian chicken fast-food brand name doing together in a film title?
Why was it titled ‘Hola Benky’ earlier?
So, what is the film all about?
In 2013, could a feature film really have been made on a budget of Rs. 10 lakh (1 million)/$16,000?
Who is the writer-director, Sandeep Mohan?
Lead actors Roger Narayan and Sonia Balcazar….what is their background? Who are the supporting actors?
Is it worth watching?
BTW: Where does Mariachi music come from and what is the story of Besame Mucho?
Read on, for an unconventional ‘review’ of an unconventional film.
What are a Spanish greeting and an Indian chicken fast-food brand name doing together in a film title?
An Indian techie called Venkatesh, a popular name among south Indians that usually gets abbreviated to Venky, goes to San Francisco on a training programme, and gets involved with a Mexican private detective. (It is a mere co-incidence that there happens to be a company that operates in India calling itself Venky’s, and selling various chicken products, including fast-food).
Why was it titled ‘Hola Benky!’ earlier?
The Mexican girl and her Mariachi-singing father keep pronouncing Venky as Benky. Some people in India make the same error, and pronounce V as B. In the film, the joke is carried too far, and maybe someone prevailed upon the director to play it down in the title at least.
So, what is the film all about?
- Head, groin and legs.
- Flower meditation (lying down, placing a jasmine flower on the penis and closing your eyes; dressed, of-course).
- Male desire for too much sex. Female desire for limited sex and of using it as a tool for mother-hood.
- Mariachi music. Besame mucho.
- Americans unable to spell ‘India’.
- Mexicans who argue that they are the real Indians, and want to know why Indian Indians have too many gods.
- Chinese girls who can bite of a penis when drunk, and/or provoked.
- Insider jokes about Tamilians, living in Matunga (in central-east Mumbai), an area that is synonymous with migrants from the south of India, mainly TamilNadu. The area extends to Sion and Chembur.
- Obscene parodies of popular Hindi film songs.
- Analysis of ejaculation by a female expert.
- A fat man who is about to become a father repeatedly referring to his wife's pregnancy as his own.
- A personified and hereditary baby-stroller (pram) that is part of a family's treasure.
In 2013, can a feature film really be made on a budget of Rs. 10 lakh (1 million)/$16,000?
If you believe Sandeep Mohan, it is easy. He claims to have used a crew of three, including himself, got most persons to work free and shot the film in 22 days, in guerilla style, paying nothing for the locations either. This is all the more amazing when you consider the fact that his first film Love, Wrinkle-Free (2012) was made at a budget that was more than five times this amount, and that that he began his career assisting lavish film-maker Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Rs. 10 lakh is the production cost. Post-production expenses were met by crowd-funding, through the website 'indiegogo'.
Who is the director, Sandeep Mohan?
A lanky Indian, approaching 40, who talks twenty-to-the-dozen. A former copywriter, short-film and music video-maker, who employs incomplete, groping phrases and conveys the image of being egotistic and modest in equal measure.
Quotes:
- “I am happy telling my kind of stories without a compromise.
- David Ogilvy (the advertising legend) said that Rules are for fools. Learn the rules and throw it out of the window! I don’t know whether I am conventional or unconventional, but this is the way I am.
- Some of my favourite directors are Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Alexander Payne and Jim Jarmusch.
- After the horrible experience of Love, Wrinkle-Free, which was ultimately given an Adults Only certificate, I do not want to go through censorship in India, so I will not release Hola Venky! in cinema halls. I will carry a projector and a Blu Ray copy of my films and screen it wherever I can. Audiences can pay what they want, if they want, into a collection box. We have almost recovered the cost of the film. Soon, we will be in the black.
- I could have got a sponsor and given credit in the beginning of the film, to meet my costs, but I would rather make it this way.
- Hola Venky! was written with real-life characters around me, mostly techie friends of my producer Giju John. It took one-year, and drained me out. I need a break from writing, and do not want to start anything immediately”.
Lead actors Roger Narayan and Sonia Balcazar….what is their background?
Roger Narayan's credits include Mission Impossible 4, Eat Pray Love, Happy Feet 2, Flawless, Quest of Alchemy, Caught on Tape, A-List, Guardian's Gateway and Touchwood. Roger won the title ‘Mr.India California’, was invited to India and was a regional finalist in the Bollywood Starsearch ‘Grasim (a suiting brand) Mr.India’. He is also the face of Microsoft's Cloud Technology campaign in India. In addition to his acting training, Roger holds two advanced engineering degrees, from the University of Maryland, and BITS Pilani, India. An avid aircraft pilot, he is fluent in four languages, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and Sanskrit. (He could pass-off as a younger Gulshan Grover--the veteran Indian actor known for his villain roles, or a sibling of Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni).
Sonia Balcazar is a B.S. Business Administration, Marketing Management, Cal Poly State University. She was trained at the Shelton Theatre. Her skills include Salsa, Hip-Hop, Club/Freestyle, Disco, Belly-dancing, Samba, Yoga, Jogging, Running, Biking, Hiking, Swimming, Kick-boxing. You might have seen her in GhostCorp, Rice, Guardian Satellite, Blackout ,We Were Once and Trapped Within.
Papiha Nandy, who runs an Asian radio and television network in San Francisico, plays the Indian woman who is to send the stroller through Venky, and Alka Sharma (I presume, since no amount of search could help get any info on her) is cast as Venky's confused fiancee, back in Mumbai. Bald Indian model-actor Ashwin Mushran has one scene, as the psychiatrist. Again guessing, the Chinese video-editor must be Mia Tang (all web searches only point to a certain porn-star by that name). Producer Giju John plays a part too.
All have performed well, without being sensational.
Is it worth watching?
Hola Venky! is a masala (tested spicy formula) film that redefines masala itself. It is the kind of film that makes you admire the sheer bravado of the writer-director. If you find yourself resonating with the screenplay, which on occasion appears to be a drug trip while on others, comes across as really serious writing, you are likely to be more than impressed. There are quite a few laughs along the way. Irreverence and unpredictability are the stuff that the script is made of. While appearing to address issues of male sexuality, it makes an irreverent dig at everything along the way. It also toys with you--suggesting a homosexual encounter in what turns out to be a drug thing; preparing the ground for a two-some and three-some sexual encounters that are anything but, etc. However, if you distance yourself as a critic, loop-holes loom large. Sure, it is an independent film made on a no-string budget, but at the end of it all, it has to stand-up against all contemporary cinema and find a place of its own. Here, it just about fails to make the cut.
A note on Mariachi music and Besame Mucho
Mariachi means a certain repertoire of music, a special grouping of instruments, and a distinctive style of singing, that create an unmistakable, unique sound. It has special meaning for many Mexican Americans as an emblem of their cultural heritage and a source of pride and community connections. The sound of its string instruments and its oldest rhythms are rooted in Mexico's colonial times (1519-1810).
Besame Mucho, meaning ‘kiss me a lot’, was originally written by Consuelo Velázquez in 1940. It was translated into English by Sunny Skylar and became quite popular in the 40s and 50s. Later, it was recorded by the Beatles, with Paul McCartney on the vocals and bass, for their 1962 EMI/Decca audition. The group recorded Besame Mucho once more, in 1969, along with two Buddy Holly songs: Not Fade Away and Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues.
Besame Mucho was included in the Let It Be film. Somehow, it was never released until 1995.
The words go:
‘Cha-cha boom!
Besame, besame mucho
Each time I bring you a kiss
I hear music divine…’
