One major complaint of Indian cinema recently is how whimsical and fantastical we’ve made romance out to be. From the age of Alaipayuthey and Nuvvosthanante Nenodantana, the very essence of romance has been watered down, by scale or by purpose. Often inserted as a commercial viability, the romance we are used to watching is either brimmed to the top with songs and convenient feelings sproutings or filled with intimacy gatherings that don’t have any significance to the plot, but are just used to titillate the B and C center audiences. Films like Ala Vaikunthapurramlo have made entire romantic tracks out of the protagonist creepily gazing on legs, while movies galore have made stalking seem cute and a natural process of love. Using romance as a facilitator in the commercial space is not wrong, but the way it has been showcased, especially in mainstream cinema after COVID, is turning into something very poor. Romance, as a genre, has been underutilized in Indian cinema, but more so, has been misunderstood by new age filmmakers. For this generation, the purity of Mouna Ragam or the happiness of Chandni cannot be experienced, replaced by item songs and problematic sequences. Very few filmmakers are left to have the ability to subtly showcase love and intimacy to create stirring tales.
That’s not saying love hasn’t been showcased well here; movies like Malli Raava take the concept of love and create an elaborate journey meant to tug at the heart strings, while films like Jab We Met and Raanjhanaa use the commercialities they’re dealt with to create tales we can all empathize with. Movies like Sita Ramam help us feel hope at the concept of romance. But few movies remain with the ability to truly create heartbreak and help us feel the romance, feel the intimacy, through the simplest of actions and subtleties. The first one that comes to mind is 96. Few directors have the ability to showcase the purity that unfolds love, as it transcends boundaries that are physical and mental, often requiring enormous tragedy. The first one that comes to mind is Mani Ratnam. Both very important aspects, but both just the tip of the surface of what romance truly is. Showcasing romance as it is, a pained love tale, a saga of sacrifice and suffering, is almost impossible to execute.
And yet, since September 1, 2023, when I walked into a Cinemark and sat myself down with a bucket of popcorn, the only movie that makes me stir at the thought of romance is Sapta Saagaradache Ello: Side A. The movie has lingered on my brain, the frames make my heart wilt in pain, the music uplifts me and destructs me, the acting leaves me in tears. The best part? There’s a part two. And with Part 2, Sapta Saagaradache Ello: Side B, releasing in theaters tomorrow. I thought it would be quite the moment to revisit the first one and its brilliance.
Before we break it down, a quick plot summary. Manu (Rakshit Shetty) and Priya (Rukmini Vasanth) are a couple, with Manu being a driver and Priya being a singer. Manu, who wants to get out of his poverty, accepts to take the blame for his boss’s son in a road accident where he killed someone, and goes to jail without Priya’s knowledge. The journey of the couple, while Manu languishes in jail and Priya languishes outside, the people they meet, good and bad, and what happens forms the rest of the story. If you want a no-spoiler talk, stop here, watch the movie, and come back, because a spoiler-filled discussion will follow. I strongly suggest you to watch the movie before reading this.
Right from the get go, the opening credits sequence is one where Charan Raj and the director Hemanth Rao are on absolute song. Hemanth Rao synthesizes the joining of threads to fill up a tapestry of some sorts, something that reoccurs, while Charan Raj crafts his masterpiece “Sapta Saagaradache Ello”, a musical journey in itself that hits all the notes of heartbreak, romance, hope, beautifully crooned by Kapil Kapilan. Dhananjay Ranjan’s soulful lyrics, Sapta sagaradaache ello naa
ninna seruva aa seyalla naa (somewhere beyond the seven seas, I am not the ones that belongs to you), while Hemanth Rao visually sparks together threads together to give us a glimmer of the story.
The translation of Sapta Saagaradache Ello is, word by word, Somewhere Beyond the Seven Seas, and true to its title, director Hemanth M Rao, who is the captain of this beautiful but sinking ship, applies a metaphor to the sea within the first 15 minutes of the movie. A serenade of peace, as Priya views it as, something where her life reaches a state of nirvana. As the movie showcases, her father, when they move away from the sea, gives her a conch, stating that “even though its so far away from the sea, it will always be with you”. In a way, this line perfectly resembles why we hold onto a hope throughout the movie. Manu is Priya’s sea, and Manu is Priya’s peace. So even when he is separated from her, she holds onto their love- the conch symbolically- as the thread that holds their relationship together, as the thread that holds HER and her peace together. Somewhere Beyond the Seven Seas, there is an ending to this, but to reach that, Manu and Priya have to cross the seven seas; a sea that holds them at peace, but wrecks them and their lives as well, something Rao beautifully unravels throughout his writing. By setting up this motif, he keeps reverbrating the pain of separation but the power of hope. Love, separation, hope; three very important themes.
On the surface, Rao sets up the story akin plenty of love stories we have seen before, but with a key difference; the couple is HAPPY in their medium, but there’s something that we know is about to collapse. I emphasize happy, because the setting has been often associated with turmoil, but Rao keeps the movie chirpy and even fashions many scenes with a very cute tone to them. “Slow down!”, Priya yells as Manu goes through a car at a very fast speed (clever teasing of what’s to come), and they get down to have a conversation; confrontational in word but filled with care. Manu is a driver under Shankar Gowda (Avinash), aspiring to grow even further and take good care of Priya, but Priya, an aspiring singer, doesn’t need any of this; she needs just him. Manu wants to give Priya the world, but for Priya, Manu is the world. Their conversation with the radio, drawing clear parallels to their own relationship, is heart-warming as we see the stability and the purity of this couple. “Katte”, Priya calls Manu playfully, and even as Rao showcases the poverty of Manu, their love always remains so….blissful. We find ourselves rooting so much for Manu and Priya within the first 10 minutes.
And yet, as said, there’s a glimmer of something that’s about to go wrong. Manu’s situation aside, the song Kadalanu holds back Priya with a tinge of sadness, a note of melancholy and impending sadness. Rao gives us hope, but prepares us; a masterstroke of playing with emotions for the inexplicable journey about to come.
Rao establishes his setting, characters and location, precisely as well. Priya’s mother (Pavitra Lokesh) cannot really understand her daughter’s love for Manu, chiding her search for a house with him, but inherently trusts her daughter, showcased by subtle dialogue. Manu’s direct supervisor, Prabhu (Achyuth Kumar), acts as his mentor, advising him and taking on almost a fatherly role. Manu and Priya continue to look for a home, used as a vehicle as we root even further for the leads. Priya (or Putti as Manu calls) likes the blue walls. Manu chides Priya on how to eat a veggie puff. They find their house. With chirpy dialogue and incredible naturality from the leads, we as the audience are sold. When they talk about their future and imagine their ideal life, we wish for that to happen so much.
All precise, all calculated. The staging and every single element just sets up Rao, as I like to say colloquially, knows how to play kabaddi with the public.
And in a second, or a second it feels like, all of that is gone. As Shankar Gowda and his family scrambles to get their son out of the car accident caused, the audience knows which way this is going to go. Rao doesn’t pretend to create a big twist either. Simplicity and focus to the point. The only difference? The details. By now, we empathize with Manu, to the point where Prabhu suggests Manu’s name to take the blame and promises him rich rewards, we are slowly convinced too. Rao focuses on the details. The dialogue pushes for Manu’s ideal life. Advaith Gurumurthy’s cinematography zooms in on the conch. Charan Raj’s notes mix hope and sadness. Manu and Priya inagurate their blue house, in each others arms, but financially, Rao keeps reminding us of Manu’s financial state. Rakshit Shetty is incredible, vulnerable, as he looks into the distance with tears in his eyes. Rao simmers in the sadness. We as an audience cannot take it. Somewhere inside, there’s a voice: do it, do it.
And so…Manu does it. And as an audience, we’re happy. Ok, Manu has taken a sacrifice. Now he just needs to hold it out, and they will be together right?
Wrong.
Rao takes our assumptions, and collapses them in a flash. Right when Manu tells Priya, trying to convince her (this is for our future Putti!), as Putti breaks down, all in the middle of a train station to emphasize naturality and chaos. She keeps emphasizing to him that she already has what she needs, and as Manu tries to convince her that they need more, you realize that its MANU that needs more. Manu wants the luxury. Manu wants this life of golden roses. Call it the well-meaning, yet fatal flaw. In his quest for better, he’s acted in haste. And as he leaves to turn himself in, at that point as an audience Rao lets us know that, there may not be light at the end of the tunnel.
The couple’s anguish starts at this point, with the technicalities jumping to drill this point in. Rao’s writing and direction screams anguish. Manu is literally locked up, Priya locks herself up in her room, refusing to eat despite her mother’s cries. Sunil Bharadwaj and Hemanth Rao (what can this man not do)’s editing goes back and forth to show both the leads in their own imprisonment. Charan Raj cements in incredibly heartbreaking music.
But there’s still hope, as Manu and Priya lift and twist their fingers, a memento of their love from the beginning. There’s still hope. Hope meets heartbreak.
The jail is the visual and, on paper, turning point of the story. Rakshit Shetty’s incredible acting and Rao’s writing takes us through each step of the process, with this disbelief that this is where they actually are. The cinematography showcases jail as brutally and rustically as never before; as a Twitter user commented, a stark contrast from the joyful and colorful jails showcased in Jawaan (not comparing, just emphasizing the realism). People are thrown into a room like animals. The people in their seem to be animals, treating the new jailers like their minions. Throughout this, Manu sits in the corner sulking. He is truly alone.
Or is he? Rao brings back hope into our journey with the story, introducing us to Soma (Ramesh Indira), a fellow prisoner that acts friendly to Manu and takes on the Anna role, showing him around, giving him more coupons and discussing their weed and alcohol supply with him. As Soma gives him a tour, hand in hand, we get the feeling that, it will be ok. Yes, there’s some hope here.
But something isn’t right. The way Soma smiles, the way he clutches onto Manu. Raj’s ominous background score. We’re praying that isn’t the case, but that discomfort and tinge of sadness remains. Rao as the director casually stages the jail well to the point where we feel familiar with it, so we assume Manu feels familiar as well. Thats where we’ve connected, so naturally there is a base of hope.
The first visit is the interaction that sets the base of hope. Priya makes a sweet with her mom adding cashews raisins because Manu likes them. Priya refusing to use the money Manu got, because that would mean no way out of this mess. Priya taking the long and uncomfortable journey to the jail filled with buses, autos, and tokens. When Manu and Priya meet, it is akin to a burst of happiness and emotion. As they try to meet on different sides of the fence, the sound design laden with conversation becomes silent the moment they meet. The cinematography emphasizes both the distance between them and the romance between them at the same time. “Battery was weak, now its been charged” Manu remarks. We root for them even more. The words Katte and Putti exude familiarity and a warmth of some sort.
And then Manu is held back by the guards, yelling THATS ALL THE TIME YOU CAN GET. Charan Raj’s music goes opera-esque as Manu’s hands are ripped apart from Priya’s, cinematography zoomed in with their hands and the fence separating and Rao’s direction highlighting the spatial surroundings. The sweet crashes to the floor. Manu is beaten, only seen to us from the side of the fence that Priya is stranded on. The meetings they have over the fence is set as a symbol.
Hope with heartbreak. Hope with heartbreak. Rao fashions a romance and a tragedy again and again. One with the other. The audience is on their edge. This is no short of an epic. The contrasts come one after another. Shankar Gowda comes to his senses and decides that, enough has been enough, Manu needs to be free. The audience breathes a sigh of relief. Next scene, in a split camera, Manu admits he drove the Fortuner that killed a man. His daughter looks, betrayed. The audience is kept up again. Soma acts friendly. Great. Then stares up with the same ominous BGM. Oh no. Rao’s strength is the way he toys with emotions, taking us through a literal rollercoaster ride and building tension in the best way.
The big twist for the interval is that Shankar Gowda dies, leaving Manu’s future in absolute disarray, but the hidden track is of Priya. Rao zooms in to explore her characterization even more, and centers it around Priya failing to sing on stage, running up the terrace and bursting into tears with her mom and brother. The one element which Priya has been so dear too, her form of expression, is gone. As she grapples the uncertainty of the situation with Manu the next time she meets him, she lies to him that she is still singing. With her rock, her support, her sea, in shambles, she cannot. The radio conversation comes to mind, but even more, the cinematography emphasizes the fence and the fact that, while on a soul level they are not separated, physically they are becoming even more separated. Rukmini Vasanth and Rakshit Shetty sell their characters so well, so well, that we hope. Of course, the moment he comes back into the jail, the icing on the cake is Soma’s betrayal and revealing of his antagonistic nature, thrashing Manu, a predictable twist that just adds onto the misery.
The second half really, truly, presents Rao’s prowess as a director, particularly the first scenes and the climax. The first scene because, even in the same location, he tonally changes the entire surrounding of the jail with the proceedings. Manu is beaten in dark corridors, spit on, forced to clean dirty bathrooms with a tint that emphasizes the roughness of the situation. The heartbreak angle is driven in even further. Rao changes the entire vibe of the jail within 5 minutes. The jail, which seemed ok before, looks brutal now. When Soma and his gang rape a fellow inmate, Rao painstakingly takes us through the buildup before, with the wails of the inmate and Manu’s fear. When the next morning, the inmates body comes out from a well, Rao zooms in on Soma and Manu’s expression. He’s no longer safe here, and the relationship we root for is truly staring down the hole.
The biggest betrayal is Prabhu, Manu’s seeming mentor, who was supposed to be supportive but ends up backstabbing Manu even when Shankar Gowda’s wife wants to release him. We realize his emotions have always been rooted in malfeasance; startling but realistic, with Rao’s writing shining as he layers the character of Prabhu for much negative scope albeit slowly. Achyuth Kumar acts quite well here too, affirming to us that Prabhu is acting not out of circumstance but out of sheer hatred. Prabhu has wanted control of the decisions of Gowda’s empire, exercising his power accordingly.
Shrouded in this much misery, Hemanth Rao balances hope naturally and quite well through two events. The subtleties are there, but the introduction of Patila (Sharath Lohithaswa), a man who was teased to be someone negative, turns out to be someone positive, a classic trope but one that works nonetheless. Here, when we see what Patila does, we connect to the beginning; he runs a tapestry. Slowly, as Manu is reluctant to go through with it, Patila helps him accept the reality of the situation he’s in. “This tapestry isn’t for people who are innocent” Patila mentions. As Manu’s situation becomes worse, with lawyers dropping and terms nearing, he comes to terms with it and eventually starts working there as a lease of hope. Patila stands for hope in the jail, a gleaming light in the darkness surrounding him and the jail. Dying the tapestry blue, Manu under Patila’s tutelage realizes that, no matter what the pain, there is still hope The title cards make sense now, as the tapestry mixed with the title track represents the pain in hope, and the hope in pain. The song Horaata plays in the background, instilling hope. Rao’s inclusion of this scene makes the teeter-totter of hope and tragedy incredibly poignant, as it fashions that after all, life has to be accepted and moved on.
Perhaps the sweetest and the moment that stayed with me is the conversation Manu has with Prakash, a fellow inmate that offers him solace in a rare glimmer of hope. When Prakash explains that his own wife treats him as an obligation, missing to see him a few times and treating the visit as a formality, whereas Priya comes with the same glimmer of hope and same affection, making sure that Manu is ok, ending with a terrific shot where Priya, as she is leaving, looks back to Manu with a smile and their symbol, we understand the depth of their relationship. Until that point, the audience knows how much their love means for them, but at that point, Sapta Saagaradache Ello differentiates itself, using Prakash’s story as a base. Priya and Manu’s connection isn’t one of surface, its one of the soul, one that transcends society, standards, and classic tropes we associate a romance with. Rao isn’t just speaking to the story, he’s speaking to the audience about how they should feel. About how, despite everything, this spirit the lead couple shares will persevere. Or so he sets.
One of the final blows that Rao uses, amidst the symbols of the conch, tapestry, and even the sweet, is the radio, the most potent and the most heartbreaking. The radio, used as a vehicle for Manu to hear Priya’s thoughts and songs through a cassette, comes to him under much tension and much risk from Soma and the jail in general. But the moment Priya starts talking, about their future, tells him and sings, not only Manu’s, but our hearts break. The sheer innocence of that moment, with Manu close to a womb shape and Priya singing with her voice brimming with pain (remember: she cannot sing freely anymore). Surrounding that, there’s pain on all sides, but inside there is hope. Rao drills it in, Vasanth drills it in, Shetty drills it in. Hope in their love. Hope in their romance. Hope in the purity of their emotion. Priya tells Manu, “We shouldn’t give up, be it this year or the next, this life here will keep awaiting you”. Themes beautifully set, and enough to make anyone burst out into tears. Rao keeps going back to the radio, again and again, fashioning Manu to use it as the thing that keeps him going.
But reality hits hard. Society closes down on the bond of Manu and Priya. Lawyers give up. Courts restrict them, symbolized in a shot where Manu and Priya are hand in hand, but in Manu’s other hand is a police officer. Priya’s mother keeps posing the question “How much longer will you wait?” Finances run shorter, but Priya refuses to use the money Manu got. The conflict reaches a dramatic climax where Priya’s mother goes and breaks down to Manu at a visitation; about how she is breaking herself down, restricting herself, and not even singing. Rao showcases this directorially through a bodily injury inflicted onto Manu, as he begins to reconsider his entire future and his present. He attempts to escape, but as Rao grounds it realistically, Manu gets caught, resulting in a brutal look at reality; something Rao keeps throughout. The movie has hope but not at the cost of reality.
It leads to the pinnacle of heartbreak when Manu is forced to confront his worst fear in front of his eyes: the last time he sees Priya as his significant other. Making the decision to let go of Priya, Shetty maximises Manu’s pain with the contrast between his eyes, letting go a stream of tears, and his dialogue. Held behind a physical and a metaphorical fence, Manu realizes the extent Priya is sacrificing herself but making it unknown to Manu. The final moments where Manu is clutching onto the fence, emotion-powered, contrasted to a amazing use of slow motion to slowly track Priya moments as she gives one last smile to Manu, innocence radiating. The contrast is so simple, yet so effectively written and directed by Rao to the point where it could melt even the most stoned hearts in a flash.
Which leads to the best moment of the entire movie where Rao as a director and an editor go to absolute ultimate mode; the climax. The visual storytelling made me shed a tear, but stand up an applaud to how brilliant Rao nailed every single element of the story along with the technicalities. It starts with Priya finding Manu stop visiting her, and as she keeps visiting him, she keeps descending down more and more into sadness. As Priya’s mother comforts her, she slowly finds the strength to move on as Manu keeps shunning her, time after time after time. The sweet continues to be a metaphor throughout, and as Priya dumps it out onto the road, we understand that she has moved on. At a contrast, Manu is officially proven guilty in court. At the same time, his radio is destroyed by Soma.
A brilliant shot here is a tracking shot to where Priya is standing on the edge of a building, and looks up to be cut to her marriage proposal with another guy. Subtle, but brilliant representation of her inner state and how she feels. Visual storytelling at the peaks.
But that’s barely the surface. When Manu figures out that his Priya is getting married to someone else, Rao stops the music and everything, leading to Manu’s rage boiling inside. We’ve been discussing throughout about the hope vs. heartbreak, but Rao makes it clear that for this story, its going to end in heartbreak. As an audience, we feel as betrayed as Manu. Rao the writer sells happiness, Rao the director sells hope, and then suddenly takes it away from us. This isn’t just Manu’s journey anymore, this is OUR journey. And it has all come crumbling down, in the blink of an eye. Camera angles to Manu in the fetus position. The radio being destroyed by Soma is contrasted with his future being destroyed, and a passive Manu boils up to the point where we, as an audience, are about to see he’s about to explode fiercefully.
As an audience, we’ve hit the mark. There’s no hope. There’s no light. But there needs to be a conclusion that empathizes with us and the couple, in rage, in passion, in emotion.
And so one of the greatest romantic climaxes ever begins. Visual storytelling at its finest. The ripping of a calendar to the tying of the instruments. The playing of the wedding band is there and we see a adorned Priya, but the cinematography takes a duller tint to show the dread of the situation. The rain outside contrasted with the fire inside, the homam, two situations eqaually explosive in nature. Rao makes us compare the fate. of the two leads side to side throughout each beat. Manu walking down the prison equalized to Priya walking down the mandapam. Both trapped in their own way; different surrounding, same emotion. Elsewhere, Charan Raj begins his duty with the soulful and heart-breaking Saagaradache. Manu is lost; despondent. His future is gone.
And then he sees Soma. The man who started this.
Boom.
Raj picks up his tempo, Manu runs towards him with full force. The audience on the edge of their seats. Contrasted with the feet of Priya. Two different palettes. The same desperation. Manu gets up on a bench and jumps. Time freezes as he hovers over Soma, and slaps him with the force of a truck. Soma falls on the bench. Manu begins punching him. The rage Rao has built up is getting released in a bloodcurling, satisfying way.
The rice pellets at the wedding fall onto the ground in the jail in the smoothest transition cut. Manu continues his assault in pure, unadulterated aggression. Everything is over, this is only what remains. Raj gets to the best part where he raises the tempo for one final release. Manu is destroying his already destroyed future. Pure pain, pure passion, pure heartbreak.
Elsewhere, Priya gets the mangalsutra tied in her neck, signifying marriage. The same emotion. Akshintalu contrasted with the blood dripping from Manu’s hand. Pain, pain, pain. No more sensitivity. The payoff we all needed, but the payoff that’s broke our heart. It’s done. The love of his life is gone.
Manu breaks out in everlasting pain, despondent at the situation and brilliantly acted by Shetty. Cries. He knows everything is done. People rush to beat him up, but he takes it in like Priya takes in her new husband. Silently. All is done. Manu gets kicked in the face, Priya winces. One outwards, one inward. The same rage.
The couple walks out. Manu is down and done. Bloodied, defeated, done for. The visual storytelling hits a high with scenes of Manu getting carried out juxtaposed with Priya walking around the 7 rotations of the homam. Manu is locked in the infirmary.
Priya is locked in her first night room with her husband. Both imprisoned. Both in anguish. Both away from each other.
The film ends with the radio, which Manu saves, as Rao gives one last glimmer of hope. After that climax, there isn’t any, but Rao makes sure to keep it as he sets up Part 2, to the point where Manu gets out 10 years later. His hair is shorter, he has bruises, from the glimpses we get, Rao brings forward the day that Priya has waited for. The day Manu gets out. But what happens now?
And that’s Part 2.
Judging by the promotional material, the change in color palette from blue to red and just the extended scope for more visceral visuals seen makes it clear its about Manu’s rage. He’s turned into this rageful being by the end of Part 1 and Part 2 makes. it clear there’s more. At the same time, there’s a homage to the subtle and sensitive romance that Part 1 brings to the forefront. Manu and Priya will meet. But what now? One thing is for sure. We’re still rooting for them.
SSE: Side A left me weeping and thinking about it for days. Every technicality, every actor, fired on every cylinder possible. I could never sit through Side A in one sitting, because even the smallest of clips sends me into a hole. Hemanth Rao’s sensitivity and maturity, paired with his exploration of hope and heartbreak, made for such an invigorating romance epic. I hope SSE: Side B does the same.
Sai Says Movies 