The love story of Shakuntala and Dushyant is so familiar from textbooks, comics, stage and screen versions that it has become part of our cultural DNA.
If a filmmaker thinks they can make it their own by producing a 3D version with excessive CGI, they are achieving nothing but overkill, notes Deepa Gahlot.

The promos give a hint of what to expect – a Baahubali-ized version of the Kalidasa epic – but still the two and a half hour visual and audio punishment from Gunasekhars Shaakuntalam leaves the viewer stunned.

The love story of Shakuntala and Dushyant is so familiar from textbooks, comics, stage and screen versions that it has become part of our cultural DNA.

If a filmmaker thinks they can make it their own by producing a 3D version with excessive CGI, they are achieving nothing but overkill.

Having prefaced the title with his name, Gunasekhar doesn’t reinterpret the classic, if that were even possible; Apparently he just joined the current trend of turning everything into a spectacle.

Gunashekar has directed a number of award-winning Telugu films in the past, but if he aspires to become another Rajamouli, he still has a long way to go.

Shakuntala (Samantha Ruth Prabhu, miscast) is the daughter of Apsara Menaka and Rishi Vishwamitra. The animated backstop is provided, later also showing a live-action Menaka (Madhoo) dancing in front of Lord Indra’s (Jisshu Sengupta) court.

Abandoned in the forest as a toddler, she was raised in the ways of fantasy by Rishi Kanva (Sachin Khedekar). Ashram where deer frolic with tigers and every frame is filled with computer-generated flora and fauna.

When King Dushyant (Dev Mohan) arrives, he is summoned to fight with an Asura army (animated backstory added). He defeats her and stays in for some R&R Ashram.

He falls in love with Shakuntala and has a Gandharva vivaah with her.

When he leaves after giving her his signet ring and promising to return, she is pregnant.

Lost in her thoughts, she is cursed by the cranky Rishi Durvasa (Mohan Babu), whose animated backstory is dutifully told, so that she will be forgotten by the man she dreamed about when she rudely ignored him.

Sent to her husband, she arrives in the capital – full of gigantic statues – adorned as a bride, and he does not remember her. She lost the ring that would reveal the truth, so she is stoned and cast out from the people.

A fisherman finds the missing ring, Dushyant’s memory is restored, but Shakuntala is nowhere to be found.

There are endless sequences of him stumbling in grief, a long song in his mind, another fight with the asuras, a flashback to show Shakuntala’s trauma, at this point many viewers are left mentally begging for mercy.

The technical team put so much effort into it, but the look of the film isn’t fresh. The same kitsch will reach the 3D screen in 2023, via oil prints, old films, television and Amar Chitra Comics.

Everything looks fake and garish.

The music is a rumble, and although the lines (awful dubbing) are written in Sanskrit-Hindi (with a few slips), they sound unintentionally funny.

The makers call Shaakuntalam “Mythology for Millennials”. However, if the love story worked in modern times, it would have reached the much-maligned millennials, even if done with simplicity, elegance, and imagination.

Here, emotions are buried under the weight of unnecessary grandeur that isn’t even aesthetically pleasing.

It reiterates a few times that Shakuntala was born to fulfill a higher purpose, which turns out to be the birth of Bharat (played by Allu Arha), making this film a Mahabharat origin story.

When filmmakers are tackling mythology or history to give audiences a rich viewing experience, have them revise their storyboards as well.

Our cinema could do with more beauty and less tinsel.

Shaakuntalam Review Rediff Rating: