An engaging feudal love story

'Based on true lives', says the promo of the film 'Dorasani'. A throwback into the times when caste and class ruled the roost, the film is based in the 1980s, in the era of rotary phones, Ambassador and Fiat cars.

The narrative is in flashback mode, an expected pattern in such kinds of retro-themed ventures.

Making a double debut, Anand Devarakonda and Shivatmika essay the roles of the lead pair with the hero being a student in a neighbouring town and the heroine, a young feudal girl, seen largely confined to the mansion which she inhabits.

Her father, the Dora (played by Vinay Varma with a chilling undertone to his performance) dotes on her to the extent that she is hardly away from her father's control.

In an unobtrusive sort of manner, love develops between the two drawn from disparate backgrounds, with both sides getting sucked into it, seemingly oblivious to the consequences.

Of course, there is an extremist counterattack to the tyranny of the Dora, as Telangana was wracked by Naxalite violence during that phase. Investing a literate, assured coating to the protagonist's character the director, K V R Mahendra, shows him to be defiant and adamant in his pursuit of the heroine even as the other side bays for his blood, helped by a compliant police force.

On the contrary, the heroine is content as a helpless lass by and large, who comes on her own in the final phase of the film.

Adding to the increasing number of Telugu films which are being shot with Telangana dialect of late, the film captures the arid plateau and the wretched lives of its people rather well.

The Naxalite intrusion into the villagers' lives is not sustained throughout but used more as a sub-plot to justify the romance between the love birds.

Anand Devarakonda makes a decent impact as a love-struck village boy while Shivatmika is restrained and lives her role as a caged bird, who has not many choices in a patriarchal set-up.

The pace of the film is slower than what one gets to see in a typical mainstream movie but sustains the storyline rather well.

Moreover, it captures the vital truth that inequalities in relationships can severely hamper the direction it takes, as has been seen in a series of honour killings all across the country of late.