the evolution of romance

Break-up has become a buzz word in Tollywood romances these days ��� we even have an upcoming movie called Break-up! It all started with the 2010 Naga Chaitanya-Samantha starrer, Ye Maaya Chesave, a complicated romance between a Telugu boy, Karthik, and Malayali Christian girl, Jessie, who disappears without an explanation, only to bump into him after a couple of years.The Siddharth and Amala Paul-starrer, Love Failure, went on to celebrate lovers��� spats in a story that centered around the whole ���Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus��� concept. Ee Rojullo ��� an innuendo laden love story between a man-hater and a women-hater ��� was based on the same premise. It���s just that the boy���s hostel brand of humour outshone everything else. The bottom line is ��� fall outs between couples are ���in��� onscreen! Balaji Mohan, director of Love Failure sums up this trend by saying, ���Break-ups are an unavoidable reality of youngsters��� lives these days. Most young people have experienced broken relationships or have seen friends whose relationship is on the rocks. So, it���s natural that romantic movies of the day reflect the phenomenon. It���s been happening in world cinema for a long time now, where fall-outs have been fodder for many successful rom-coms.���
The Tragic oeuvre
Falling in and out of love has become the stuff jokes these days, but it wasn���t always so. Through the 50s and 60s, romance on screen went hand in hand with tragedy. The ANR and Bhanumathi-starrer, Laila Majnu (1949), based on the romantic epic of Sufi literature, paved the way for more tragedies like Laila Majnu, Anarkali and Premabhishekam that are still regarded as the standard for tragic-romance on screen. In fact, they earned ANR the tag of being the ���Tragedy King���. That iconic image of a listless ANR in drunken stupor with only a dog for company, in the song Jagame Maya from the movie Devadas, perhaps best captures the sentiments of that time.
National Award-winning filmmaker Satish Kasetty argues that the tragedy was the zeitgeist of the time. ���Sensibilities are always subject to the time frame. A classic like Madhumathi might just not click with audiences today. Those were different times, people waited weeks for a letter from their loved ones. Thanks to the lack of communication technology available at that time, longing was an essential aspect of being in love. The audience derived joy from the idea of a forlorn lover,��� explains Satish.
The mixed bag of 70s and 80s
Romances took a happier turn in the 70s though. It was ANR again who reinvented the romantic genre with Premnagar (1974), which had a happy ending, points out Telugu cinema historian, Harikrishna Mamidi. ���By then, NTR and ANR had become huge stars with massive fan followings each. So, it had become unacceptable for fans to see their favourite stars end up dead, having lost in love. The happy endings had to return,��� explains Harikrishna.
K Balachander however, brought tragedy back with the iconic Kamal Haasan and Saritha-starrer, Maro Charithra ��� a tragic love story between a Telugu girl and a Tamil boy. It was remade in Hindi as Ek Duje Ke Liye and went on to be a cult film, setting a new benchmark for young-romance onscreen. Bharathi Raja���s Seethakoka Chiluka followed in 1981, taking romance back into the rural landscape.
A new kind of love
A new wave of romantic films came with the second generation of Tollywood superstars. Nagarjuna brought back tragedy with films like Majnu (1987) and Mani Ratnam���s Geetanjali ��� a love story between two terminally ill patients, in 1989. The Venkatesh and Revathi-starrer, Prema ��� a tragic tale of love between a Christian girl and a Hindu boy ��� was also in the same vein. Pawan Kalyan���s, Tholiprema changed the game in the 90s reflecting the changing attitudes to love in a lost, newly-liberalised society. Anu, the protagonist chooses to fly away to the US to pursue her higher education, putting love on the backburner. Pawan���s 2001 blockbuster, Kushi, set a new benchmark for rom-coms, lacing action and some slapstick humour elements in the fold.
The new millennium
Director Teja gave teenage romance a new contemporary twist with films like Chitram (2000), Nuvvu Nenu (2001) and Jayam (2002). Director K Vijay Bhaskar explored themes of love between best friends in Nuvve Kavali, which became a huge hit and inspired many films on similar themes. Actor Siddharth explored urban romance in films like Bommarillu, Nuvvasthanante Nenoddantana. Ram Charan tried it, albeit unsuccessfully, in Orange. In the first decade of the new millennium, director Puri Jagannath���s Idiot brought in a new action-based eccentric sensibility to romance. Ravi Teja���s overbearing act as a reckless young man who just can���t take ���no��� for an answer from the lady paved the way for more ���obsessive lover movies��� like Desamuduru, Arya, Arya-2 etc,��� concludes Harikrishna Mamidi.