In case you guys have been living under a rock during the past few days, Amazon Prime Video have released two South-Indian films – the Telugu period action drama ‘Narappa’ and the Tamil period boxing drama ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’. While we are still waiting on the response of ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’, since it was only released today (which doesn’t matter in our opinion, the movie is quite good), ‘Narappa’ has had a couple of days on the streaming platform and boy, it doesn’t disappoint. However, after viewing both films on the streaming platform, we came to an important conclusion – both ‘Narappa’ and ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’ deserved to have a theatrical release of their own. And we are not the only ones who think so.
Both ‘Narappa’ and ‘Sarpatta Parambarai‘, like nearly all South Indian films, were made for theatrical release. Obviously, that didn’t happen, since the Covid-19 situation became worse all over India (particularly in the South) and both movies ended up getting directly released for streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The filmmakers however, didn’t try to make any changes to the film for the OTT viewers and we are very glad that didn’t happen.
Getting a true theatre experience is going to be hard from your mobile device or your TV (or any other device in particular), but for the few who have a theatre system up – ‘Narappa’ and ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’ are the movies you should be watching. Both films are unapologetically histrionic, but unlike most cases where this would hinder a movie (especially OTT releases), this melodrama actually works in their favour – even making the films appealing, through a hand-held device.
‘Narappa’s’ background score, action scenes and emotional sequences and ‘Sarpatta Parambarai’s’ background music, acting and its entire first half were few of the best parts of the movies. These reasons alone were enough for the movies to be watched in theatres and we are very sad that it will not happen now (at least, any time soon). Amazon Prime Video managed to get two cinematic gems and we are not complaining about the early release – just sad that these brilliant films will not get the theatrical release they deserve. And many Twitter users feel the same. Here are some of the tweets: