Gautaman Bhaskaran's Review: Riding the Dreams

Girish Kasaravalli’s Riding the Dreams (Kanasemba Kudureyaneri) is part of India’s reality cinema savoured by a small, but devoted group of audience.

Riding the Dreams

Director: Girish Kasaravalli

Cast: Vaijanath Biradar, Umashree, Sadashiv Brahmavar, Akki Chennabasappa, Shivaranajan and Pavitra Lokesh

Rating: ****



Girish Kasaravalli’s Riding the Dreams (Kanasemba Kudureyaneri) is part of India’s reality cinema savoured by a small, but devoted group of audience. In fact, Bengaluru-based Kasaravalli’s cinema has never been big crowd-pullers, and this movie is not likely to be an exception.



Already part of the festival circuit, it was shot on the outskirts of Bijapur in the southern Indian State of Karnataka, and follows the

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life of a grave-digger, Irya (Vaijanath Biradar), and his wife, Rudri (Umashree). Literally eking a living off the dead, Irya worships, Siddha, the messenger of death who appears in his dream every time someone in the village dies.



Alerted about the death of the old landlord, Gowda (Akki Chennabasappa), Irya begins to prepare the grave. But he is perplexed when Gowda’s caretaker, Mathadayya (Sadashiv Brahmavar), denies that his master is dead. Irya and Rudri begin to worry about the dreams going wrong, and their lives getting even more depressing.

Kasaravalli, one of the pioneers of the New Indian Cinema of the 1970s, and known for works such as The Ritual (Ghttashraddha) and Tabara’s Story (Tabarana Kathe), remains undaunted in the face of big slick-looking productions, continuing to make movies that he strongly believes in. And he has a set of dedicated actors. Engagingly convincing, Biradar and Umashree are seen throughout the movie in tattered clothes, getting every inch into the characters. Manohar’s lilting background score is perhaps the only artifice here.