Bikash Raj Acharya’s movie “Hajar Juni Samma” was released in August of 2019 featuring well known actors of Nepali film industry – Aryan Sigdel, Swastima Khadka, Priyanka Karki, Salon Basnet, Sanchita Luitel and others. Acharya, the director of five sequels of ‘Nai Nabhannu La’ movies has also followed the similar story line in this movie. In short, it is another love-story formula movie.
1) The story is good.
2) Screenplay is terrible.
First watch the movie and then read what a formula movie it is:
What is Formula Movie?
A formula Nepali movie is set in a pattern of ups and lows that had worked in the past and repeated in that manner. It has all the songs, comedy, love, tragedy and similar character sets. A typical 7-points formula can be:
1) The protagonist (lead male character usually called hero) is full of fun.
2) The hero jokes, sings, and dances on songs to woo his love interest. That goes on till the end of the first half.
3) There is a hero’s friend, who is usually a comedy character. His sole purpose is to be the supporter of the hero. He communicates the hero’s intentions to others and assists him while cracking few jokes and create situations.
4) There is a character opposite to the hero – an antagonist / a villain. He/she might have a supporter friends too.
5) At the end of the first half, there is a major twist in the event.
6) Things start to get intense in the second half. The fun-loving character turns into an emotional or a fierce fighter or something of that sort.
7) And, there is the climax part – where the villain is defeated by the hero after leading the story through an unnecessary event or songs with a twist in the plot right before the ending.
Roles of the technical staffs:
1) The director – goes through foreign movies to copy the dramatic parts of the situations.
2) The cinematographer – make scenes pretty (without considering the story, plot or the situations). Drone shots.
3) Background Scores – ready made scores for the character and situations.
4) Editing – close-up for dialogue and expressions, drone for long-shot.
5) Music – catchy beats, shot at exotic locations, spend the most for the song.
Song is so important in Nepali movie that:
Song 1 – Establish and introduce characters
Song 2 – Main character fall in love
Song 3 – Sad song for breakup
Song 4 – Item song for promotion purpose
This is the story of Hajar Juni Samma.
The first scene in the movie seems odd. Avantika (Swastima Khadka) brings her guitar at Siddhanta Kshetry’s (Aryan Sigdel) guitar shop in order to change her strings. Siddhartha’s excessive coughing doesn’t sound natural. Avantika tells him to go checkup. Viewers get a feeling that it was all done to set-up Avantika is a medical student. Siddhanta says, one shouldn’t change boyfriends and guitar-strings frequently.
The story: