DISCLAIMER: This article may trigger some readers. Please proceed with caution.
To note: When I refer to the Original, I am referring to the 1957 version and when I refer to it as 2010, remastered, restored or colourized I’m referring to the same 2010 colourized theatrical version.
Mayabazar is a Telugu classic released in 1957. It is regarded as one of the greatest epics in Telugu cinema and it was a pioneer on many technical fronts, in terms of the cinematography, miniatures, use of special and visual effects etc. Oh do I have stuff to talk about the visual effects in this movie! Some of my first recollections of seeing magic on screen is from this movie. Now this article would be too long and vague if I dive into all these aspects. So let’s begin with the title of the article, “The colourized version.”
There’s a bigger discussion to be had here on whether or not to colourize films at all. But we won’t get into that today. I don’t mind colourization of films but I try to avoid watching them*. I get why they do it i.e., wanting to introduce it to a new generation who would otherwise turn away from watching its black and white original.
*Now you might ask, “Sunny you say don’t have a problem with colourized projects but what about that title?” That is a valid question, reader. Let me rephrase my statement. I don’t have a problem with colourized/restoration projects if, a big IF, they’re done right. What I mean by that is respecting the vision of the original filmmakers and not altering their vision. Let me show you what I mean and I’ll dive deep into select shots from the movie.
One thing you have to understand is none of my complaints or gripes are with the colourization. In fact, I think the artists did a splendid job. It is magnificent to look at. My gripes are with:
Firstly this is not an archival restoration. What I mean by that is that they did not Telecine/scan it in a good enough resolution. If they did, that is not the version the general public is seeing today. I feel like they did what was good enough to pass for theaters back in 2010. This makes me sad because the artists put in so much time and labour to restore (clean up dust and scratches, fix warping, roto where needed etc) and colourize this and in a few years it’ll be rendered out of date already.
The entire film lacks resolution it feels like they pushed up that denoise slider to 11. Everything feels mushy, compressed and they threw an unsharp mask over everything (gives the illusion of sharpness by exaggerating all the edges/outlines). The lack of resolution could also be due to them cropping into a 50 plus year old negative’s 4k scanned file essentially giving them a 720p output.
Asthetically, the original tops the colourized version. Right from the opening, the titles for one, in the original were so beautifully hand written. Which in the 2010 version is some font downloaded off of the internet (I’m talking especially about the English fonts). The backdrop to these titles is a beautiful painting in the original vs the painting ruined by a bad clouds comp and the really bad cloud shadows on the ground.
The look of the sequence is destroyed by the pointless clouds [Eg 4]. The actual shot has a dawn look (which matches with the following city shot) and in the 2010 version it is broad day light with blue sky. It is not even the same time of day. Moreover, the music is changed to a totally different track. For what?
The movie was made to be viewed in B&W. The depth is lost in the colourized version. Look at the temple in the background of example 6. The original has so much depth and the 2010 version lacks that depth i.e., it looks like a flat wallpaper.
Mayabazar was shot in 1.33:1 (4:3) aspect ratio and they remastered it in a 2.35:1 aka a cinemascope ratio, which means we are losing ~40% of the frame.
The Aspect Ratio. Oh the aspect ratio. My eyes hurt whenever I see them doing a reverse what TV version of movies are formatted as (aka Panning and Scanning). What TV versions of a movie are is a cropped and reframed version (panned and scanned) of a movie just so it can fill the entire frame of your TV or sometimes it is just stretched to fill the frame in Telugu channels. Telugu channels almost never did and don’t see it anymore with our cinema but if you watch Star Movies, Sony Pix, MN+ or any of the English movie channels, it is still done to this day.
Mayabazar was shot in 1.33:1 (4:3) aspect ratio and they remastered it in a 2.35:1 aka a cinemascope ratio [refer to Eg 5 and Eg 6]. Which means we are losing ~40% of the frame. I get why they did this i.e., to fill the screen in the cinemas. Since all our screens are in a wide screen ratio and releasing a 4×3 movie on that screen will only cover slightly more than half the screen [Eg 5]. But at least the TV/YouTube versions should’ve been in the full ratio.
Another example of where the aspect ratio ruins a shot is when Ghatotgajudu lands on a hillock from the sky. A boulder rolls down onto the trees in the forest below due to the impact. In the 2010 version, this is not quite as impactful and the boulder is barely visible, which is the whole point of the shot i.e., to show the power he possesses. In the original, we see a full shot, but in the 2010, it becomes a medium shot of him because of the crop/ratio change. Again, the mighty look of how big and powerful he is, is sadly lost.
But who cares about TV, right! Once it is sent out to theaters, that is the exact version played on TV screens without even altering the audio. We hear only the music and not the dialogues unless we turn up the volume way too high when at that point we hear a knock on the door from the neighbours. Who wants to deal with that. (This paragraph is not in particular to this movie but Telugu movies in general) [I will talk more about this in the future].
The editing. What!? Why? Why were shots rearranged and shortened? What was even the point. Let’s say it is for shortening the duration. They didn’t even succeed in that. The 2010 version is 14 minutes shorter than the original. By omitting sequences, again, are ruining the flow and intention of the original filmmakers.
Redone VFX, specifically the morphing SUCKS. The morph!!! It is the default morph found in Ae. It looks so bad. The original crossfade sells the effect more than the very distracting “hi-tech” morph. The particle effect when someone appears out of thin air or disappears, why! Doesn’t even look good. Why cover up the effect that is already there. What I’m getting at here is that this is not a restoration, this is a different version of a movie that has altered the choices made by the original filmmakers. The 2010 team were so caught up in the idea that they could do all these effects that they didn’t stop to ask themselves if they should.
All these unnecessary changes remind of George Lucas’ remastered 1997 re-release of the original trilogy, which is kind of acceptable because the filmmaker himself did the unmentionable and ridiculous changes. Mind you this is the same person who said the following just 9 years earlier “People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians.”
The reason I haven’t talked about the audio is because I have less of a problem with it. Except the parts where the music was changed, for what? I have no idea. But adding additional Foley everywhere is a no no for me. The only part I’m ok with is the re-recorded music and that is it.
In conclusion, my one request to the team that remastered it is to please give us the original without the changes mentioned above. I mean you already have the scans somewhere. You had to have first restored the film before you cropped, reframed, did bad effects and colourized it. Give it a thought.** That’s it. Thank you!
**To all the streaming services, just think about having a restored Telugu classic on your service. You don’t even have to spend the money for the restoration. It is already done and is just sitting in the back of someone’s office.
P.S. It may seem like I am trashing on the movie. But, I just want to watch it in its full restored glory.