Manoj RC: On the Way of Mastering the Character

Before coming to the point we are here to talk, we should be talking about the evolution of cinema industry in Nepal. Granted that there are many people and groups, by now, who are working hard in order to develop and proliferate the cinema culture in the country.

And, whilst the pivotal access into the Nepali Cinema is centered in this very small valley, of few millions of people all along with its few hundred of thousands of vehicles and few more concrete structures where people call their home- where people are bound to see a lot of shortcomings and pollution, it verily has brought a lot of turmoils in every aspirants’ lives. Either that be positive or negative.

This valley has scrutinized many with its shivering cold winters and drying hot summers. It has flooded people’s hearts with several pains, sufferings and by its frivolities on care and respect just like its long and wet rainy days. Yet, if ones still are aspirant enough and are working hard it has also paid them bountiful like its festive autumns and joyous springs.

Many movies and actors are abandoned before they are heard of. These people are sometimes treated ruthlessly like a child slave. Yet, we cannot deny the fact that on the practice of market economy ‘survival of the fittest’ is the only thing that works. There have come and gone many of those who were, really, revolutionary and have had an aspiration to change the case scenarios of Nepali Cinema but they couldn’t survive long, because they were born in the odd times and also because Nepal never has been like Soviet Russia where beautiful cultures were appreciated for the sake of arts and national pride.

It has been a culture to believe that whence an art, or let that be a mere product, has to convince the audience evolution takes place there and beautiful things are produced. However, many of us are still yet to believe that there are any real movies made, if few are to be set aside and kept as an exception. There even arises another question whether Nepali Cinema Industry is truly an industry or is dedicated in development of cinema on the national level or not! And, the rest of us find it hard to believe that Nepali Cinema Industry is truly a cinema industry!

But there lies, inhere, in the realm of these scenarios where many of us rarely feel to see to the extent we need to see before we can set-forth ourselves to judge on. We have to delve a bit deeper into it. From the onset of Nepali Cinema, in its 66 years’ history of experimentation, even if we are bound to acknowledge that we have produced nothing significant to be acknowledged in the world scenario it has gone through a quintessential sets of changes. From making of Sattya Harishchandra to the current scenarios (when we are granted with lots of economically successful movies) we have seen many actors and actresses who have risen to the limelight and have fallen hard too.

It won’t be a wrong proclamation to say that every actors dream of delving, and to deliver their fullest— for that matters, unto the character-role he/she portrays. When an actor feels the palpitating pain and sorrow of a character and can die a spiritual death along with the death of the character, or when he/she cheers up unfathomably along the happy moments of the character there comes an awe inspiring moment when audience gets a a viewgasmic perspective of the story in the movie. That striking ‘Eureka’ moment is the most important portion in the movie for we moviegoers.

Apart from these climax pooling moments there lie a lengthy and signifying portions of every movies when characters and their surrounding gets build up for the actual climax. These are the time when an actor/actress works the hardest, to stay relevant and neutral to the given scenario. This is the very time when the audience judges the actor or the character. Then is when one in the audience defines one’s perspective or view-point of the movie and somehow decides the way one is going to judge the movie.

But to have done justice to the character is almost a rarity around. At least that’s what we are bound to see these days, as the proliferation of pop culture and mushrooming of movie making has come to its speed. Many characters seemingly are un-fathomable for many who play. Then for us audience, it leads to a characterization of artists as a great, talented, average or poor actors/actresses. But beyond this arena of characterization there lie a few people who are always evolving, from the very time of their onset and these, verily, are the people who show the power of their dynamicity. The ‘hunger to do/achieve more’ that roots in these people always keeps energizing we people. This has been the trademark of the current era of filmmaking.

While talking about this kind of people we see many perspectives and many scenarios or people to be noticed. Many are appreciated for only their works but some are as well for their proliferation of the instantaneous dynamicity. We can take example of several works done by various personalities.

Already have acted in almost a dozen of Nepali movies, Manoj RC, 33, a Jajarkot born who was raised in Rukum district of western Nepal, is youth actor to be noticed from the very onset of his cinema career in acting. The actor who formally was taking acting from Theatre guru Sunil Pokharel did his debut in a movie named ‘Bir Ganeshman’ where he played the character of Ganga Lal. From the very onset of his acting career he proved to be one of the aspirant actors to have claimed the flag in the cinema industry.

Among some of very few people who are focused on acting rather than the a cult of heroism or the epiphany brought by such heroism, Mr. RC has proved his exceptional talents in his well appreciated movies like C-Mala (The Necklace) and Jhumkee (Ear drop-earings).

In Jhumkee, his recent movie, Mr. RC has played the role of a simple police officer from western Nepal who has been accused of attempt to rape. He goes to Kathmandu to meet a senior officer of police who helped him to get the job, where he finds Debaki, the girl he loves and who had accused him for the attempt to rape is working (appointed approximately 15 days earlier to the day he comes to Kathmandu) there as a maid. In the evening, after the meeting, his character Gokul is advised to come back tomorrow but when he comes back the next day he finds that the senior officer has been murdered. He senses that this must have been a mistake of Debaki as he finds her small money pouch left except nothing. He flees and he gets accused again, on the case of murder. The story continues as Gokul tries to balance his life as a suspended police officer and a lover who tries to protect his beloved. Mr. RC has done an exceptional job as a simple lower level police officer from the Western Nepal.

Apart from this he was also awarded as the best performer on the negative role in a suspense thriller movie named Madhumas. In this movie he portrays a different role, a person who is trying to take revenge for what a man has done to his beloved.

Simply to have evolved no matter how the crowd behaves with one is a great thing to be appreciated. We never look back at these types of actors and we always look forward for what’s there yet to come. As per the case he is one of those aspiring actors who has always been through several phases of evolution. From Bir Ganeshman to Jhumkee we have seen many shades of Manoj Kumar RC, yet we are still looking forward for what’s inside him which is yet to come. We wish our best wishes for his upcoming feature Mithya.

– written by Amit Pokhrel