Disclaimer: I do not see how this is useful to anyone. I was coaxed to write as it was long I wrote a review. Btw, this is not a review; this is not general advice as well. But the topic was there so I thought let me use it.
I have always maintained nominations for Filmfare awards are decided in the lavatories of pre-launch parties and the actual awards in the bedrooms of people with power, money and high libido. And few deserving ones do get nominated and few go onto win as well for the Santulan(balance) part of it. Naseer of ‘Maqbool’ would agree.
Filmfare awards this year did turn out a bit unbiased compared to previous few years but it’s a long way before more deserving ones start getting nominated at least. We will talk about winning them later. Do I make sense if I say Chitrashi Rawat who played Komal Chautala in Chak De India equally deserved to be nominated? Won’t it be rational to nominate Raima/Abhay for Manorama and Akshaye for Gandhi – My Father? I can point out few more such cases, but that is not this article is about. This is about us, the cinegoer.
It is we who are making a difference here. It is we the average cinegoer who in this century suddenly have seem to grown up. Yet, when it comes to awarding the worthy ones, our views are sidelined.
The boundary between multiplex films and mainstream films is
fast disappearing. It is that different
and hat ke content that is creating an impact. It is we who rejected fully
loaded Jhoom Barabar Jhoomwhich had
everything going for it and embraced Dor,
Mithya, Manoramaand many such movies. I guess most of you remember the
clash of so-called titans on Diwali. One did disturbingly well and other was
damp squib in literal sense. In the end, OSO wisely made the familiar area of
Bollywood its nostalgic talking point whilst Saawariya cruelly turned roasting
plot to deception. The only thing common apart from Salman in both the movies
was the almost nudity by the lead male actors which was the talk of nation
thanks to excessive ad-spend and ruthless self-promotion. The point I want to
make here is that this is very disturbing as it is setting a dangerous trend
for more modestly crafted movies like Manorama – 6FU, Honeymoon Travels Pvt.
Ltd., Mithya et al.
So here I go and pore over the two major factors that make
or break cinema.
The
Directors:
Rakeysh Mehra, Rajkumar Hirani, Anurag Kashyap, Shimit Amin,
Ashutosh Gowariker, Sriram Raghavan, Madhur Bhandarkar, Vishal Bharadwaj are
some of the filmmakers who made their presence felt in last five or six years
with offering no Indian had ever seen. These filmmakers are graphing a fresh
course for Hindi cinema. These guys have kept pace with the society, understood
the audience and made film that shook the traditional foundation of many years.
They are telling it the way it is. They are mavericks and yet the Indian
cinematic form is genetically imprinted in their approach. These film-makers
are pivot of our cinema today and many more years to come. In a country like
India, it is very difficult to judge the pulse of the people. With different
cultures, social backgrounds, languages, it gets tad too much for them to gauge
anything. However, what they can at least gauge is what makes sense and what
doesn’t? is that so difficult? Nopes, I would say. We might have grown up and
are ready to clinch a different cinema. But what we still yearn for is the
simplistic approach of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, the basic appeal of his films; be
it Golmaal, Chupke Chupke or Khatti Meethi. We long for the compassion of Guru
Dutt’s films, cutting edge theories of Satyajit Ray. We also know none of you
can be them, nonetheless you can learn from their style. And trust me, you will
have audiences for such films.
The
Script:
A good script is the fundamental thing which always
punctured the hopes of our movies. Time and again, we watched few craps and
never complained. Our heroes most of the times were either police officer whose
brother definitely would have been criminal. They could beat up hundred goons
all alone. I always wonder why in a fighting sequence the goons approach the
hero one by one giving enough time to the hero. If hero is rich, his gal had to
be from poor family and vice versa. And the list goes on and on. Things have
changed but few things still remain same. There is still a huge expectation
from Yash Raj Films. Sensible directors who have sensible script and a
wonderful executed version of that in their hands is wary of releasing their
movies whenever any biggie is around. They make their movies on shoe string
budget but they make sane cinema. And we are ready to embrace them but some of
us never get to watch them because of first, few of them never get released in
our area as distributor did not want it. Second, they do not have money to
promote themselves a la OSO. The only way left out for them is word-of-mouth.
Whose loss is it anyway? I would say theirs. As we somehow get hold of the
pirated version.
And so with each generation one notices a shift in the
prototype of everything related to cinema. Be it the actor who is well adorned
and suddenly dumped or the director who is referred world class one moment and
finds himself beaten and charred the moment he delivers fiery fires. Whether it
is natural or not, it does happen. The audiences have no reluctance in dumping
anyone who no longer gave them the kick they were used to, and moving onto the
newer improved version. What a star carries and delivers are the hopes and the
aspirations of the generation he represents. We can read as many meanings as we
like into what the various generations of film stars represent, but in case we
forget, they are not the only ones to wear the cloak of stardom. Their
hairstyles and mannerisms may have been much imitated but the wants of most of
the Indian people have always been
stereotyped for many decades. Now, the times
are indeed changing.
And it is because of us that the success of non-mainstream
or offbeat films(whatever name you give them) is leading us to a whole new
path. Pathway is definitely rough and steep and it is long way but golden
fields are definitely spread before us and now it’s for the filmmakers to take
advantage of it.
P.S. This might not be useful, but it definitely is not NU. Dare you give that. Just kidding. Go ahead. Do it. But not acceptable without valid justification.
