Kaizad Gustad is in the glitterati now-a-days. Pre Boom, he would be available any time you call him for an interview – he would go to the extent of accommodating you instead of the movie at hand. However post Boom all that has changed. You now need an interview appointment with gentle man. Boom according to him, exceeded all expectations and more, and he never thought he would get such a response! “Boom Boomeranged” he would exclaim later! Immediately his date calendar was full, and I was assigned to interview him yesterday at 3.00 am in the morning. By a strange co-incidence, I had viewed Boom yesterday, and was armed with enough armory to ask tackle his Boom movie. After another hour wait, Kaizad Gustad arrived, in a t-shirt and underwear; seeing me shocked, he said “nothing, it was just Pavitra cleansing me…” What follows below, are the excerpts of the interview –
Me: First of all I want to congratulate you on Boom. This is cinematic art meets commercial gimmick at its best! I had the privilege of watching Boom yester night. So tell me, KG(as Kaizad Gustad will be referred henceforth), what was Boom about?
KG: You said you watched the movie! Didn’t you figure it out?
Me: Of course I did! Definitely – I mean, wow, superb, words fail me, I mean, you see, maybe our, you know, our audience might, u see, might want to know it from you what was Boom about.
KG:Boom is a complex movie. I mean, you can either look at it as a whacko movie, absurd movie, a woman’s liberation movie, gangster movie, fashion extortion movie, vulgarity meets grossness movie…and such. The beauty of Boom is it leaves the viewer to extrapolate what the movie is about. In essence, my audience will first see the movie from their “perspective” and then “think”. Boom is a movie which will linger in peoples minds.
Me: I am sure, wow! I mean, Bollywood is certainly bereft of people with visions! I agree, I also had to think hard to understand boom…err…frankly, between you and me, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it…AHEM…Yes…still, I am sure there are people who like to know about a movie before they go, wouldn’t you tell them what Boom is all about?
KG:Okay, if that is the way you like it! See basically boom is collage of ideas – ideas that germinated within me for the last two years. Boom is a canvas on which the painter paints his modern art. Just like modern art, you need to look deeper to get the hidden meaning, Boom is one such collage of ideas, dispersed and merged at the same time. The audience needs to see “more” and “deep” inside the movie.
Me: Wow! Now this is art meets cinematic vision. Have you met M.F. Hussein? I am sure he shares your artistic vision. So you are saying Boom is what Gajagamini was to Hussein – an extrapolation of ideas painted on a canvas. But spare those mortals please, the viewers like me, who actually are devoid of any brains. Wouldn’t you want them to understand the movie is about?
KG: Of course, I don’t make cinema for the unintelligent! Boom needs a certain level of understanding – a vision – a view – a ray of light – its needs an opening by which you will understand. Its not your everyday girl meets boy romances!
Me: True True!! Boom was not even a girl meets boy romance!! Wow! Such thoughts. However you said you don’t make cinema for the unintelligent, which makes around 50% of viewers out, so then do you make your movies for the upper “class” socialites.
KG: NO NO! My movie crosses boundaries – it doesn’t cater to any class. It’s a crossing over movie!
Me: Crossing to where I mean? Did you make the movie then for models?
KG: No! Boom was not meant to be a movie about models!
Me: Really?! Maybe you made the movie for gangsters?
KG: No!
Me: International Audience mayhaps?
KG: No.
Me: Martians, Jupiterites, Saturnites…
KG: No No No! You don’t understand! Boom is about me for me by me! Boom is a director’s vision!
Me: EXACTLY!! All we want to know is your vision!
KG: I don’t think the audience has matured enough for such movies. Let me explain – Boom is about models who get entangled in a diamond smuggling gone haywire who get entangled with three whacko gangsters and weird gangster modeled on me, and who when their three plans crash BOOM bang, decide to play it up to the crooks and loot a bank in confusion seduce the three idiots who shoot each other while the assistant takes money and models run with the cash to an island with a maid who had conspired with one of the wierdos and had begun to boss them but is left stranded somewhere in the end while another is thrown off the plane and still three more shoot each other, and the already confused dumb bimbos who didn’t really want to be a part of this sh*it walk away rich!
Me: I am sorry…err...can you repeat the story?
KG: Boom is about dumb models who go smart over a period of time, and their intelligent quotient increases by 1 % whenever a goon who the first thing to is touch their boo*bs and answer a quick quiz question of their Bra size, and if correct the model’s intelligence grows by 1%, hence by end of the movie, turn out smarter than the goons themselves!
Me: I am sorry…errr…never mind! Wow! Such a complex interpolation of ideas! Amazing work KG! I am sure with this much information; the audience will have no problems “viewing” and “understanding the movie”. Now to some acting – why did you take Amitabh Bachchan?
KG: Between you and me, I had this dream of getting Amitabh to do a humiliating degrading role – Heh! Remember I never made this statement! I mean Amitabh is the best in the industry, and I felt only he could share the vision of Boom. But I was wrong, the three models shared my vision more than him!
Me: Really! This is news!
KG: You don’t know how hard it was to write this movie. We struggled for ideas day in and out and these models came up with trumps after trumps. You know when the dead guy sings in the movie out of no where, or when Javed Jaffrey scratches his crotch or when Jackie zips his underwear back, or when Amitabh Bachcan rides a toy car – such fabulous scenes were the mastermind of the models!
Me: Was pretty apparent anyway! How about screenplay, script?
KG: What nonsense, I don’t make movies the conventional way! I give full freedom to my artistes to interpret and enact the scene in their own way! My artists write their own scenes and dialogues! As I said it’s a collage – not a painting!
Me: Then pray, KG, what did you do in the movie!
KG: I am a director – a director with a vision. Boom is an vision of not just mine, but everyone involved! It’s NOT a movie about passions, emotions, drama, thriller, comedy, romances, or any other fuc*ing genre! My movie doesn’t belong anywhere!
Me: But that is exactly what we felt too!! And that’s why the question – what is your vision?!
The next moment I was thrown out. Me beleaguered, dazed by KG:’s vision, set out home. As an act of gesture, KG towards the end told me that anyone who could understand his vision behind Boom, would get a role in his next movie! Anyone interested?
