Oct 16, 2009 02:55 PM
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.. the other day I was reading Om Puri's take on the status quo of the hindi cinema. It wasn't actually an all-out attack on the kinds of hindi movies were being made today but a small part of the interview did deal with it and so it got me thinking that the guy's right. Where are the issue based movies? Movies with the message?
What message will a youngster get from a movie like Wake up sid? All I could gather was that if you love a girl, then don't delay the inevitable.. go right ahead, squeeze her tight and disgorge your feelings.. if you say it on a rainy day, it'll help and if it is raining and you are standing in front of the sea, at queen's necklace road of mumbai, icing on the cake.
I remember "himalaya ki god main'.. romance was a track which never hindered with the story.. manoj kumar was an idealist doctor who came to a village to do some service for the society.. the story revolved around his trials and tribulations.. or "Mother India" which dealt with the feudal system of the yore. Do we make movies like those anymore?
Have we seen any movie on Naxalites and how it got started and spread? (ok maybe "Hazaron Khwashein Aisi" which was a decent effort but it was less about the Naxalism movement than the lifes of the 3 protagonists). Have we seen any movies on J&K? (Yes there was 'Kashmir'.. by that over-rated director vidhu vinod chopra... and other utter pointless movies but please we are talking about real serious movies here.. not glorified biography of a suicide bomber or a terrorist..).. the killing of Ishrat Jehan? Or maybe movies with international reach and timeless themes like Ray's?
We can't blame the Indian diaspora to like only the song and dance movies. Its upto the movie makers to make them aware of the kind of cinema they would want the public to see. "Black Friday" was a decent movie with the backdrop of Mumbai '93 blasts. "Parzania" was another such kinds on Godhra. The trouble is that we are altering the taste of the movie-goers by making absurd movies like "Singh is king" and "Namaste London", we are doing a grave disservice to this medium. Since movies are more widely viewed than any other medium, we could leverage them more effectively.
The other day I was reading Dame Judi Dench's acrid remarks about how youngsters in bid for instant fame don't learn about the medium effectively. (https://guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2009/oct/13/judi-dench-young-actors) She laments the fact that young actors should learn a thing or two from Theatre, old films and the bygone generation. In India's context, well, forget about the old generation, do we see any of our current actors except few probably who invest time and energy in theatre? There is Amol Palekar, Deepti Naval and Nasruddeen Shah.. there is Om Puri and the likes, but who is to set the precedent? It has to come from the top. Actors like Amitabh, Shahrukh, Aamir, Akshay etc, whom the whole young generation look upto, should do some theatres in their free time. Its a medium which is more personal than movies. A medium by which they can not only hone their acting skills but could also improvise to their satisfaction. Theatre is a real time deal, you have no chance for error. If you err, you need to improvise. But unfortunately its the most under-utilized acting medium.
And what really about the young generation? The new crop of actors who want to make mark in the medium. Can they compare with the star sons and daughters? That is another debate altogether. The film medium has become a monarchy where the baton is passed from a star parent to offspring. So we have Abhishek B, who, despite giving 12-13 flops in a row, has finally reached a credible stardom. We have Saif Ali Khan, who in the beginning of his career looked more like a sensitive woman than a manly man, but now a demi-god. Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor got it easy with their towering fatherly figures behind them. The point here is that had it been an average guy with no star name attached to it, could he or she have scaled such heights despite giving 13 flops in a row? Could Mahesh, who is a son of a barber, be given so many chances to prove himself?
The need of the hour is to make meaningful movies, not merely for entertainment but for education. The way we learnt about Autism through TZP, the same way we could learn about various other issues. India is big country with big and plenty of problems. If we can change the lifes of just few of the people through movies than its a risk worth taking.
