Monday, September 14, 2009

What is wrong with Bollywood?-Part 1

What is wrong with Bollywood?

This is the question which indeed has become question for our contemporary cinema. In the past two decades, i have been grown up watching Chopra’s, Barjatya’s, Johars, Roshan’s….etc and there is one common characteristic which binds them; they are all same.

There is another type of cinema, parallel cinema, cinema which has Hrishekesh Mukherjee’s simplicity and Shaym Benegal’s style of story telling; cinema which is more of abstract and hence is tabooed; at its fore front, we have RGV and his one time assistant Madhur Bhandarkar; Amit Shamin, Mani Ratnam, Anurag Kashayp …etc too belongs to the same league.

I can’t fathom how our choices have deteriorated so much; we are living in a constant façade that we are making a choice for watching a quality cinema, and on top of that this graph is ascending and linear. Out of TEN Bollywood movies, NINE are influenced from foreign films; out of NINE, barely one or two follow the suit and tag of being Influential, like Sarkar was loosely influenced from God Father Trilogy; but what about remaining seven?

Out of SEVEN, FIVE copies the theme and add their own stuff, Nishabd had the same theme as that of Lolita but was dealt in a different way; even this is acceptable if the output is not a crap unlike Deewane Hue Paagal, which was the disastrous version of Something About Mary and Yeh Kya Ho Raha Hai, an irritable version of American Pie-I.

Out of these FIVE, TWO follows Copy-Paste technique. The technique is very simple and even a dud can practice it, use a writer who knows English and then translate all the subtitles into Hindi, Zinda, Frame by Frame copy of Old Boy and Murder, which is a Scene by Scene copy of Unfaithful; and the KING of Copy-Paste technique is the man with the multiple Bio-Pics; Zakhm, Kaash, Aarth, Woh Lamhe …….etc are few of those; and he is none other than Mr Mahesh Bhat; you name it and he has it.

I have no intention of writing about remakes; however I have one doubt; are we really incapable of making some descent cinema? I have made a sincere attempt to understand the psychology of our craftsmen ship, the so called Directors; who are losing their sensibility about Film Making and soon will be bereft. One who tops the charts is Satish kaushakh, director of Tere Naam. One question which baffles me is; why the hell he remade Karz with some extra zzzzzz’s and that too with H.R, and my next question is for a well renowned Director-producer Vipul Shah; I just want one answer, one justification, one simple reason about what he liked most about such an imbecile stuff like Singh is Kingg; was this a real Master piece as per him; why he became the producer of such a movie?

There is huge list of questions, especially for Johar’s and Chopra’s and I can’t write those right now. From all these unanswered question I have realized one fact, if Aap ka Saaroor can become an Instant hit and Movies like Welcome, Singh is King and Kambakth Ishq can rule the box office then why I should not I remake Karz with HR and try my hands on CC2C.
It’s not the Film Maker who should be considered responsible for bad cinema; it’s the audience who appreciates such movies and is the real culprit for such disastrous cinema. Bad cinema does not mean a Copied movie, to qualify for bad cinema the only parameter is the lack of conviction. Maan Gaye Mughle-Azam, one of the worst torture; I have ever been through was actually the copied version of classic, Black & White English movie, so just copying is not the holy grail.
We have been copying movies since we had accessibility to their cinema, I remember Nargis Dutt’s Raat Aur Din was first hindi Sci-Fic; where the protagonist has a Multiple Personality Disorder, this movie was copied from 1960’s Alfer Hatchcock’s Psycho. As I said I don’t have intention of criticizing this habit but my clear intention is to focus on the sensibility of the audience.

I believe that audience in 1970’s been much more mature and had a far better taste than the audience of this millennium. There was a time when Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Goolmal, Chupke Chupke, Bawarchi… etc were considered as descent comic capers and Silsala, kabhie Kabhie, Pyaasa, kaagaz ke phool set the rules for romantic films and finally there were thrillers like DON, Deewar, Kaala Pathar, Kalicharan, Chinatown, Shaan which elevated the standards of Hindi film Industry. Now time has changed, these days movies like Phir Hera Pheri, Goolmal Returns, AapkaSaroor, Jawani Deewani, Kamabkth Ishq, welcome, Partner, Aapna Sapna Money Money ……. … etc tickles our funny bone.

This revelation occurred when I saw Vivek Agnihotri’s Chocolate and i liked it as it was bit different from others; chocolate, a copy of Usual Suspect except some non sense song sequence. To my surprise, this movie was a flop and audience find its story (writing & Screenplay) quite arduous ; well I guess there is only one reason for its failure; director forgot something, something which cost him too much, he forgot about the audience, he forgot that we are Indians and we only understand the language of Chopra’s and Johars. We can only appreciate Sharukh’s Sobbing and Aamir’s yet to discover ACTING. No offense for SRK and AK’s fan, I do remember Chak de, Swades and Sarfarosh but I am going with the majority.

To describe Aamir Khan i think Ghajjni is enough, Ghajjni, a real dud , a perfect shame and the best spoof of Christopers Nolan’s Memento till date and for such an audacious attempt, Murgadose the director and Aamir Actor cum Director should be rewarded with some SPECIAL AWARD; as he says Every Director is special – Tare zameen Pe.

It’s not about being a flop or Box Office disaster, movies like No Smoking, Nishabd, Katha, Suraj Ka Satwan Goda, Mammo, Nishant, English August …….. Were never intended for any commercial success, indeed they needed some appreciation.

Throughout the thread I was quite pensive, for me these film makers are just like jezebel, who contemplates accordingly. If cinema has to evolve then it’s the audience who has to evolve first; same is the case with System or for that matter our Country.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence - Albert Einstein