There are some topics that have the potential to be perennial. What is life? Is there God? Is religion being misrepresented? Why do people suffer? And at a more prosaic(and infinitely more appealing) level, Will there be good governance? Will we have a 'better' education system? and Will there be good movies? Of this, my undisputed favourite is Will there be good movies? So when I chanced on this discussion in Tea kada, I just couldn't resist myself
www.teakada.com/archives/politics_tamil_cinema_eshtyle.html
It really was an insightful and interesting article. Like most people I would agree with most points raised by Anand in the Outlook article but disagree with his views on Mani (owing to my affection for Mani as well as the belief that he was politically not incorrect). I remember that "Sami" which did not have any explicit caste affiliation caused problems in Thirunelveli as did several other apparently 'clean' movies. Obviously the problem therefore is that a vast majority of the viewers saw it with 'jaundiced' eyes which Anand reflected himself in the article. This, therefore brings an added responsibility on the film-maker to tread carefully. Isn’t it about time that we stop clinging to our caste as our “identity” and look at other ways (I have no clue what they may be - as yet) to express ourselves.
Another very interesting point raised when we discuss movies is the societal apathy that the today’s movies breed in our youth. Either our movies urge the youth to just forget the problems of society and just enjoy or try making us believe in a utopia where one ‘superhero’ changes all society for the better. I am not the superhero, so it is not my problem. In fact in one of the articles that I wrote for IK long back, I had pointed out that moviemakers should realise there are more things to make movies about than ‘Love’ in its different (hardly) aspects. Must point that I received flak for that article claiming commercial non-viability and a standard answer of "we give what the viewer wants". This brings us back to another perennial discussion. Did the egg come from the chicken or the chicken from the egg? Are people watching crap because they get crap or is crap being produced b'coz people watch it?
Can’t really idealise Hollywood – for even they are deteriorating in a self-destructing spiral of ‘formula’, with good movies a rarity. At this point we really need a bunch of brave film-makers who just do different genre of movies. We need variety and by Good Lord! not bare-all sex videos. We do miss KB, Visu, Sridhar, S.Ve infinitely.
Which brings us to this question: Who will bring this change? Will some production house risk the road less travelled? Movies known for their stories and the deft handling of screenplay than the colourful canvas that has now become synonymous with Indian movies. Will we see another Satyajit Ray? Or a Balu Mahendra ("Veedu" for instance)? Only time will tell but SOMETHING needs to be done.
As I remarked in the beginning, this really is a never-ending topic for discussion. Now, Will we just talk or do something about it?
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