CAN’NES WE GO BEYOND DEVDAS
It’s 60th Cannes Film Festival.And it has been reported that out of 1500 films watched and viewed, 50 were shortlisted and only 20 made to the competition section of the festival. And no film from India has made it to the competition round. And coincidentally,it is 60th year of Indian Independence!
There is going to be a kind of spotlight on Indian cinema for two days during the festival where 7 films from India are going to be screened. And then few of the production houses and companies from India are going to showcase their future projects, eg JODHA AKBAR from UTV is one such case.So far so good? No. There is something really skewed about our perception about our own cinema.
Come to think of it, if my memory serves me right,last time Indian entry made it to Cannes was DEVDAS in year 2002.And man,what a hype was created for its selection in the competition section.And paens had been sung and reams of paper spent tom tomming the dawning of new era-the arrival of Bollywood. But what actually happened with DEVDAS there,depended upon what kind of media reports and word-of-mouth comments you subscribed to.
Today the question looms-after DEVDAS what? I have no specific answer.I am just voicing opinion of many anguished cinephiles,who feel let down by all that Bollywood stands for. No doubt, it has now reach far and wide.-not only in theatres and multiplexes of the world but it is waxing its glory in Madam Tussauds museum also.No doubt there are frenzied fans of Amitabh Bachhan in Turkey and Rajnikanth in Tokyo.(incidentally,he is demi-God in Tamil Nadu,though a Bollywood reject). Shahrukh Khan dons over USA and Salman reigns in Canada. And Aishwarya Rai provides the ultimate glamour quotient across the continents. Aishwarya was incidentally a jury member earlier at Cannes.
So what?
Do all these stars, superstars, sons of superstars,glam-dolls and celebrities add up to any cinema worth screening at such a prestigious festival. Their presence at Cannes just represents the mass-produced masala movies culture and a kind of an illusion that we have arrived on the international scene. In fact we have not arrived, these stars,producers and a clutch of directors have arrived-to escape Mumbai’s soaring temperatures.
For how long this deception will go on. When would we seriously start taking long time strategic viewpoint and start focusing on cinema that is not only star but content driven. Movies that move and not just swing and dance,and cruise along with some wonderful cinema coming from South Korea, Iran, South Africa,Yugoslavia,Poland and China.
Till that happens, it is Nice to bask in the delusion that though we Can’nes but we don’t want to-because we are like our films–hatkay!
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Krysh – u’re right ..
We’re simply fooling ourselves … and believing we’re ‘hatke’ and world cinema is noticing us…
Fact is I’ve never seen a worse performance than SRK in Devdas …
But come on .. one film .. one film … a short film at least !!!!
And we are one sixth of the world’s population !!
Baaaa … ~X( ~X( ~X( ~X(
krysh:
Your article raise few questions:
any field (indigenous) where India is given importance abroad?
Writing: Do we think that our writers write inferior and dont deserve nobel prize in literature? Or its becasue we dont write for a wide range of readers.
Science: Do we get place in journals like NATURE?
Software : Indian firms are given opportunity to be involved in R&D activities or most of them are service providers only?
and in any field, in any international prize area or in any international festival, is it so simple that you bring quality and you will be recognised?
So in last what remains?
you make films for festivals happening elsewhere in world, but it can not necessairly be a film for your home land audience.
same happens in literature. VS Naipaul got it in 2001, but his book of that year Half a life was his best book? or his some other writings which suited for international political fixers, paved the way to notice him and his writing talent?
India’s poulation is around 1B. question is to whom you create?
and when scene is so bad where we dont produce anything worthy to be entered in international so called prestigeous festivals then who in your opinion can do this?
Why Satyajit Ray did not get Oscar for any film. Why he got lifetime achievement Oscar?
If he was migrated to USA or UK, and made films there in their language, based on the characters which they could have understood, then what was the probability that he did not get Oscar for many or some or any of his films?
Is it 2+2=4 in international awards festivals?
do we need a certificate fron cannes ? stop to fool indian audience just by presence or picniccing at these festivals.our makers should make films for our audience.being local is being universal.
@ajay: cannes has been the one premier festival which has maintained its high quality and substance over 60 years. of course u dont ‘need ‘ a certificate from cannes but if ur movies are selected there, then that pretty much seals its core value.
its not the oscars u see
we are making films since last 100 years and our films are well accepted and some times rejected by our audience.premchand didnt get noble prize,so what….
the comments along with the articles raise some good points… albeit we don’t need any stamp of approval from any film festival, we still need to realize where we stand in terms of the highest qualitative cinema amongst other top notch film makers around the world… I’ll give an example here… just go to any Hollywood Video Rental store… check the foreign movie section out… except for an occasional Lagan or a Mother India, I’ve seen movies like Bloody Night (Ramsay’s Khooni Raat) placed next to Roshomon or Life is Beautiful
It’s not the seal of approval from Cannes or Oscars that I would like to see… Rather it is the level of quality and beauty in cinema that we have reached that is something I would like to see in comparison to others… and as a consumer it is to see if “I am getting the best of cinema” from India or not… I don’t want us to see Indian cinema, it’s makers and viewers trapped in the Ambassador-Fiat syndrome where for over 30 years we kept driving only those two cars in India in a make believe dream that these were the only two cars best suited for us… had we competed in car shows, we would have realized how pathetic a quality of automobiles was being dished out to us for over 3 decades…
In any industry, as a law of survival, a manufacturer always keeps abreast of where his product stands in terms of technology, new inventions, new markets, people’s taste and above all the competitors.
Films are no different. Even if it is a 99% creative medium, it’s ultimate destination is the consumer – the mass or limited. And hence we have the right to know – if we are indeed getting the best or perhaps there are better movies being made elsewhere…
I recently chatted with a non-Indian co-worker who had watched “Lage Raho Munnabhai” as per my recommendation. She loves films from all over the world, mostly Hollywood.
So want to know what she thought?
She naturally didn’t like the songs. Ok, well that’s understandable. Afterall, that’s a “cultural” thing.
She thought the acting was “a little over the top” and found it to be “too animated”.
I dunno, was it? I didn’t think so but…
Overall she said the film was “ok” and that it was “too long with too many subplots”. She didn’t like the subplots of the old people, particularly the old man and old lady getting together in their old age. I asked her “why, that was so touching” she replied “Yeah but it took away from the main storyline”.
You know what I think? I love it, I think its a great film, and I couldn’t care less if she liked it or not.
Fine, she doesn’t represent Cannes, but for me its the same thing because if you ask 10 Indians what they thought of “Lage Raho Munnabhai” I guarantee 10/10 will give positive feedback. You know why? Because we, as Indians, understand and relate to the film, its themes, its settings and its characters.
As far as Hindi films are concerned, they have their own audience and we know whats good and whats not so good. I don’t think we need a foreign opinion on that.
tony // totally understand what you say! i have had similar experiences with coworkers – the responses from non-desis are seldom as enthusiastic as you expect them to be. it’s an ethos thing. and that’s one of the reasons why our no-brainer song and dance numayish-ware is more popular as compared to our other *thinking-person’s cinema* attempts.
wel said OZ
luv the fiat/amb string!!
“and that
Indian national politics and cinema have one thing in common….both are crawling with nepotism. Lets limit this to cinema:the indus try is full of people ralated to each other and the people coming into the industry are the next generation of son,daughters,cousins,etc.On top this models & beauty queens are long on being plastic & short on talent.A dynastic policy prevents devloping fresh,outside talent.At best, mediocrity won’t win prizes at Cannes or elsewhere.
Its not that Indian cinema needs a seal of approval from outsiders. But it would be nice if India was making films of high quality and content that COULD compete with the best films of other countries. If we just say “forget it” to these competitions, aren’t we in a way saying that we can’t compete?
Also, don’t we want the image of Indian cinema abroad to be more than just escapist musical melodramas to be looked at as kitsch? Don’t we want to demonstrate that we can produce films that are well-written, well made, intelligent, thought-provoking, and genuinely moving? Even Iran, with its extremely restrictive censorship rules, has made more of a mark on international cinema these days than India! Filmmakers like Majid Majidi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Abbas Kiarostami are recognized among cinephiles.