Laxmikant Shetgaonkar and the Ambitions of the Indian Film Maker
We have been tired of the standard of cinema in India . An outcome of this has been to try and encourage film makers who are trying to push the paradigm of film making in India. This website/forum has been a vocal proponent to promote this movement and has played an active and important role. But the problem is, that a big mistake is being made in choosing the film makers who we think are changing, or are going to change the film landscape in India. Going by recent evidence, Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Kashyap, Imtiaz Ali, Zoya Akhtar et al are the wrong choices.
I saw an interview on NDTV where 4 film makers : Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibankar Banerjee and Navdeep Singh(I think) were being interviewed. It was an illuminating interview because it gave a glimpse into their ambitions and dreams. The most interesting part of the interview was when Anurag and Dibankar said that they hoped that their group would be the equivalent of the late 60’s and early 70’s young film maker brigade of Hollywood. They hoped one of them would turn out to be a Scorsese, and another, a Spielberg. To me this was the most troubling thing I had heard, and made me more worried than ever about the future of Indian cinema. Here were these film makers, who are considered the new breed of edgy, indie and envelope pushing film makers and yet the nature of their ambition was limiting and to me, downright appalling.
In fact, the problem is not just with the ambitions of these new film makers but also with our, the new age audience’s, ambitions and hopes. If these new film makers can turn out a film that can serve as an extremely good Indian version of a “supposedly edgy and arty” Hollywood film , we, the audience are ecstatic. We scream from the rooftops that ” Film making in India is changing ! The change has arrived ! We are the change !”. The problem is that the films that serve as the inspiration, are themselves a part of the decay in modern cinema standards(or as some call it world cinema). We as an audience are encouraging these new age film makers’s films, which are belated replies to their Hollywood (or world cinema) counterparts. It’s as if we want to make those edgy Hollywood films, but 15 years later! The independent cinema in Hollywood is dead (and you know that this is the case when Paris Hilton starts attending Sundance Film Festival). And the generation of film makers and their students , who are the inspirations of our edgy film makers, have completely killed good cinema in Hollywood.
But as always, there have been exceptions who have tried to keep cinema alive. They have taken a step back and gone back to the basics. They are trying to ask themselves the same questions that the great film makers like Bresson, Bunuel, Ozu, Antonioni, Bergman, Ray, Kurosawa, Tarkovsky (and others) tried to answer. (Even Godard asked those questions. But an inadvertent outcome of his great ideas was that those same ideas were adopted by lesser skilled film makers, which led to the destruction of the curiosity to even ask those questions.) It is these set of contemporary film makers: Kiarostami, Haneke, Dardenne Brothers, Denis, Von Trier, Dumont, Noe, Breillat et al. (the French film makers belonging to this group are now called The New French Extreme) who should serve as an inspiration. Maybe not as an inspiration, but atleast as the film makers with whom our film makers should engage in debate with.
Why is it that, our new film makers are not interested in trying to ask the fundamental question of what the medium of film is ? Why is it that they are not interested in adding/inventing a new paradigm of film making ? Why is it that they follow the paradigms created by other film makers ? Why is it that they talk more about requiring “bigger” budgets instead of the above questions ?
Why is it that their ambitions are so limited ?
I do not question the skill of our new wave film makers (except for Zoya Akhtar and Imtiaz Ali whose categorization, as envelope pushing and edgy, makes me cringe). Bharadwaj’s Maqbool and Blue Umbrella offer tantalizing possibilities of the heights that he can touch , Kashyap’s films showcase a film maker who has a vivid and colorful imagination. Dibankar Banerjee’s Oye Lucky Lucky Oye was possibly the best Hindi film made in a long time and, some parts of Delhi 6 show that Rakeysh Mehra was born to make films. But what I question is their ambition .
These questions lead me to Laxmikant Shetgaonkar who today won the FIPRSECI Discovery Prize in the Toronto Film Festival for his “small” Konkani film ‘Paltadacho Munis’. In this last week the forum has been obsessed with tracking the progress of the Road Movie and it’s main star Abhay Deol. But not one newspaper has given Paltadacho Munis any coverage (except a fleeting mention of this film, along with Dil Bole Hadippa ) and not one from this forum even mentioned it (maybe people knew about it but didn’t think about mentioning it).
The story of the film itself is an indication of the ambitions of the film maker. The same grand ambition that Ray,Ghatak ,Sen, Aravindan and the great batch of FTII graduates: Kaul, Adoor, Kasaravalli, Abraham and Shahani, displayed in their work.
Tags: FIPRSECI, Laxmikant Shetgaonkar, Toronto International Film Festival
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
Well, the aspirations of Ray, Ghatak, kasaravalli and group was to create and evolve good stories on screen , turning their back to the lure of extravagant money and they succeeded in that.
The aspirations of new age film-makers might have started on the same note but they compromised for the money, and I see nothing wrong in it.
Here I also want to agree with one of my friends , who on this topic repeatedly says ” Its not easy at all to make a successful masaala film”.
No comment of media, it works on hype,rumours and breaking news !! :-)
u have touched the point that many of us consciously avoid…yes, we restrict our ambitions at a certain level…we want to be Indian Scorsese, Indian Johny Depp…
more often than not we’ve heard that someone is “the answer to” some hollywood counterpart…we are yet 2 reach the level where we can influence others…
anyway thnx for reminding of Shetgaonkar..absolutely no media coverage…& I don’t think even Road,Movie got much coverage in mainstream media…it was all abt DBH & WYR premiere…
contd..although I don’t expect new age directors to make extremely socialist stuff & have strong aversion towards anything related to money like the ones in 70’s…u need commercial success, but still u can find new vistas…
Looking at the bigger picture I think this is our national characteristic. We tend 2 set limits for ourselves. If u see China & India. We r both growing & slated to do great things. But level of our ambition is still very small compared 2 them. They r done with Olympics..& we r doubtful about CWG…
Goan government announces 25 lakhs award to the director.
http://in.movies.yahoo.com/news-detail/66378/Goa-announces-Rs-25-lakh-award-Konkani-filmmaker-Shetgaonkar.html
I think you kind of misunderstood what happened during the NDTV talk show. The point that these filmamkers were arriving at was this: First they were disagreeing with a parallel being drawn to the 70s art house cinema in India to the current H(indie) movement. The difference being that at that time it was funded by the govt (NDFC etc) and the directors didnt feel the pinch of revenues as much as the ones who make intellectual cinema now do. Then Anurag mentioned that he was hopeful of one of them being Scorcesse and one being Spielberg but that was more tongue in cheek to drive another point which followed. That the movement that came foorth in the 60s and 70s Holywood with movies like “The graduate” , “Alice doesn’t live here anymore”, Excorcist etc were the result of the French New Wave of the 50-60s led by the likes of Truffaut and Sica. So your assertion that they aspire to become Spielberg is indeed far fetched. Infact, do you see any of them making science fiction films or even large budget films. They are being inspired by great cinema. Anurag started making films because of Sica. Didnt you see Lynch and Bunuel in No Smoking? Didnt you see the inspiration of Pontecorvo in Black Friday, didnt you see the influences of Kar Wai/Tarantino in Dev.D and didnt you see the pure intrinsic storytelling in Gulaal. I didnt see Spielberg anywhere. They are indeed pushing the envelope and aspiring to be filmmakers of the world. They are gradually taking the audience’s sensibilities to a higher dimension. They dont want expensive actors or big budgets. Dibakar clearly mentioned in that talk show that they need actors who speak their lingo, who understand their kind of cinema and sensibilities. They are not talking about big budgets, they just want their stories to be told, they way they want. I am afraid there is no specific reason for you to lose faith in this Hindie movement brother. Cinema is seeing a new wave; be it from lesser known names like Laxmikanth and Dev Benegal’s Road, which the media shamelessly avoids to mention or be it the directors like Anurag, Dibakar, Navdeep who are comfortable with small budgets and their stories being told the way they want to. One way or the other, we have a regional film going to oscars as India’s entry, a Konkani film winning the FIPRESCI at TIFF, one of the directors being the jury member of Venice film festival where his film gets a 10 minute standing ovation and all our media wants to talk about is Rani’s gown at TIFF.
(The point that these filmamkers were arriving at was this: First they were disagreeing with a parallel being drawn to the 70s art house cinema in India to the current H(indie) movement. The difference being that at that time it was funded by the govt (NDFC etc) and the directors didnt feel the pinch of revenues as much as the ones who make intellectual cinema now do.)
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Theory i s not based on the facts. Though it is true that NFDC helped few films came out of art house but it May not be true in a general term.
Shyam Benegal was a pillar of art house films and most of his fims were made by private funding only.
Films Shashi Kapoor produced were made by using his own money.
Same is true for many good art house films, they were made by private funding. Filmmakers felt as much heat as present days filmmakers may feel, rather more because back then corporate houses were not producing the films and it was far difficult to make different kind of films than it is today.
Hardly an example can be found that a new person went there at Bombay and got his chance to make the film as it can be seen in today’s time. People assisted for years before making the film. Or they graduated from FTII and started with very small budget films.
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@RK, I was merely stating the points discussed in that talk show. But they had discussed the exact same things as you rightly pointed out. Anurag mentioned that some of these films were made with individual budgets but the reach was minimal (Govind Nihlani), mostly to the television. In fact, Dibakar admitted that it was much tougher to make these films back then. The economics is what is a tough thing to handle in contemporary times as compared to those times.
I have not seen the show. But it was not easily digestible for me that Anurag K and Dibakar B, might say such a thing. Hence the comment on your comment and not on their sayings.
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We can not say that reach was minimal (I guess you are referring the reach of the films to the audience).
Distributors control the release of the films and it was true back then also. Whichever film got the approval of these distributors actually earned good (Money as well as reputation). You have used name of Govind Nihalani but he was the lucky one whose debut Aakrosh went well. He got Shashi Kapoor as a producer for Vijeta. His Ardha Satya earned very very well. Party might not earn that well and later he himself turned to TV and earned a good recognition via Tamas. Again Drohkal was a good earner.
We can quote the lesser known films like Godaam, Arvind Desai ke ajeeb dastan etc but well established films of art house earned sufficient and that is why we can see that Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani both have been making films on a continous basis. Ketan Mehta, Prakash Jha etc changed their categories of the films. Whatever their circumstances were but Mirch Masala and Damul were not films which brought loss to them or producers.
There are many confusions created around art house face of hindi films.
Then people did not have means to discuss the things like we have internet now and now everything can be given an instant recognition and back then it was a lengthy process which might have affected few filmmakers.
Neeraj, thanks for your comments. I have tried to emphasise even more upon the details of what I was trying to say, in my reply to Anurag. Let me know your thoughts about it.
Neeraj
Definitely. I agree with you. …… Don’t you just spend your life in hope of such a post. …….
But I request you to spare the French and Americans. French New Wave was led by De Sica. And the American New Hollywood’s leading films were Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Right. Didn’t Godard make Citizen Kane?
(Ed. Note: Harish, Comment is partially deleted. Please do not make personal remarks on authors and readers making comments.)
This is by far the most critical(and honest) post on PFC.I would also like to appreciate PFC for allowing it to be published.
Dev D,Oye Lucky,Gulal,Delhi 6 etc are good movies.No doubt about that.But are they at par with world cinema standards?Ray was compared to his great contemporaries(not just by Indian Critics but also by Critics like Roger Ebert).Tell me a single film-maker who has got the same status?Temme a single ‘Great’ filmmaker from India from this current new weave?
The reason why I liked the post is that it has hit the bull’s eye.If Dev D is going to replicate shots from Requiem from a dream,bringing out the dead and get praised by media for being visually innovative.If Luck by Chance is going to be ‘Cautiously’ real about the truth in film industry and be appreciated as “The Real Reel Film”…who are we fooling guys?
World has changed since Ray,not just content-wise but visually too.Are we at par with them?
when Truffaut,Godard came in 60s, when scorsese,spielberg,hopper came in 70’s when Majidi,Makhbalbaf came in 90’s,when Park Chan wook,Bong Jooon-ho in early 2000…they rocked the world with their films!Have we?
We have to invent and develop our own stories and storytelling,visually we have to be inventive…then somewhere we can claim to be at par with world cinema.Anurag I find to be the most promising,a guy who can actually do it.But problem is that he does not have equally good director friends with him!Vishal Bhardwaaj still cannot give an original film and he is already 48.
and Imtiaz Ali?Zoya Akhtar?New weave?Really?Arey fir Yash Chopra,Prakash Mehara,Nassir Hussain,Manmohan Desai kaunse bure the yaar in 70s!
You are absolutely right about everything, especially Luck By Chance !It is such a cowardly piece of film making.
Your last line is very funny !
Well Karun, though your concerns are true situations have changed according to time… when Ray made his movies.. there was still ample scope to take chances, and nothing to take away from S Ray saab, but the OPTIONS were limited… today when the whole world lives in a rat race, you cant help it but seep into a mentality to get your product as something that is accepted and appreciated, and not just respected… its like the same difference between people who built Qutab Minar, and it still stands, but today builders need to build quality wala house, but within budget constraints and make best use of what they have… so such a scenario… I still think we still need to appriciate and encourage movie makers to veer towards the direction they are trying to go (luck by chance, coward or no coward does show how cinema industry works, without showing anybody as a bad or a black person … it still was a third party movie, and I still think that movie was better than way, than a first party emotional turmoils)…. but as you say there is a need to good cinema as well.. so I sincerly hope people like Anurag kashyap and Vishal and so many others make an Om Shanti Om once in 3 years, make tons of moolah and then make dish out their wave of cinema, hit flop baad mei … and then again an Om Shanti Om… (Waise if YRF does get out of their stupid gimmicks like pind khet swiss golden temple, Punjab ke baad pakistan, DDLJ crap, they did have some good scripts that could ve at least started some trends towards the scriptwriters and directors leading than marketing industry… )
jab registan mein baarish ho rahi ho toh bheegne ka maza lee jiye….nadi ka intezaar mein barso nikal gaye bagair nahaaye….
Virender Sehwag in his younger days simply aped every shot of Sachin. But today he is not just a mere Sachin clone but a major force to reckon with.
Vishal Bhardwaj has made five films two out of which u say offer tantalizing possibilities of the heights that he can touch. Then how is it that we are making the wrong choice in him.
Anurag, Zoya, Imtiaz, Dibakar and many more of their ilk are in their own little way changing the way films are made here.
“and not one from this forum even mentioned it (maybe people knew about it but didn’t think about mentioning it)”
Not true. Check this previous post – http://passionforcinema.com/konkani-film-in-discovery-section-of-toronto-fest/
Thanks for pointing that post out!
superb post.. i agree with you sandeep.. wholeheartedly, but believe me all that we do is means to an end.. a victory by a Laxmikant at TIFF wont change anything(you have seen media’s apathy towrds it) , Our scenario is not the same.. the advantage all these countries had was a lack of industry, there was no industry in korea when it broke through, then came the industry and then the ruin.. korean cinema is dead in less than ten years, france still does not have an industry, only industry in french is luc besson.. gfrench still make films funded by various agencies and funds.. why our regional films are far far superior to hindi, tamil or telgu.. because there isn’t an industry, a bad one is easily lost and good one not forgotten.. the subsidies you will get for regional films are not available to us.. so only way to change it is by example, which is make a successful film.. one big one, a bonafide successful film by a big margin or a big one at cannes,berlin, venice or the academy award.. thats all people know here.. they won’t know a rotterdam from a goa, a fipresci award means nothing to them.. manish jha won the Fipresci at venice with matrubhoomi after the one at cannes for his short.. today he can’t find money to make a film.. geetanjali after having won three awards at cannes is finding it tough to make her next.. one victory is not enough..
but
But if you want to make that victory make the difference then make it your responsibility, get on to every website, any platform and make sure everyone knows it and don’t intimidate them, urge them to see it, attract them to the film, get it released all over the country, make groups of volunteers and make them spread the word around about the film.. because in the end my friend they will count the boxoffice and when it is not enough, we are back to the same game and you will wonder why.. which is why i say don’t just be an armchair critic, go out and make the success out of laxmikant’s film.. that is where everyone gets lazy, saying its not my job.. like they say in politics.. you want to change politics get into it.. do not stand for the elections, fine.. but campaign for the right one.. and one post on one PFC is not enough to do anything…
Anurag and others, Kaminey recently was a revelation to me, not in terms of how good or bad the movie was. It seemed that Vishal Bharadwaj was making a tribute to a film maker whose entire vision and understanding of violence has been rendered childish and gimmicky by Haneke,Dardenne Brothers,Dumont,Noe et al in this decade. Kaminey seemed out of step and dated. And to me it seemed that Vishal Bharadwaj is going down a path, frighteningly similar to that of Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Suddenly, it dawned upon me that it is entirely possible that all of our new age film makers are also going down that same path.
Here are these film makers from Europe ,Taiwan (Tsai Ming-Liang), Iran (Kiarostami) etc who have gone back to Bresson and adopted his framework for their themes (death,crime,abuse,sexual taboos etc) and completely destroyed the notion that “Visual Image is the only thing important in film”. And our edgy films, in Hindi at least, seemed to be still stuck in this philosophy. I wondered if anybody was even engaged in this debate in India. I discovered Mani Kaul’s talks in various festivals where he has raised this very same question but the debate doesn’t seem to have caught on within film circles/viewers. There was an interview where Girish Kasaravalli raised the same question as well (The following link has 3 videos of Kaul’s talks from 2006)
http://www.cinemadebate.org/Site-1/VIDEO-1.html
And with the advent of digital video cameras the argument of cost/budget being a hindrance to making great cinema, doesn’t suffice (eg:Lynch’s Inland Empire). In fact because of the digital camera,never before has a film maker had such freedom and control over every aspect of his film (for the first time a film maker can be a true auteur).I believe that the films made by this current group of film makers in Hindi will at least recover it’s investment. This group of film makers also has the luxury of a devoted fan following who will at least watch their films once and also engage in debating the film’s virtues (something that regional film makers in India don’t enjoy). I will not blame the industry, because the industry will exist forever and in fact will only get bigger and worse (Hollywood is an example of this. Any of its movies with mature or different themes are paraded and marketed as great cinema). The choice rests solely with the film maker himself: to give up box office collections and ambitiously tread where nobody in films has ever tread before. And this group of film makers has a golden opportunity that nobody in the history of Indian film making has ever had before.
PS: The following link has Kiarostami talking about the “digital camera” and his film Five (maybe everybody has seen it but I posted it in case somebody hasn’t)
http://www.cinemadebate.org/Site-1/Related_Videos.html
sandeep i have seen all the films that you mention.. i just got back from two festivals back to back and saw some 60 films.. i have seen all these film makers latest work too and have interacted with them too.. you will be shocked off your ground you are holding on too when you think how different they think of their films than you.. cinema is a product of times.. all the filmmakers you mention are festival stars.. you should see how there own people react to those films and how there films are made.. you still didn’t understand the point i was trying to make.. i guess you are too busy articulating yours.. i am simply asking you to get off the page and work to get a film that you talk about so much without having seen it, get that film a release all around.. in venice amit dutta’s film got a special mention.. guess , even the institute and the government didn’t want to sponsor their tickets.. it was jaya bachchan.. have you met mani kaul.. have you talked to him about what you say or discuss.. i suggest do that and stop living in a fools paradise.. there are more indian films than you know, have won awards at various places, and i have seen them all.. irony is none of them have gone anywhere afterwards.. and i have seen their filmmakers drunk, depressed, one working for balajee.. and its the same phenomena worldwide.. only ones who survive are the festival darlings.. and how their films become what they become.. barring the genuine ones.. is another story..
I ask very practical questions? i can ideate too and debate for days and it will go nowhere.. all i say Want to make a difference , then do it… campaign for those indian filmmakers heading in that direction.. Amit Dutta for example is one..
Well said Anurag. I remember being an idealist myself…but too much of romantic idealism, and a severe bout of cynical ambivalence, doesn’t really get you anywhere. I’d spent nearly three years going from one festival to another, one seminar to another…crying foul over the state of our industry and our films and so forth. While those years did help me grow in more ways than one, I was glad I came out of it…realized that I was 25 and depressed…and had done nothing to rid it away except crib, crib and crib.
It’s been a year now…and I’ve started to work my way ‘in’…realizing that there is no greater and simpler truth than ‘action’.
BTW, I am proud to say that I was privileged to see this Konkani film being edited at my mentor Sankalp Meshram’s editing suite when I used to visit there to sit over the edit of the film I’d worked on- Vinay Shukla’s Mirch. Of the little that I’d seen then, the film had a lovely unassuming quality about it…a simplicity that is lacking in our grand storytelling. Kudos to Laxmikant and his team.
I understand completely what you are trying to say with regard to making a difference. And I agree that it is not enough to just talk about what is wrong but actually do something to make it right- be it by campaigning for good filmmakers or making sure people watch those movies.
But necessity for action and the need for debate are not mutually exclusive. This thread/debate regarding the state of the new wave Hindi cinema is an important part of trying to make a difference. I agree that it might not be enough.
I am aware that the films of the filmmakers that I refer to, are not box office ‘hits’ in their respective countries. But that doesn’t mean that their merits/greatness shouldn’t be discussed. That also doesn’t mean that our films shouldn’t be held to that standard. Of course, I am sure that since I am not an industry insider, I don’t understand a lot of the dynamics of how things work. However, I am really interested to know what you meant by ” you will be shocked off your ground you are holding on too when you think how different they think of their films than you”. and this ” have you met mani kaul.. have you talked to him about what you say or discuss.. i suggest do that and stop living in a fools paradise”.
Thanks!
i can organise a meeting for you if you want to with mani.. he is one of great inspirations and friend..can also pass on the emails of auteurs if u want..
As far as debates are concerned, they will go on and will always be there.. there is a website keeping those debates alive.. auteur.com ..
your passion is in right place so i suggest leave the debate to the academics and be more active..
hello sir, how ru? just few days back i watched the movie black friday. just felt very bad 4 myself that why didn’t i saw it in theatre. but just wanna ask u that, don’t u think because of the delay of the movie for such a long time, u lost a lot of audience?
Thank you for the offer ! It will be incredible to meet the film makers the next time I am in India (I am , as Dibakar quite funnily put it in his wonderful interview, ” A South Indian techie who lives in USA and who spends his weekends driving from home to the mall and back”. The statement is true only on some weekends
).
Debates aside, what I am really interested in is Indian film preservation and restoration. I would like to get NTSC transfers of these good Indian films and the dream objective would be to get them released as Criterion Collection’s Eclipse Box Sets under various categories (by film maker,language, award winning fims,genre etc) as they are doing, especially with Japanese cinema. I am an avid Criterion Collector myself and I am indebted to them for the transfers they have done for many hard to find films (Dreyer,Ozu,Kaurismaki,Shepitko,Fassbinder etc).
Indian films are nearly impossible to find (especially NTSC versions) and their DVD transfers in India are terrible. Even Ray isn’t spared with the DVD transfers of his films suffering from poor audio/visual quality and awful subtitles (in fact most of his DVD’s in India and USA are plagued by delays in subtitles and in some places subtitles are ahead by 2-3 scenes). I get VHS tapes of his films from the University library and the prints on those films are in such terrible shape.
I got Ghatak’s Titas Ek Di nadir Naam and the first 2 minutes of the DVD was pitch dark (even though the scenes seemed to have been shot in daylight) and a lot of people here have seen this DVD via Netflix and not gone past those 2 minutes. It is unfortunate.
The Mani Kaul and Kasaravalli films I have seen are via Youtube which was a tragic experience. I read somewhere in an Adoor interview that some of his films are decomposing in some Malayalam film societies.
I would like to get hold of the people who own the rights to all these films and then literally stalk Criterion to release those films in their catalog. I know Big films is doing some work on Ray’s films but I am not sure if the DVD transfers are as good as Criterion.
I would appreciate any input from you regarding this.
the lack of industrial set up! … very true… not only for cinema, but for any forms of occupation… till we serve any work as arts or interest and passion, and not as an industrial production.. we will always find quality … never could put them as words… very very articulate anurag sir…
Ekdum Daasu post Sandeep Bhai,
Kudos! to PFC 1stly to publish it, well i totally agree with you Sandeep, we need our own identity. But one thing i really appreciate as well is this LOT of AK,AB,IA, DB,,, they are atleast attenpting something new and being honest in acccepting and are open in sharing their Inspiration. Apne inspiration ko inthni transpaertly bathaana aur phir bhi apni ek chaap chod jaaana itself is a very big achievement. and Not necessarily all of their works are classic or cult,, the only thing that bothers me APNE values ki maaa Behan horahi hai yaaar yeh world cinema ke inspiration se…..
I agree with Sandeep and Anurag about apathy of media towards qualitative and a different kind of cinema!Here atleast people are talking about the award to Paltadacho Munis by laxmikant shetgaonkar but how many of us know that apart from DEV D,GULAAL & DELHI-6 there was another Indian film at Venice and that also in the orizzonti competition and also which won a special mention award.I am one of the actors on the film and was there at Venice at its world premiere and I am shocked at how a film like AADMI KI AURAT AUR ANYA KAHANIYA directed by Amit Dutta which was also the closing film in orizzonti section and about which the jury commented that it opens doors to a new form of cinema is neglected here.Even Marco Mueller,festival director remarked before the screening that they were proud to have this film as the closing film of orizzonti section.This film which is itself an example of how you don’t need large amounts of money to make a good film,instead of promoting it, the media is not even mentioning about it.
http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/festival/premi/awards.html
Pushpendra, thank you for letting me now about this film. The films seems extremely interesting. And congratulations to you and the film for it’s achievement. It seems to have been produced by FTII. Is it a Diploma Film ? Or was it made with FTII students,alumni etc ? I hope and wish that the film finds distributors so that I can get a chance to see the film.
I had read about FTII Lenslight Films which stated that every year the Diploma Films would be released on a DVD. But they are hard to find. Is there a place where I can reliably find those find those films ? And will this film be a part of that catalog ?
Pushpendra, Sandeep -
This has been reiterated so many times on PFC. This is a democratic forum. Why don’t you write something about Aadmi Ki Aurat aur Anya Kahaniya? It just seems in vogue to come to PFC with a film that has not been discussed about here, and blame everyone who partakes here.
Sandeep – that’s why my comment below.
Sandeep, Imagine a Bela Tarr, a Ming Liang, a Tarkovsky or even a dogme by Dardenne brothers being made in India, attaining critical and commercial success at the same time. Now thats too much of a possibility, isnt it? Thats the whole point I am trying to get at. Our audience’s cinematic intellectual quotient has to be gradually improved and suddenly taking twists and turn will do no good to anyone. I bet Vishal or Anurag can make a Workmeister Harmoniak or a Dong or a Rosetta or even a Blue Velvet any day. Heck Anurag even made No Smoking. You cant alienate the audience suddenly. These directors are answerable to the P&L of the production houses too. Even if we ignore that, the fundamental cause to bring intellectual cinema to the core, which we all are trying, is essential. So an Anurag Kashyap makes a Dev.D, satisfies the filmmaker in him with his storytelling, camera work, filtering AND also keeps the viewers intellectually and entertainment wise satiated. Vishal makes a film where he needs to challenge his own filmmaking which he is so damn good at. He needs to change, he cant repeat a Maqbool all the time. So he makes a Kaminey which has all the elements of Tarantion/Ritchie, challenges his own craft, does it with aplomb and yet make a commercial hit. Both films are case studies in themselves. Intellectual scripts, wonderful exectution, changing conventions, reaching to the world audience ( intellectually and not merely seen for song and dance ensemble) and yet entertain the audience. While all this is happening the audience’s cinema intelligence quotient is improving in their sub-conscious. If a Dil bole hadippa was released 5 years ago it would have been a massive hit but people are no more naive. As you can see that even the masses are not accepting these films. Our office driver says ” wohi nach gana hai, story hi nahin thi sir. Gaon mein aisa kuch nahin hota jaisa dikhaya tha. Lagan dekhi aapne, uski story mein koi baat thi”. So the new age filmmakers are not just making successful films and going to festivals, they are doing something beyond and big: Raising a nation’s cinema quotient. That is not possible by adhering to our film school literature or the avant garde European and Middle Eastern cinema to the tee. You learn, borrow, evolve, mash up, improvise and make your own thing. Revolutions don’t happen overnight. There ought to be some rational compromises. These directors have learnt the harder way, if their films is canned for 7 years it must do something to them and it has. You can see the effect it has on the evolving masses and the perception of Indian films at Festivals. I quote from TIFF’s official site what they had to say about ‘Paltadacho Munis’: “Far from the sensory overload of India’s big cities, Shetgoankar explores smaller but enduring dilemmas, drawing together keen environmental sensitivity with a nuanced view of village dynamics”
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Secondly, I want to tell you all that I was merely quoting from the talkshow and the comments are not entirely mine. Harish, this is for you specially. I finally found the video of the talkshow, here goes.
http://www.tubaah.com/details.php?video_id=55382
Neeraj thanks for making the point about art style evolution. Otherwise my comment would have been longer ;)
@Anurag
You mentioned in the talk show that Paanch is finally releasing. But its been more than 4 months now and there is no news about Paanch. Is it again stuck ? ? or got delayed !!!
I find myself in the minority with regards reactions to this post. Before jumping to accuse these filmmakers of humble ambitions, at least let’s get the names right: it’s Dibakar Banerjee and yes, it is Navdeep Singh. It’s right in this website Dibakar makes a note of producers who get his name wrong as Dibankar. Also the post on Paltadacho Munis was published on Sept 2nd on PFC as noted by thecommutist.
Personally, I believe this frustration that we aren’t doing enough is to an extent healthy; indicative of our hunger. It is also indicative, I fear, that we don’t grasp the enormous effort it takes to change cinema in India. Oye Lucky Lucky Oye as an American film would be an ordinary achievement: some authentic language rooted to its geography, a creative use of one actor playing 3 characters with some overlapping personality. Not much they haven’t managed before. And yet, if that is such a refreshing film imagine how limited Hindi cinema has been of diverse ideas. It takes Anurag Kashyap 13 years to make films like Gulaal and Dev.D. Vishal Bhardwaj is 48 and he just made Kaminey, Blue Umbrella, Omkara, Maqbool, Makdee. In spite of Shakespeare having created those stories centuries ago, Vishal managed to accomplish the little bit of originality that we’re willing to grant him only in his late forties. I think if we have any interest in creating anything ourselves then our focus should be on the journey these guys went through. Is DevD a long journey of creative evolution for a guy from a small town in India with the limited exposure he might have had in his formative years? How does it compare with the creative evolution of Quentin Tarantino? If we expect that these filmmakers are obligated to us – those with low self-cinema-esteem – to cross a certain bar, I have a problem with that expectation (it’s too socialist for me). The point is not to be disappointed with their supposed ambitions, but think, “if these guys had to take such long arduous journeys to manage this much change, how much more would we (or the next batch of filmmakers) have to take to manage respectable progress?”. And that sure should scare the shit out of us because when I read their stories I wonder if I have enough in me. [I'm not saying I'm going to be a filmmaker, but I like the perspective from the shoes of one.]
@ Sriram, would just like to add my comments… a comparison between hollywood and Indian cinema is not fair for 2 main reason …. hollywood, in itself has tons of crap movies, that never get released in anywhere else, so nobody notices them.. a ‘Dude where is my car’ is not an exception, so when we individually look at the masterpieces, they seem to stand out, but if we had to get an american audience, for them most probably a tarantino movie is an excellant one amongst a lot of trash thats dished out, but maybe not a SUPER Masterpiece as the movie is rated in India…
2 and the most important… the societies we live in … in hollywood, you can live with a lot more liberalities as compared to bollywood… and I am not just talking about moral policing, but as an audience set in itself… a lot creative oulets can start as a violent outburst or as an oscenity which finally can be turned into art (I hope at least Maslow will agree with me) … but there are tons of limitations within our own audience including a lot of us here on PFC… even for Tarantino to shoot people’s scalps getting shaved, is gross but so are the tons of stupid horror flicks that release in US, but for an Indian auidence, scalping somebody’s skin can make sure that the best of audience throws up with discomfort… kicking around an old man may not be possible in Indian societial acceptance with comfort while Wild Desires and American Beauty can be created, recretead, and shown to audience cuz of their tolerance, acceptance, and the way of life to take these things in stride… while out here in India… call it due to censor board, moral police and their nakabandi serving like the forbidden apple, or front benchers… you can expect whistles and jeers for an anguished Jesse Randhawa in Gulaal… the set up of audience is completely different…I still dont think the Reservior dogs scenes where Danny (i think that was the name) chops the hero’s ear will be tkaen kindly in India… so even expecting some path breaking scene might not be accepted… (again point in case, Abhay had a lot of scenes that carried that effortless gruesomenes,,, if even these scenes were not accepted what do we accept of an entire movie, that twsists and questions an untested audience…
A lot of us would accept that Kaminey make was inspired of QT movies, so… do we actually need to think that it took Vishal all these years to come up with Kaminey, when QT movies have been available for a long time now? Nopes… but just as there is this concept that every manufacturing firm specially in the MNCs, the audience or the consumer is not yet ready for certain products…. while we have Kaminey, we still cannot expect a ‘gamer’ or a ‘district 9′ to be made in India… its not about the shortage of film makers… if inspiration is all that is needed, then there is no dearth of film makers who can get inspired and make better cinema than original… but how much is the audience ready to lap it up … another example being “Sarkaar” … unless there was an acceptance and a slow movement into a way of movie makingm from Shiva to Satya to Company and then to sarkaar, slowly shifting the audience’ way of looking at a director’s cut, from what was available to what more can be offered (hero fighting goons to villian’s story, to no defined lines of whats a hero whats a villian) RGV might have made a Sarkar long back … admist all this is where we expect some great meaningful cinema to come out…. experimenting, opening up a wider audience who might accept these movies,,, or amongst the audience of these movies, will we have another thinking person, whose thought process will be different….
Boundaries exist everywhere.
let people (filmmakers too) of different nations watch uncut unrated version of Grotesque/ Gurotesuku (Japan)and then see the reactions.
i have read the book.. i didn’t know japanese made a film on it..where did u see it
This one can not be based on the book/Novel.
It has a one line story.
” A young couple (recently met) is abducted and tortured, by a psychopath Surgeon, till they die”.
Film is a depiction of the step by step torture done to the couple by this mentally sick and sadist man.
It is available on DVD. It has gained some momentum after BBFC, UK banned it. Perhaps Few other countries also have followed the ban.
Director is happily enjoying the ban.
@RK … Absolutely, and thats my point, that when we compare films or film makers (my examples are indian ones, but I speak of this for worldwide), we have to keep in mind that this is not a non exhaustive factory, where movies are going to be made without audience viewing them… there has to be certain boundaries we have to consider while we compare flim makers who continuously bring about newer scripts or treatments or any change to their cinema… not only should the yardstick be a comparison to another foriegn cinema… but also a look a how posisbly some movies have made sure that the domestic industry is evolved further, and another new dimension or wave of cinema finds its place…
even if we think of older day classics, I am pretty sure Mani Ratnam will not make Nayakan the same way anymore, there definately will be a change, and thats due to a spate of other films which came by and made sure that the audience reaction to movies gets more accepted…
Sandeep – May this post of yours be your first step in promoting a newer “new wave” of Indian cinema. Good luck..
Sorry Sandeep for the digression….
Carrying on with what AK is saying (Be Practical). Can I request something to the guys at PFC (OZ).
Since most of these movies are never going to see the light of the day (in terms of a commercial release or a satellite television release),
a) do you think it’s possible to put in a link to the english subtitled online copies of these movies
b) create an online shop from where one can buy the DVDs
c) put in a section which gives the details of the screenings for the movie.
For either of these I am not asking PFC to put in the resources… I am just asking them to create a forum for these purposes, and the let the movie makers provide the content on their own…Obviously to kick start they will have to ask a few of their friends to help… I know almost all of what I write above has been done in the past, I am just requesting institutionalising the process….
Oh ya Mani Kaul,Shyam Benegal,Girish Kasaarwalli,Adoor et al…
Pardon me,but I think if you cannot make audience sit for the movie,then no matter if you reflecting Kafka or Amar Chitra Katha,Outsider or ‘Jahareela Chaaku’…you suck as a filmmaker.
Fact is that all these arty filmmakers created a lobby in 70’s and they survived on films which were boring.Just because you are a different filmmaker doesn’t mean that you are a good filmmaker.Just because you take a social issue does not mean that people should go an watch your films.
Many critics call MAdhur Bhadarkar a pseudo realist.But that guy at least made movie on issues which people would not have cared to watch.People dint watch Mandi,but they did watch Chandani Bar.They didn’t watch Party but they did watch Page 3…why?Simple It made them sit on their seats!
I sincerely like you passion for independent film-makers Anurag.You are an inspiration.But please please please…make sure that these film-makers will value ‘Entertainment’ and ‘Cinematic Vision’ as much as the diverse content.
And as far as Ray is concerned,please read his interview in Guradian.He faced equal amount of financial and censor problems at those times.
In every age filmmakers have their own issues.Tarentino did,Nolan Did,Kim Ki duk did,Park chan wook did…but those guys fought it out man.And they have their own individual style today!
Remember Gandhi worked because he played it the people’s way.He understood them,understood their limitations,devised a way(non-violence) which they could practice,and then changed the system.
I think Filmmakers need to think like that.Just making different films(and even if it win oscars tomorrow) is not gonna go anywhere.Otherwise Anurag,just like in 70’s even you might end up in creating a lobby which will be blowing it own trumpet.But I sincerely hope you won’t turn out that way.
@karun
Very true! I’ll second to the points raised by you.
Films are to entertain audience and not the other way round. One has to make the films which audience like, there is no sure shot formula for that but this is the most important point.
One can go on making message oriented films and then bitch that audience are not upto the mark, they don’t know what the true cinema is blah…blah. but the point is same, make a film which can be enjoyed by people.
There are very successful films with message: RDB, Munnbhai series etc. Message is just an excuse!
Point 1: The whole point here is that what passes for entertainment here is abysmal. The fact that Madhur Bhandarkar (I don’t know about realism and all that: all I know is that he’s made four films that are the same in every respect axcept context) rather than Shyam Benegal make people stay on their seats is what everyone is worried about.
Point 2: Gandhi did not work out a way the masses could follow. He worked out the way and then asked the masses to follow it.
just want 2 tell u anurag sir, i dont know whether u will read this or no but, movie like black friday should be sent 2 oscars. not kidding.
and 1 more thing i didn’t had any idea that imtiaz ali was such a good actor. i mean the way he acts as if he is really tiger memon’s bro.
http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/2009/09/22/13290/index.html Laxmi Marathe’s woeful story of yet another wronged man in Bollywood. He even has a facebook group called ‘Shabri’. It would be nice to support his cause. I hadn’t heard of the movie before today but his cause seems genuine.
@anurag
is aamir & srk confirmed for bombay velvet?
& which movie you are going to direct first?doga or bombay velvet?
http://www.tubaah.com/details.php?video_id=60092
Naseerudin Shah & Ratna Pathak. Talking a bit about the parallel cinema movement.
Thanks for the interview. It was quite honest talk by Nasser Sir wihout pretending to be diplomatic.
Thanks for the link. It was a refreshingly frank and honest interview. Part of what I wanted to convey, was my fear that these set of film makers might go down exactly the same path that Naseer was talking about regarding the 70’s Hindi film makers.
I really did not understand the reason behind the third part in Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, thats where the movie started becoming repetitive and shows Mr.Banerjee trying hard to create sympathy for Lucky…While the first and second parts had common themes running through them with some amazing dialogue, the third especially the Paresh Rawal – Archana Puran Singh – Lucky act was trivial and seems out of place…
I listened to Mr.Banerjee’s candid “cumshot” audio clip, but still how I wish he sticked to what he was doing in the first two parts
Our cinema is just reflection of our society. Indian society has not produced any pathbreaking original work as opposite to french or american society. And the problem of mass manufacturing of films started here with set movie industry. Our regional cinema has produced gems reflecting our dreams and realities as the directors were embeded with regional literature, folk art form and regional culture. Bengali cinema have taken works of Tagore & Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay. John Barua and Bhupen Hazarika created new symbols for assamese cinema. Tamil films were deeply affected from Periyaar and subramanya bharathi. Hindi cinema is an artificial world created far away from Hindi hearland. Anurag and all people working in Mumbai will agree that there is wide gap between form of Hindi spoken in Mumbai with U.P., Bihar and Delhi. A handful of people virtually dominating the whole industry through money, relations and gossip media. I am sure that a place where Rumi Jaffery and Anees Bazmee are flourishing, the level of intellectual level of people can be understood..I am damn sure these bollywood stalwarts would have never heard the name of Mantoo, Mohan Rakesh or Premchand or even they have apetite for reading books or watching good cinema. Only people at pfc will tell me about this mass ignorance of our film makers and writers there.
@Yayaver,
actually early Hindi cinema in the 50’s,60’s and 70’s drew quite a lot from Hindi literature, and even other regional literature. Teesri Kasam, Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam, Parineeta, Devdas, Garam Hawa, Pavitra Papi, Ek Chadhar Maili Si, Rajnigandha( was based on a short story), Shatranj Ke Khilari all of them were based on literary works. Even the formulaic, masala stuff drew from some of the pulp fiction books, that’s why the Hindi cinema was closer to the Indian ethos. Most of the earlier movie makers, had a good idea of literature, both Indian and international. Regarding reading books, as u said before its the society, people consider Paulo Coelho and Chetan Bhagat as intellectuals, that says a lot.
Chetan Bhagat may be an intellectual guy. He has high educational degrees and his column in TOI is quite to the point, and reasonable at that. Don’t know why he has to write books worse than some z-grade films.
Paulo Coelho, less said, the better!
Tejas, Degree in engineering (IITD) and management (IIMA) can’t make anyone intellectual guy. Pretty sure about IIT thing, not about IIM. He writes good when he is paid for TOI. He is like typical bollywood producer who knows what things people will buy in market with minimum risk involved in making. Hence his z grade books are best sellers.
No it can’t. But one has to pass through quite a few testaments of the intellect.
What we are confusing here, though, is creativity and intellect. Chetan Bhagat may be intelligent but he definitely doesn’t have that creativity for fiction.
Definition of Intellectual is pretty varied one and based on that Chetan Bhagat qualifies to be one.
Ratnakar,Thanks for the reply.I also know that Hindi cinema in the 50’s,60’s and 70’s drew quite a lot from literature. Something wrong happens in 70’s with the emergence of Amitabh that hindi cinema become a medium of mindless entertainment only. I don’t what is that something ? May be People become fed up with Nehruvian socialism or idealistic cinema. Just don’t have answer. Regarding Paulo Coelho, he is not adapted for Indian condition by any film maker till now. And Chetan Bhagat sells porn of the words…
The whole european cinema has been built on the framework of their great artists and philosphers works like Voltaire, Rousseo, Shakespeare, Pablo Picasso etc. Here our hindi cinema is just an artificial plagiarised work of Americans or British. Sandeep has accused that we are for equivalent of the late 60’s and early 70’s young film maker brigade of Hollywood. Even that is impossible to achieve.The films of Vishal Bhardwaj, Navdeep Singh & Anurag Kashyap has high effect of auteurs and there is nothing wrong in it. It takes time to develop your own style in every field till then you can atleast adapt the styles of Auteurs. This is not called imitation because all of them are trying to make films as they wanted, not just melodramic bollywood producer. The degree of independence matters in budget and level of awareness of audience both are needed to good films. Mani Kaul, Shyam Benegal and other notable film makers primary objective was never to make huge profit but to have social commentory through cinema. Hence it gives birth to parallel cinema industry which ‘no body sees but everybody praises’. It started on government funding and died with it. It was never popular in mainstream so lamenting on our great tradition is waste of time. I praise people like Anurag and Dibakar as they have guts to go and make cinema fighting all odds in mainstream film line. It will take time to have film makers like Satyajit Ray or Akira Kurosawa in hindi cinema. They are not like seasoned rain which pours in every year. Patience Sandeep,ask yourself how many FTII are opened in our country since Independence and the name of its graduates can be counted on finger… Their cinema how good and meaningful is limited to film festivals only. Kaul, Adoor, Kasaravalli, Abraham and Shahani are not part of folklore but just unknown name for mass of the targeted audience.
From last two days I have been tracking one of my favorites portals for a detailed coverage on Harishchandrachi Factory. But facing the same disappointment on my every visit. Dejected and outraged I have posted my feedback to website coordinator a while ago. Reading your post and comments was a déjà vu to the same outrage against the mirrors of our social fabric. In your concluding paragraph you too have expressed your frustration over the blatant indifference shown by our media to a masterpiece of cinema. However aren’t we overlooking underlined economic force which is setting the order here? It’s invariably true for almost every aspect of life. Let’s keep our subjective wish list from media aside for a while and try to objectively find out the reasons behind this never ending apathy. Rationalizing it would not be a tough job. After all even media has to pay its mortgage. It’s here to sell news which are marketable, the news which 90% of the audiences like to read. Product which has a value will only be sold. Analogy can be safely applied to news as well. Only difference being value of the news is all fabricated with the tools of marketing, promotions, stars, controversies, international festival awards and so on. Point is no one would ever make a note of you unless you go upfront and prove your existence.
That’s why I do acknowledge all the crazy promotional activities done by Sharukhs and Aamirs of film industry to increase the value of their om shanti oms or Ghajanis. Their conviction about their films is indeed commendable. Only this conviction motivates them to go above and beyond in promoting their films. Pointing out the media’s apathy would not take us anywhere. It’s we who has to be more proactive in making a mark. We have been seeing daring film makers investing a good deal money in producing their film, may be need is to further augment their efforts with an aggressive marketing strategy.
@cinecrazy: [That’s why I do acknowledge all the crazy promotional activities done by Sharukhs and Aamirs of film industry to increase the value of their om shanti oms or Ghajanis. Their conviction about their films is indeed commendable. Only this conviction motivates them to go above and beyond in promoting their films] …
its not the conviction, you got it wrong. its about the money. these guys have the money to splurge on promotions and u cannot expect budget movies to spend so much on marketing. what conviction does a ‘daddy cool’ and so many other such crap movies have?? but they have the money to promote it. thats what the debate is about. how to make small-time indie movies and be able to show it the light of the day.
why was a ‘barah ana’ or ’sankat city’ stuck for long? for the want of financiers/distributors and someone willing to spend money on promoting it.
@crazyrals
Fine lack of funds, where it boils down to right??? then give me your alternative?? Do you have any other option.
Idea is to have an aggression. Just having money will not give you courage to spend it. Its the conviction which will.
unfortunately … as much as barah anna was liked by a lot of people, I could see a story, glimpses of a gem (thanks to vijay raaz) but no huge conviction to the story, for some reason it was more or less like a lot of tele serials that we used to get … in such a case their promotions were even more lacking… to even leave a word of mouth, the movie never carved an impression that people might remember it as one of the recent movies they saw….. unfortunately they were contended with promoting it with only an AAMIR KHAN quote… similar to Let’s Talk…. (but let’s talk I think is a different zone, time, everything… )
For Anurag : Sir what about Bombay Velvet ?? Heard that both Aamir and SRk has been approach for the film… is it true??
Finally got something about ‘Bombay Velevt’. Its “my LA Confidential” defined by Anurag himself.
http://www.mtviggy.com//desi/bollywood-anurag-kashyap-2
http://www.mtviggy.com//desi/bollywood-anurag-kashyap-1