Lost In Translation
Time and time again, Bollywood movie makers have been called copycats for lifting an idea, script or complete scenes from various global movies. This was all OK before the early 80’s as not many Hindi movie-goers were subjected to the global cinema, especially Hollywood.
There have been rumors of writers renting out 10 DVD’s, lifting a scene from here, a dialogue from there and making a masala film.
This is fine for the village masses that only watch Hindi movies. For them everything is new. But wait a second. With advent of satellite channels beaming latest global flicks and movies being dubbed in Hindi, even they might not like what they see on the silver screen.
Are our writers, directors, producers so deprived of grey matter that their brain does not function properly? Or taking this route is a better prospect as they don’t have to exercise their brain.
Sometimes, I wonder if I belong to a country that has taught this world amazing stuff in past centuries. Ours is the one of the oldest, most beautiful and diverse culture. Then why are most of movie-makers such dumb ass. We have some top class movie-makers in Bollywood but few in number.
So, why are most our movies so mundane and repetitive? Are there not enough topics to make a decent movie? Has that risk-taking pioneering spirit left us? It’s not as if the public wants every movie to be top class. But something different each time would be welcome. After all, you can’t eat biryani in your every meal. Sometimes dal and rice is a delicacy.
Various sources have quoted that Bollywood releases about 800+ plus movies a year. I am not sure of this figure. From these 800 odd movies ask anyone for three of their favorites. They will able to name only two. Hardly have there been a year in which they will name the third one. Thinking of the third sends the mind into a black hole.
In some ways it’s our fault as well. We have got accustomed to the same song and dance routine. We don’t like anything different. Biryani it is all the way. If a movie has fewer songs, we complain. If it is based on controversial subject, we keep away. The reasoning can go on till the cow stop giving milk.
Check this out. In 2006 we had movies like Pyar ke side effects, Khosla ka ghosla and Being Cyrus that were different. But what happened to them. All bombed to hell. Why? No one turned up to watch.
And a totally copied movie called Raaz was the biggest money spinner 2004, a repetitive tale of sexually deprived men in No Entry reaps in highest revenue in 2005. The list goes on with names like Gadar, Hum aapke hai kaun, Garam masala etc.
When gutsy directors like Anurag makes a movie like Black Friday, our stupid system bans it. Nagesh Kukunor makes fantastic movies like Rockford and Iqbal and we show him the middle finger for giving us dal-rice with mouth watering Goan style fish fry.
What should we do about it? NOTHING. Why? Because we don’t give a flying fuck about it. Each Friday we get our candy floss, pink colored, pretty as angel movies and that is good enough to satisfy our taste.
It’s high time that the paying public takes purchasing a cinema ticket as purchasing any other product e.g. soap, toothpaste, food item etc. It is no different than doing your monthly grocery shopping. If we are not satisfied with any product, we ensure that we do not commit the same mistake again. Then why do we go back to cinema for more torture?
Unfortunately, we do not consider price of cinema ticket as purchase and don’t attribute any emphasis on it. Even after watching some nonsense on the screen we go back, spend some more money and end up getting a product that is not to our liking. Remember folks, each of your ticket cost is what makes the movie world go round. And this money comes out of your hard earned salary. Boond boond samandar banta hai.
As long as we are gluttons for punishment, we will keep getting the same menu. Being the end user of a consumer product called movies, we need to inform the movie makers to cut the crap and start thinking out of the box. For that to happen, a movie-goer has to control his spend on worthless flicks. It’s quite tough but believe me it can be done.
We have various societies that have been established to protect a consumer’s right. Does it is cover cinema ticket purchase? I think not.
I hope the message of this post does not get lost in translation.
Tags: Dialogues, Direction, Production, Theater
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
Muzzy: Feel your angst bro, really! The malaise has seemingly spread overseas among the diaspora too too. I watched Krish (or is it Krisssshhhh) and Omkara here in (I think on successive weeks, right Sumeet?) New Jersey and was stuck by the relative difference in crowds. While I thought Krish was a morbidly dumbed down, emotionless take on Spidey and actually dozed off in between (Ms. Chopra was hot, I must add and I was all awake when she was on screen). In contrast the crowd around me seemed to have a rollicking time. The fare was escapist and I think the majority of the audience demands it.
Omkara however was a revelation because the theater was half empty (on the second day, I think) and to top it all, a couple of dumb uncle-types decided to keep walking up and down the aisles between seats, every 10 mins or so.
As for the critics, I think once they hear that it a serious movie, they set their standards higher and go in with preconceived notions, which is soooo not the way to review movies.
I think with the media as closed as it is, it is often impossible for reviewers to be subjective. A magazine like the New Yorker will never sell in India and you find that these are the media outlets that actually offer some sensible reviews. So it is a conundrum that will take forever to solve.
As for the makers themselves, we as Indians, seem to have some special meanings for the word “copy”. In fact it has become an obsession with us to go out and look for similarities in anything and everything we see. So when a director like Maniratnam does a gritty take on the student-politician-rowdy nexus in Yuva, media and bloggers alike slam it as a “copy” of movies (at different points) like City of God and Amores Perros. And this inspite of the fact that the similarity between City of God and Yuva ends with the words “slum”/”crime” etc. And Amores Perros had the same plot vehicle (an accident!).
And btw, if someone has seen/read the plot of Iñárritu’s Babel you’d notice that the plot takes a familiar path (three threads meeting at one point in the plot). I am waiting for the Indian MSM to review this one and tell me what they think. I’d be surprised if the word “copy” was not used!
(P.S: Sorry for all this rambling! :D)
one simple reason and the bottom line: majority. the so-called “multiplex” or “intelligent” audience, as we have it, is not a majority in india. it’s the chandu chaiwallahs, raju rickshawallahs, and the aunties and uncles that watch saas-bahu soaps. THEY make up the majority, and for them, cinema is a luxury. and if they’re going to spend money to go watch a movie, it’s gonna damn well have big stars or big makers. they could give a rat’s ass about khosla ka ghosla and other smaller, better movies because they haven’t heard of any big stars in it. marketing comes into play here too, but tell u what.. a film like KKG can have all the marketing power behind it, and not get anywhere simply because it doesn’t have any “names”. as sad as that is, it’s the truth and we all know it.
between all of us, we may know that SRK is all packaging but the fact remains he has a history in this industry, and nothing’s going to beat that. so no matter how crappy his movies are (from what i’ve heard, KANK and DON), they’re still going to garner a huge initial that’s big enough to recover the producers’ money and then some. add a bigger filmmaker to the quotient (KJ and farhan) and it entices the people even more.
so it’s an even bigger responsibility on the “intelligent” audiences to watch those lesser-known films and market them via word of mouth to aam junta and friends and family, case in point, anurag’s films thus far.
Abbas Tyerwala wrote an article… it’s a good read.
(we should get him on the board, i think)
i thought this post was about the movie –lost in translation(one of my fav movies) … the title is misleading