Perceptible poverty aint the only issue here..
Plato refers to them as the two lowest rungs in judgment; judgement based on imagination and judgement based on third-party opinion. But, to me they are recurring ailmets. Maybe I sound presumptuous when I am saying this and all my circumspection I sincerely hope are strangled in time, but for now I choose the peephole over an open-view.
I was browsing through this article by Anurag Kashyap, a review of Khoya Khoya Chand and I got hit by this feeling of the movie choosing to follow a tone similiar to a movie I hate, hate, hate.
I just hope and pray that the film in its bid to create a sense of shock and in an attempt to unravel debauchery doesnt end up being a “PAGE 3″ kinda film, which incidentally was voted the best film at the national awards ,the year that Mr. Sudhir Mishra was the chairman. Forget all that hooplah about Saif being voted the best actor that year. For me the biggest misjdgement was the crowning of “PAGE 3″ as the years best film.. It was naive, trivial, fake, plastic and totally a contrived effort to create a jaw-dropping effect by placing in forcefully created dual-faced characters and introducing unwanted jitters.
The crowning of films like PAGE 3 is the biggest threat directed at our film-industry. It does not qualify to be called a “scam” or a prejudiced eruption coz the makers of PAGE 3 did not have anything except their product to show. It is, for me pure miscalculation. A clear example of an inferior product getting applauses, even an iota of which it did not deserve. All through PAGE 3 and its lesser celebrated succesors, I see a very substandard effort at creating meaningful cinema. An attempt by a director, with little or no knowledge of a world he has set his movie in, to recreate that world on celluloid. In his effort to do that, he stuffs in unwanted twists, turns and windings, none of which have a soul to it. And then he infuses in it a philanthrophic zeal, a sense of wanting to be a messiah of the path untrodden. And damn, it doesnt work that way. It just doesn’t..
Today we see young writers here blasting films like Laaga Chunari main Daag or a Tara Rum Pum. We call it PERCEPTIBLE POVERTY and thanks to the new vistas and avenues that have come up in media, we have a right to send them to the gallows.Sure, they are superficial and mild. But u see, everything thatS daring and bold aint that good either.
When I see a PAGE 3 or a SARKAR being feted like it was, I see it as a bigger threat to the fostering of good cinematic sensiblity. That is because, these films even with the minimal positive attributes that they possessed have an allure to them that can direct budding film-makers and writers to believe that treading their path can actually be the way to create meaningful, alternative cinema. And trust me, there is a bigger danger of u falling apart that way..
For all that cynicism, for all that crying over unintelligent, regressive and illogical cinema here, do remember that there is a bigger danger lurking in the corner somewhere. Because, you see, PERCEPTIBLE POVERTY AINT THE ONLY ISSUE HERE..
And, I sincerely hope Khoya Khoya Chand just isn’t that..
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 said, i think page3, sarkar and guru are some of the most overrated movies of recent years. ‘Discerning’ writers/critics calling Madhur Bhandarkar as some messiah of cinema with a cause is nothing short of travesty. ‘Guru’, which is generally well accepted here in PFC, is easily one of Mani Ratnam’s average efforts (like Scorsese’s ‘Departed’) when compared to his earlier movies. iam especially amused when Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai’s performance are so well-received when they could have been so much better, the only good thing for me in ‘Guru’ was Roshan Seth!
‘Sarkar’ is again so contrived and seems to be made only for the showcasing of ‘Bachchan khandan’.. even the famed ‘Ramu shots’ were so much better in ‘Company’…
Even i sincerely hope that Khoya Khoya Chand doesn’t turn out like them..
i appreciate your stance Sreehari.
i think too, that ‘Page 3′ is a very mistakenly over-rated film & well, who else can be attributed to the folly than the Chairman of that Jury??
i do understand that Bombay Filmmaking felt the need to stamp its name on the (till then) elusive Swarna Kamal for Best Film but to have anointed ‘Page 3′ as the candidate that BELLed the cat was, i thought, self-condescending.
Jayzee,
I have heard this about Guru, but to be very honest with Guru I dont remember squirming that restlessly as I did while watching PAGE 3 and SARKAR. At hindsight, it was a nothing film, but atleast it maintained my interest for its entire length of existence. But PAGE 3 and SARKAR were like talking profound stuff to a pumice-stone.. I was unmoved..
And also, so many people have been bashing up GURU that it doesnt seem “rated enough” to be called “overrated”…
Its like a forum where SRK is termed as overrated. Now if the motto of that forum itself is to prove how overrated SRK is then SRK ceases to be termed as “overrated” coz hes not rated enuf to be called so..
//i think too, that
“what surprises me is that while the whole Saif controversy was gathering steam there was little thought being put into finding whether a movie of PAGE 3?S stature deserved to the get the highest movie-based recognition that this country bestows upon the medium. I guess that laconic stance once again proves that we r tooo worried about the people in the movies than movies themselves..”
hehe, you should have been around then mate :-) i should have, too.
well actually, i haven’t read much about ‘Guru’ bashing… infact all i’ve heard is about ‘Mani Sir’s’ artistry and genius ;) and i always thought that Page3 was as ‘rated’ as Guru was.
Anyways, i still hate all the three of them movies!
Guru was the most disappointing work by Mani Ratnam.. and even more disapponting when you know he is such a great filmmaker.. with Madhur it didn’t make a difference.
well when i read abt GURU and departed .. i kinda feel that i am in lost grounds!! i dint think that they were bad …i mean i kinda njoyed “departed” .. (only scorcese movie that had a plot) .. me liked it !!! ya sure it dint deserve the OSCARS that year !!!
ya sure GURU was indeed Mani sirs most fragile product!!
but still i dont think it was that bad that it shud even feature in a discussion which talks abt “page 3″
there were scenes in btwn that were really good .. eg. scene before interval .. the conflict betw Abhishek and mithun (tat was awesome, i felt) very subtle treatment !!
but ya ABHISHEK was BAD … really BAD
I am relieved at last that someone came up with this article. I always believed page 3 and sarkar as pretentious and manipulative. I have some company then. Guru, I didnt watch because I quarreled with my friend that Mani is India’s most overrated director. His skin deep appreciation of any serious matter pisses me off. If he wants to explore then forget the tomfoolery and dig it deep enough or stick to OSO. I would rather cheer a david dhawan because he is not an imposter.
//Guru, I didnt watch because I quarreled with my friend that Mani is India
The Anger towards Mani Ratnam is generally also because, he promises much and delivers far too little, esp in his Hindi movies.
And this is compounded by some of his vociferous fans who kind of deify him. perhaps many of us might not understand the cinematic language with respect to the cameras/script etc.. but we certainly also have the understanding to appreciate Iruvar / Kannathil Muthamittal / Pallavi Anupallavi(his favourite of mine).
I always think that this is also because of his tendency to try and accommodate song and dance and kids and grandmothers into scripts which could work tremendously well even without such ‘commercial’ elements.
I still think he’s over-rated, not in comparison to David Dhawan (that’s unreasonable at best!!) but in terms of critical acclaim (a lot of times unwarranted) and the general euphoria that grips a lot of ‘intellects’ who somehow think he’s the greatest living director in India.
Sure. Mani ratnam makes statement making movies.
and i have balls made of kryptonite!
this is what mani ratnam has given us:
roja: LOVE STORY of a hostage in terrorist backdrop.
bombay: LOVE STORY of an inter-religious couple in the backdrop of terrorism.
dil se: LOVE STORY of a terrorist.
yuva: LOVE STORY of student politicians
guru: LOVE STORY of an industrialist.
wah!! applause! applause!
the biggest problem with mani ratnam is, whatever story he chooses to make, he ends up focussing entirely on the love story of the protagonists over and over again.
he changes the screensaver, the computer is always the same.
hence omprakash nails it absolutely right here.
his style of filmmaking is stuck in a time warp which has become obsolete.
it worked in the 90’s. mani has to start getting serious now or i’ll make it a point to get all my money back with interest i spent in watching his movies.
Love becomes a part of all his films. Haa soo??
If I were to base this discussion on your analogy alone then I can prove that both of Vishal Bharadwaj’s highly acclaimed films are monotonous too..
Maqbool– Love story of an underworld don?
Omkara— Love story of a local goon?
Does that make sense??
His films are about people. And people do fall in love for God’s sake..
I would have to say then that Ron Howard’s “A beautiful mind” is all about the love story of a mathematician.
What argument in God’s name was tat????
exactly Sreehari .. i second u !!!
love is an integral emotion part of very homo sapien!!!
so wats the fuss ..
GUYS Maniratnam is probably the best we have got .. and may be the only winner wen it comes to flirting with the thin line betwn art house and commercial cinema!!
IRUVAR, THALAPATHI & KANNATHIL MUTHAM ITTAL
surely among the best movies ever made !!!
arre yaar karthik
don’t get emotional boss! but ur argument is correct and i found the same fault in all the movies u mentioned too. i seriously liked dil se man!
but i hated guru. the problem is mani throws the entire rise of the industrialist angle out of the window. see, he shoots his movies in exactly the same way. they hero heroine get married in a somewhat arranged marriage fashion. their love blossoms when they are newlyweds and whole 15 reels are spent showing their sweet nothings being exchanged while they are trying to sleep or the hero is shaving.
i loved these movies in the 90’s. but mani is making the same stuff again and again. and it’s not sweet anymore. he does not dig deep into his main storyline at all. sure love is a part o every human being, but is it the only thing?
this is also the reason his movies have such rushed climaxes because he touches the main part of the movie only in the last scene.
u see, a roja or yuva could have been a masterpiece. but it was only mani’s obsession with love stories that never let them be. watch maachis for a change. u’ll understand.
and that he is so celebrated has led others to copy his style of film making which is one of the worst stereotypes of indian cinematic excesses.
the reason scarface or goodfellas came out so awesomely is the fact that the director does not lose the sense of the main idea behind the film and the reason it was made.
ask anurag kashyap how much focus he had on the love story of dhirubhai ambani in his original draft of guru.
c’mon man! dhirubhai ambani is a success story like no other. the tatas, birlas, goenkas of india took atleast 3 generations to have a pan india presence. ambani established an empire bigger than the govt. of india within half his lifetime. and his methods were forceful.
i wanted to see that. all i got from the movie was crap. this thing worked in the 90’s, but there’s something called evolution which ratnam is missing. he is nothing more than a dinosaur in indian cinema now.
sure he is a great director. ram gopal verma IS a great director too. but they have got to evolve. rgv was ahead of his times when he chucked out the typical bollywood style. he made his masterpiece: company. our cinema is moving towards less camp and more forthrightness. and mani ratnam is now no more than a link between traditional campy indian cinema and the new, idea driven style of filmmaking.