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Sort of in between a rant and musings…

Was at the Sarkar Raj press show at Famous yesterday. Well, as expected was house full. The sixty-seater was exploding with around hundred people from the press (we have SO many reviewers amongst us and not ONE to be proud of???) with so many sitting on the floor, including yours truly.

Well, this is not the first time this has happened. I remember once last year some movie evoked a similar response. And it is when the preview halls are jam-packed that they become the best opportunity to learn something about the cult of our hallowed film journalists/reviewers. That, I felt the same vibes I felt the last time I was among the ‘intellectual elite’ of Bbay’s film-dom and media, I felt an urge to share thoughts on it.

Everyone from Taran Adarsh to Khalid Mohammed to Mayank Shekhar to, I assume, Raja Sen (I don’t know what he looks like) was there along with completely unknown pen-pushers like me. Oh yeah, Viveck Vaswani was there too. (He too a critic kya?) And the attitude in the hall was so understated defensive. There was a distinct air of insecurity being in the same room with SO much competition. But more than that there was a feeling of high-handed-ness, an elitist attitude, posturing, all of it that is so vehemently evident in all the reviews we’r bombarded with. And I said to myself, THIS is the hallowed gallery that stands on judgement on an art and craft that is still as un-defined as it was when it emerged more than 100 yrs back?

They were distinctly unsure of their own acumen, understanding and right to ‘judge’ (uuurrrghhhh, I hate that word, especially in the context of reviewing/film criticism.) and mark the film like Sarkar Raj (as, to be honest I am of mine). How do you stand on judgement on Amitabh Bachchan who is a stalwart in his own right and doesn’t need art-house cinema to showcase his performance? How do you ‘judge’ RGV, a distinctly creative and brave film-maker despite his arrogant, foolish debacles? Do you forget that this guy is so immensely creative and talented? And doesn’t the very fact that the film is an outcome of a compelling creative process make it bigger than any review to be ever written including mine?

In fact I feel this about every important or powerful film. I felt that way about Taare Zameen Par, about No Smoking, about Manorama…about Aamir today…That the creativity, the path-breaking creativity gone into the film is far and much above Taran Adarsh’s copy-pasted words or Khalid Mohammed’s rhymes. So what was all that insecure posturing all about?

Moreover, I was shocked to see the elitist nature of our English media! The vernacular (and obscure) journalists looked completely out of place amidst the we-are-the-world English-speaking/publishing press. I was even more shocked to see that this section is so bloated in the head that it refuses to respect Sr journalists! I thought respect for Sr citizens was, as Indians, our second nature. But in this case since these Sr journalists weren’t from English-speaking sites or dailies they weren’t worth our respect I guess.

All this, mind you, were undercurrents. No one insulted anyone or walked with arrogance dripping from their nostrils. But it was an all-pervading undercurrent. And a strong one at that.

In my initial press show days last year, I used to be kicked about meeting high-profile critics and networking among peers. Now I am wondering if I want to belong to the clique at all. Ain’t I better off far-removed, harping on my own, my ‘reviews-should-be-objective’, ‘the-film-decides-its-review’ and ‘above-all-is-the-art-and-craft-of-film-making’ kind of stale statements?