Sponsor PFCOne
Loading ...
Their Crime and Our Punishment
iView Author: Manash Bhattacharjee
(New Delhi, India)
EMAIL: withheld
Their Crime and Our Punishment
————————————————–
Despite a frightful and laughable take-off on Sholay, I was surprised to see an excited crowd queuing up on the very first day to watch Ram Gopal’s next film, Sarkar Raj. Against all my wisdom, I too was present for the show. And even before the film ended, I had to painfully accept that when I paid for the ticket I had also paid for my foolishness.
Bollywood always manages to produce in people a chronic desire to hope against history. Even if justice is repeatedly denied to a viewer’s expectations, nostalgic winds take him to the theatres with the hope of finally watching a satisfying spectacle. If it turns out badly, he will of course know how to point out the flaws with passion and meticulously lay the blame on the shoulders of those responsible for the debacle. But that will never deter him from being a victim of the next film with questionable merits. The desire to watch yet another Bollywood film is far greater than the repeated disappointments a viewer undergoes. Like all repressed fantasies, the desire for Bollywood movies is endless. But having said this, it is still important to put the finger on Bollywood’s nature of crime. It will surely help to know that even victims of Bollywood have a mind of their own, and are more aware of Bollywood’s problems than, perhaps, Bollywood itself.
My first, uncomfortable impression of Sarkar Raj was that the role of the director and the lead actors seemed to have been reversed. It felt as if the lead actors were directing the director and the director was merely acting out the whims of his blue-eyed men. The director appeared to take his chief protagonists more seriously than the film he was supposedly making. As a result, the Bachchans appear larger-than-life while others around them crawl for attention and get peanut-roles to chew in return. But that doesn’t help the Bachchans at all, as Ramu’s sycophancy fails to make their characters interesting, attractive, or even meaningful. The desperate attempt to turn Abhishek into an actor has already tarnished the reputation of Mani Ratnam. Ramu has merely proved to be even less talented for this precarious job.
The most striking aspect of sarkar’s family is its brooding and tensed stillness. But this stillness is hollow and superficial because the family has nothing to do with the world. The world exists only in the shape of blurred crowds who wave at them on occasions and politicians and businessmen who meet them for deals. The family is a world unto itself – a world which lives outside the world, in a time warp. But this time warp is understood as an inevitable condition of feudal and criminal power. Maybe it is so. Or maybe Ramu fantasises it on both his and our behalf. Such kind of power is also shown to create its own loneliness, as it needs to remain distant from the world. But it is also impossible for such a power to be lonely without self-justifications. And every justification of power needs a moral cause.
So Ramu gives the sarkars a cause which strikes straight at the heart of one of the most important political debates in this country. He brings in Aishwarya Rai as the idealistic CEO of a multinational from London to build a grand electrical power plant in a Maharashtra suburb. The senior sarkar is reluctant about the project and raises the issue of displacement. But sarkar junior is pro-development and convinces his father – and supposedly the audience – on both the legitimacy of the project and his good intentions. The Enron power project - from which Ramu’s ‘Shepherd’ project draws its idea - in its bid to set up an allegedly beneficial power station in Maharashtra by bribing local authorities, became notoriously involved in all kinds of human rights violations. The project’s so-called developmental claims were challenged and defeated. The brutal pitfalls of the ideology of development at the cost of people’s habitat and the ruthless capitalist mindset behind such endeavours were sharply exposed. But Ramu treats the issue as one where people on the human side of the debate were corrupt puppets while a young, criminal power broker and a smooth talking NRI professional were the only innocent and idealistic human beings involved in this laudable bid to change the state’s fortunes. This is Ramu’s understanding of politics and social values. The star criminals, as shown by Ramu, have more credibility than the small actors of anti-developmental politics. This is Ramu’s sense of innovatively fusing star-politics with social-politics.
For Ramu, some criminals are better than politicians, the way certain developmental projects are better than the displacement of forty thousand poor human beings. The idea of the golden hearted criminal goes back to Amaitabh’s angry young man of the 70’s. It coincides with the time when the mafia had made inroads into Bollywood. It was also the moment of a vibrant younger generation facing new challenges. Amitabh’s lone-crusader roles, where he embraced criminality in order to destroy it, were however not without moral questions being raised in those films against him by key characters. In Deewar for example, it was Amitabh’s mother and younger brother who stood against his character’s principles. But Amitabh is no longer an angst-ridden individual fighting against criminal and even familial odds. In Sarkar and Sarkar Raj, Amitabh is the patriarch of crime. He is no longer the cornered and vulnerable human being but a dreaded head of the family. Amitabh is no longer against the system because today he is the system. The family is either a muted spectator of his powers or develops pathologies like the desire for patricide and ends up muted anyway. The moral debates of right and wrong no longer take place in the family. Criminal power is seen as both an instrument of glory as well as self-preservation. Ramu introduces us to this conservative, criminal world of the feudal lord. With one stroke, Ramu turns the clock further back.
Ramu’s camera consistently pauses with awe whenever Amitabh appears on screen. The same attitude has been shown earlier by Bhansali and Vidhu Vinod Chopra. They seem like doting sons of a father who they grew up admiring and now, finally being able to capture him within their frames of reference, they end up paying overemphasized and exaggerated tributes. In the process, Amitabh is turned into a stifled spectacle. Earlier, directors repeatedly pitted Amitabh against great performances by other brilliant actors. Films like Trishul, Shakti, Namak Haram, Sholay, etc were made memorable not by Amitabh alone. But these affected kids on the block ensure that Amitabh towers over everyone else. One has to simply remember what Ramu did to a wasted Mohanlal in Aag. Such a twisted fetish has ruined not only Amitabh’s contribution to these films but the films themselves. But Ramu can easily say, like Amitabh does in the film, justifying his political fiefdom: “Yeh dabaav nahi, prabhaav hai” (This isn’t pressure, but influence). In fact, the “dabaav” is no longer simply Amitabh’s today. It has spilled over to the whole “Bachchan family”. Ramu keeps the sarkar’s wife (poor Supriya Patahk) outside his frame along with the chote sarkar’s wife (poor Tanisha), and makes Aishwarya Rai’s character to be a part of the father-and-son scenes just to create the ambience of the real-life family and keep the reel life family behind the scenes. This is the extent of servility that Ramu has brought film-making to.
In Sarkar Raj, Ramu highlights the faces and the bodies of the senior and junior sarkars a lot. It is a victim’s gaze at his feudal master(s). The body of the master grows in proportion as he wields power over others. The camera also betrays being held captive by the sarkar’s aura. There are no sober attempts to critically challenge or diminish that aura. In fact, the Sarkar’s loneliness is surreptitiously romanticized. If you re-look at his films from Shiva to Satya in the light of what he’s doing now, you become suspicious of the fact that Ramu, far from being critical of violence, may have all along been repressively awed by it. If you look at the women characters in his gangster films, they are either innocent (Amla in Shiva, Urmila in Satya, and Antara Mali in Company) or vulgar (Nisha Kothari in Shiva, James, etc). This exposes the stark, essentialist nature of Ramu’s sexism. We know, all violence is ridden with elements of sexism and all sexism is violent.
The audience is however, learning. Film goers have aired their views against Ramu’s obsession with the Bachchans. Most reviewers have kept their intelligence and integrity and criticised the film. The film, ironically and deservingly, got less stars than a brilliant first-attempt film without stars – Aamir. To watch Aamir was a saving grace after Ramu’s Sarkar Raj. It had nothing to do with promoting families, star sons and daughters-in-law in the first place. The film highlighted a serious political and cultural issue without getting either rhetorical or flamboyant. The script meticulously highlighted the importance of the story and did not attempt to eulogise a role. In fact, Aamir shows us the true face of crime, and how we can get caught in its suffocating, labyrinthine world. The understanding of crime in Aamir is also the realization of our freedom. In Sarkar Raj, the understanding of crime looks like a punishment we have to inflict upon ourselves.
20 Responses to “Their Crime and Our Punishment”
Leave a Reply
Our Comments Policy : The following kinds of comments are troll capped, blocked and/or commenter's identity reported publicly: Verbal abuse, personal attacks, hate statements, spam, trolls, advertising. Please assist us in keeping the comments clean. Use the contact form to let us know if you find unwarranted comments on PFC. Thank you.
- Rangeele Babu : Premchandian revolutionary character dares to challenge the God
- Manorama Six Feet Under (2007)
- Rock On is My Story and Yours
- Rock On… reviews begin
- Maachis: questions it ignited
- Rock On Re
- Rock On is My Story and
- Rock On- Oh For 60 Minutes
- Himesh Bhai ka Karz
- Maachis: questions it ignited
Recent Posts:
Hottest Today:
i personally feel ramu has extracted very good performances out of Amitabh in sarkar , sarkar raj and the best in Nishabd.
even Abhishek has done well in Sarkar movies as well as Naach.
It is not every day that I choose to read s post twice. Clarity of thought combined with expression. Well done. Interesting insights too.
//The desire to watch yet another Bollywood film is far greater than the repeated disappointments a viewer undergoes.//
So true man..no matter how bad the last Hindi film was, u still have this mad urge to go for the next one as well.
Agree with your thoughts on Mani Ratnam as well..Guru seemed to be a movie made for Abhishek rather than a movie made by Mani Rathnam. And his next one’s also with Abhishek. And guess what we all will still go to watch !
Nice article..keep writing..
I second dabba on this. Ramu has lost all capacity for objectivity. He is caught up in his own heightened sensibilities which hasn’t matured since he first jerked off.
Terrific write-up. Mirrors all the thoughts on my mind, and lot more articulately.
I come to PFC looking for articles/posts/views/reviews posted on the left part of PFC, i.e. in “featured post” section and not for the middle “exclusive posts” section. The many great and some not so great posts appearing on left side, the comments , counter comments and the discussion following make PFC, What it is, a platform for people-who-are-passionate- about-cinema-in-any-which-way to discuss everything about cinema. The “featured post” are the “main movie” here. The “exclusive post” are item songs, ignore them if you don’t like.
(Come on guys, you all know why i wrote this)
@Manas
Great post.
One more thing which I found very un acceptable about sarkarraj is that at end when no immediate relative is alive to take responsibility of the whole empire of sarkar, it’s the ashiwarya’s character who becomes the Sarkar (it is shown at the end that she is sitting on the chair and people are telling their problems to her.) It was totally absurd. Sarkar was most powerful person of Mumbai/Maharashtra not because of this gun or gunda power, but because of his immense fan-following/vote bank. So how such a loyal fans/vote bank is going to accept a person “who was not even remotely related to sarkar whether by relation or profession “ as their Sarkar.
You are absolutely right about Ramu’s portrayal of women in his films.In fact apart from Rangeela and Ek Haseena Thi(which he produced) none of his films have good characterisations for actresses.That both the above films as also Bhoot were made exclusively to promote his favourite actress(Urmila) makes it even worse for him.
If I am not over stating it, this has been one of the best pieces on cinema, I have ever read.
Great article…
One does not have to watch Sarkar Raj to relate to your post.
looking forward to your next contribution to us…
LOL - This review is so blatantly biased. ” The film, ironically and deservingly, got less stars than a brilliant first-attempt film without stars – Aamir. To watch Aamir was a saving grace after Ramu’s Sarkar Raj. It had nothing to do with promoting families, star sons and daughters-in-law in the first place.”
The views for Aamir and Sarkar Raj are about the same:
http://www.allbollywood.com/movies/2008/837/sarkar_raj/
http://www.allbollywood.com/movies/2008/825/aamir/
Please get your facts right and learn how to write an objective review.
I would hold up this piece as a wonderful sample for “Criticism of Art” rather than “Criticism of Cinema”
Parts of the write-up that veered towards Cinematic criticism, I thought became overtly simplistic.. But the parts which stayed loyal to “Criticism of Art” in general were simply wonderful and among the best I have read out here..
Everything said… An extremely engaging read..
I don’t know the impulses of a director when he casts. I do not know whether he has cast before he has the script in place. I hear about such things but I shall reserve comment here. Mani Ratnam, I felt, had casted Abhishek before the script was in hand. Both, in Guru and in Yuva. The result was that Abhishek fell short. In Sarkar Raj, as this was a sequel, the cast was precast. So, in essence it was just that RGV had to tailor his script to match his team at hand. I think Aishwarya was essentially an add on, whose presence in the film was bulked up as hey improvised on the script.
The project, my take here, did well with its premise. I went as a viewer looking for drama, the film provided me that, not forced, but good old character based drama, like the 70s..(on another note, check out the Priyan comedies..they are a lot like those Manmohan Desai tragi comedies of yore)…I got it..people debate about the point of the whole thing..but lets just leave it as an episode in the Sarkar family..ah well..its not a masterpiece..but RGV engaged me.
exactly my sentiments indraneel
[...] This was published first at passionforcinema [...]
I have let Meenu, who put up the post without knowing the rules, know that a proper acknowledgment and link has to be put up immediately.
I just checked - they have mentioned it. Hope that will suffice!
A really thoughtprovoking post Manash!I saw SR on a pirated DVD and had a very hard time sitting through it but then half way through the film, I was really mesmerized! Ramu’s camerawork in this film is so eclectic, his framing so eccentric and his lighting so textured that I felt any attempt to make “meaning” of the film was completely futile. In order to make meaning we need to identify with the camera eye but this eye is so restless, that such identification can never occur — at least it did not for me! Consider the following — the close up is usually the most reliable shot type a filmmaker uses to turn an image into a fetish. But the close-ups in SR — usually the two Sarkars bisecting the frame with blank space in the middle — never really pulled me in. It is as though the camera had moved close to the faces but the faces were completely unaware of our look — they were self-absorbed, turned inward, lost in their own self-enclosed world (a point you powerfully make). How can such emotions ever capture the viewer? Consider RGV unique use of shot-reverse shot — a basic unit of filmic narrative that supposedly mimics how the human perception works. Instead of moving between characters, RGV’s camera is usually placed behind the shoulder and moves in a looping pan that completely destabilizes spatial coordinates and visual rationality. We do not view images but rather but rather work really hard to figure out where characters are in relation to one another and how best to negotiate a camera that constantly thwarts our desire to look. So I see your point — indeed, the lines of control — is the director driving his stars or are they driving him is also replicated in the spectator’s relation to the onscreen image — is the camera showing us or is it rather obstructing our view…. how supremely smart this camera is for depicting a world that is morally out of whack!!!
@sangita
Am absolutely delighted to get your response because I read your posts for ‘Aamir’ and they were absolutely brilliant. What more do I say? There is a critical minority about Hindi films as for anything in any period of time. It always suffers (hardly enjoys) a quaint existence. But the sign of any living culture is critical engagement and engage we will. I don’t mind evoking the old dictum, “The minority is always right!”. Thanks again.
I am sending this link for readers to read Ratnakar’s very, very insightful comments on my (same) piece on Sarkar Raj.
http://sacredmediacow.com/?p=1128
[...] Despite a frightful and laughable take-off on Sholay, I was surprised to see an excihttp://passionforcinema.com/their-crime-and-our-punishment/XBOX 360’s Answer to PlayStation 3’s Home?An image appearing on the 4Chan boards suggests the XBOX [...]