Romancing on the Silver Screen

I was intending to write on this, and trust myself this is not the Oscars.
The Indian film industry brings back all possible enthusiasm of creating ripples on the silver screen.

Life looks astounding and promises of Ghatak, Adoor, Raj Kapoor, Ray, Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Mrinal Sen is not dead. The sheer joy of cinema in the seventies is coming back for good.

Managed to see Slumdog long before the release and fell in love instantly.
The first love was definitely for Bombay but what I loved most was Dharavi, the thousand stories that bred in the lanes, in the lives of people, the ghettoisation that’s stark yet subtle. But yet there were perspectives that were missed considering at the end of the day it was a white skin with the help of talented bunch of Indian crew was making the film. Therefore the zoomed out frame of Dharavi was captured in the right essence. There were moments of reality which a few of us know considering the work space we have been into. Definitely it gets worse….. and of course one was creating a film and hence there was a need to filmicize it. The music mostly was typical AR Rehman, and honestly not the best of his scores. But it grows on one, it grows with the film. The sound design was honestly great and now it feels wonderful to have it recognized in the International forum.

The entire debate about Oscars and its authenticity! But at the end of the day what then decides your calibre as a film maker or a creator? Commercial success would not mean anything to those one of us who thinks film as a medium plays too many roles. So how else tangibly does one decipher success of a film? Ghatak by our sensibilities today was a director of a cadre that not people have reached. But what did he get when he was alive? In that reference the film Ek Doctor Ki Maut by Tapan Sinha rightly depicts a man hard work ostracized by the society because of convenience. Any day Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay is a better film maybe if we take this league into consideration. It got a nomination but did not make it. Like if one Dan Boyle wants to win a Filmfare, he will be nominated for a foreign film. That’s something we cannot choose. Why is it so unsettling to accept it? Why does it hurt to accept that somebody from a different region captured some nuances of our walks of life? Things we have turned away from, things we walk pass every other day? If reality is what cinema is, why does it hurt to come in terms of acute poverty that came into the international platform?

Technically the feel of the film thrilled me, right from cinematography to the sheer joy of story telling in its editing. Rest as they say is history!
Gone are the days when Subarnarekha or Ajantrik would remain unnoticed till ages later one discovers the romance of cinema in it. It’s the new age, maybe its yet another neo-liberal trap of the west to capture Indian talent and let it flourish because its cheap labour.

I am happy with the Slumdog Millionaire, its never too late to dream and watch them come true in one lifetime.

Delhi,9th March 2009