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Issue 11 Vol I, March 15, 2006 art & films Progressive
Films add Meaning
Is this what we may call progressive movement in the film industry? One keeps hearing in interviews and media reports that the actors are becoming selective, as they want to do meaningful and progressive films. Now what exactly they mean by progressive could be quite debatable. For a movie dealing with a subject like live-in relationship (Salam Namaste) could be progressive and bold for some while a film dealing with lesbianism, as its subject might become the cause of a social and religious outrage. Now the question arises is whether we and the society that we live in is actually ready for the true progression in films that we keep talking about or is it just a good topic for discussion. In the past too there have been films like Mother India, Mera Naam Joker, Anand, and Guide that were progressive in their own way and managed to leave an indelible mark.
Shah, who has acted in more than 120 movies, said he preferred theater. ''I am pretty dissatisfied with the kind of hokum that's passed off as entertainment in our country, and I believe entertaining films can be made even without using the usual ... formula.” He has delivered powerful performances in hit Hindi movies such as Iqbal, Monsoon Wedding, and Being Cyrus. More recently Preity Zinta was heard saying, “I want to do films that are progressive.” She has enacted many roles with a difference like the unwed mother in Kya Kehna and Salaam Namaste or the vixen in Armaan, but Kabhi Alvidaa Na Kehna is really different, says Preity Zinta of her new film with Karan Johar.
Success of films like My Brother… Nikhil about a gay man grappling with AIDS even though the filmmakers had to invest their own funds as the so called “progressive” people were not ready to invest in a venture depicting a homosexual man with AIDS as the central character which they termed could be commercial suicide. “According to the director Onir, “The technique is not unique to international cinema, but is experimental given the typical Hindi film.”
At the same time it’s a loss for the industry that Water is not an Indian movie. Through Water, Deepa Mehta exposes the cruelties of Hinduism against widows. It is not that Mehta is rejecting Hinduism as a respectable religion but merely raising the right questions--she is striving to empower those with the means to help those widows who, till this day, suffer in the same conditions described in the film. “No religion is perfect. Each one has a dark past. Hinduism is no different. We are very good, as different nations and different cultures, to have a collective amnesia about our own problems…Water is about three women trying to break that cycle and trying to find dignity, and trying to get rid of the yoke of oppression, and if it inspires people to do something in their own culture, that’s what’s important,” said Deepa Mehta on the film. What’s ironic about the film is that it is the year’s best Hindi-language movie. What’s more, Water is banned in the very nation it attempts to help. “The sign of a true democratic and progressive society is the freedom to scrutinize, critique and condemn those customs and traditions that inhibit the development of equality and assimilation of a civilization. Clearly, India has a long way to go,” she added. | ||||||||||||||||||
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SINGING
and dancing around trees, victory of good over evil, and they lived happily ever
after, costume drama, violence, romance …emotions galore. These more or less
sum up Bollywood, as we have known it for decades. Until recently when things
began to change as the needs of the cinegoers changed. These cinema buffs were
looking for something novel and more meaningful and not movies, which were
predictable to the climax.
Popular
actor Naseeruddin Shah says he finds acting in Indian movies boring because of
set themes and repetitive plots, calling Bollywood movies formulaic ''hokum.''
Bollywood
has massive outreach; with 177 Hindi film releases bringing 2.7 billion
admissions to cinemas in India in 2004 alone. Many of these films are escapist
song and dance spectacles, engaging traditional themes of love, marriage and
family. Yet, since the 1990s there has been a perceptible change in the quality
and subject matter of Hindi films. Hordes of films have been failing left,
right, and center in their attempts to cram in all the demands made of India's
escapist pictures into one film. Until came Kaante, a trendsetter of sorts which
integrated Bollywood conventions into a completely unorthodox storyline and
presentation. The film is from an unlikely genre, it was shot abroad on an
international scale, it is consistent in plot and tone, but still was well
accepted by the Indian audience.
Surprisingly, there has been no reaction from the religious right in
India, a faction that just a few years back reacted violently to Deepa Mehta's
Fire depicting a lesbian relationship. Is that an indication that the industry
is gradually shifting to quality and meaningful plots? Recently the success of
Aparna Sen’s 15 Park Avenue, which deals with schizophrenia, iterates
that the film industry can engage socially realistic subject matters.