Films and the Morals of Society

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The other day, while watching Subhash Ghai's Pardes on TV, I couldn't help but wonder how much the film reads like a moral science lesson. Of course, these morals are painted strictly in black and white with no room for grey or anything else in between. The virginal Ganga (played by a distubingly toothy Mahima Chowdhary) is oh-so-pure simply because she is an Indian girl. Few minutes into the film, her fate is sealed - she is engaged to be married to her father's best friend's son, Rajiv. Now, Rajiv has been born and brought up in the Big Bad West (in this case, the US) so he naturally has no idea what bhartiya shabhyata is and how important izzat is to the bhartiya nari. Rajiv is then discarded only to be replaced with Arjun, who is morally upright, but is probably a bit aneamic since he loses quite a bit of blood by the end of the film, mostly through self-mutilation. So after Ganga has been parceled around from her father to Rajiv and finally to Arjun, the moral of the story becomes clear - India is good...the West is bad...Boys who bite girls (excluding Edward Cullen) are bad...boys who shed their blood for girls are good. Ekdam simple logic hai!

Things are mercifully different these days. So it is possible to conceive of a character like Veronica who lives in with her boyfriend and has a drink too many during a wild night of partying (Cocktail: Homi Adjania, 2012). And expletive spouting, gun-toting men from the Hindi heartlands can be the heroes, and not the villians of a film (Gangs of Wasseypur 1 &2: Anurag Kashyap, 2012). Clearly, the "moral standards" of Hindi cinema and their representation has come a long way.

Yet, can we really expect all cinema to be produced with the aim of moral activism? And can cinema really be blamed for "amoral" activities that happen in our society today?

Recently, the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) ruled that films with slapping scenes, item numbers and any other scenes or songs which objectify or subordinate women would be given an 'A' certificate. The basis for the ruling is the noble aim of curbing incidents of sexual violence against women in the country.Films are often easily be blamed for loutish and chauvinist behaviour among young men in India. And truly, many films are truly chauvinistic in nature. But is it only through slapping scenes and item songs that films display an attitude of disrespect and subordination towards women?

Last year's big hit Ishaqzaade (Habib Faisal, 2012) was a strange film in this respect if you consider what it does to its female protagonist. Zoya is presented as a bold, brash girl, who would rather have a gun than pretty earrings as a birthday gift, and who is not scared about shooting her mouth off or taking panga with the boys. She is also not coy about her sexuality and does not think much of kissing her boyfriend. But the trajectory of this character soon goes haywire as her brashness is continuously under fire during the course of the film.  The downfall starts when Parma gets her to sleep with him under the pretext of marriage, but coolly ditches her later. Isn't this clearly tantamount to rape because her consent is gotten under dubious circumstances? She is also tied up several times after the interval in an attempt to "control" her impulsive and violent behaviour. Eventually, she is transformed into a tamer version of her original self, and then, after much running around town, dies in a mutual suicide pact with her lover.

The film, although on the face of it, defines Zoya as a strong, outspoken and spunky girl, she transforms completely by the end of the film. Moreover, and more seriously, Parma receives no punishment for his actions. No slapping scenes and two item numbers, yet the film is not sympathetic towards the new-age femininity that it seeks to depict, nor does the film endorse it. 

I do not want to single out films like Pardes and Ishaqzaade here; they are only illustrations of my main point that a regressive, controlling attitude towards women can be manifested through many other ways apart from item numbers and the like. Also, blaming films for a mind-set that exists within society is unfair and naive. What they can be blamed for though is unwittingly condoning limiting portrayals of women on-screen.

LOVE SHOVE AND PAPERMAN PART II

Including a love story in the narrative of a film is no great achievement. I don't mean this derogatorily  but in a sense that even films which have the most experimental of plots and filming techniques very often feature love stories as a main or sub-plot. Take for example films like Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998) - extremely experimental in its story-telling, but it is essentially a love story. Even a film like the recent Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) - a film whose main theme is violence and racial discrimination - is basically the love quest of Django to find Broomhilda, his lady love. And what of all those suspense-type 70s Hindi films in which  nail-biting climax is often interrupted by a love song with the hero and heroine running around in the Alps? Love, actually, is everywhere.

The genre of films to make the most cash out of this filmy trope is, of course, the romantic comedy. This is one of my favourite genres of films. There's nothing that can be a better mood-lifter than a romantic comedy and a tub of chocolate chip ice-cream. But the romantic comedy is not without its problems. The first of these problems is that it is unfortunately characterized as a "chick-flick" type genre, with the assumption that it could only be of interest to women. This means that lesser films of this type (such as 13 Going on 30, The Wedding Planner, The Proposal, Sweet Home Alabama etc.) will take this a bit too seriously and focus their attention only on the story of a girl looking for the right kind of love and the right kind of man. So there will be no witty banter (like in When Harry Met Sally or You've Got Mail), no crackling chemistry (like in Notting Hill or You've Got Mail again) and no laugh-out-loud sequences (like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones' Diary Part 1 & 2). 

The romantic comedy (especially in recent times) is comfortable with taking the all too familiar route and drawing attention only to the story part in the phrase "love story"; and not saying anything much about the love part. 

But then there are other films which make us think more deeply about this mysterious creature called love. They ask us complex questions like: What is love? Is it an isolated emotion or is it sometimes mixed with other feelings like jealousy, a desire to destroy, friendship, sacrifice and sorrow? How much is society part of our love story and does its attitude count?

 The French film Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012), which also won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, has a heartbreaking take on it. Love here becomes entwined with the idea of death and mercy. I don't want to give away any plot points, but this film tries to imagine what it's like for someone to watch a long-term partner suffer and slowly become a shadow of themselves. It poses a difficult question when it asks to what extent one could go in order to reduce a loved one's pain, and also one's own pain in watching them suffer and inch towards death. 

In another film, As Good As Gets (James L. Brooks, 1997), love is as eccentric and whimsical as it characters. But it is also about acceptance of this craziness and imperfection. Closer home, a film like Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (Sanjay Leela Bhansali, 1999) tells us that the love that lasts is the one where you are willing to do things for your partner, for their happiness, even if sometimes this doesn't involve your own happiness and comfort. William Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet (and its various interpretations on film) complicates things for us when he suggests that love and death may be intricately linked, and somehow love is complete and fulfilling and ideal only in death. Love is unearthly - never to be attained in life, but only in death. Another complex form of love - obsession - can be seen in Darr (Yash Chopra, 1994). Love is not innocent, beautiful or magical here, but destructive and neurotic. In a film like Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005) love is transgressive and reaches far beyond any societal conventions.

Granted that such films cannot be as charming and as easy to digest as romantic comedies, but then if love itself can sometimes be incomprehensible, difficult, amusing and vague, can't films about love be so too?

LOVE-SHOVE AND PAPERMAN

So, the dust has settled on the golden statuettes, and the designer dresses have been stored away, never to be worn again. All that could be written about the Oscar 2013 has already been written, so I will not dwell upon how good or bad, or entertaining or boring the ceremony was. Though, I must say that host Seth McFarlane and the scriptwriters made sure that the whole world got to know how sexist Hollywood can be. Alongside meaty and diverse roles for women in films such as Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook and the French film, Amour; McFarlane, no doubt in a moment of very bad judgement, felt that it would be fun to do a musical number featuring actresses'...ahem, boobs. And he mentioned Jodie Foster's name on the list of women who have undressed on film as well, which I feel was his biggest mistake. The film that he referred to is The Accused (Jonathan Kaplan, 1988), in which Foster is nude because she had just been gang-raped. Not only is this an extremely courageous role, it is also a brave, brave film that depicts a serious and sensitive issue with great skill and brings the point home. So, although I found most of the Oscars blah, this, according to me was Oscar 2013's lowest moment.

But this blog entry is not about Oscar's low moments, but a high point in the ceremony as well as for film. The Oscar for the Best Animated Short Film this year went to a film called Paperman directed by John Kahrs and produced by Disney. This film has been trending on Facebook for quite a while, so if you haven't watched it, you can catch it on YouTube.

The film tells a simple love story set in the America of the 1950s - a man who meets a woman by chance, loses her and then dedicates all his energies to finding her again. Much has already been written about the film's superior animation technique, which combines traditional hand drawn images and modern animation technology. But the film is not just that. It takes you beyond the images, characters and events on the screen into a larger world of ideas, and makes you think about the nature of love. And this is where the strength of the film lies. 

Many stories, especially on film are love stories, but very few are about love - that speculate on what love might be and how it could be defined. Along with a plotline that depicts a love story, very few films really feature a sub-text on the mechanisms (if there is such a thing) of love. In Hindi cinema, especially, most of the films are essentially love stories. A boy and a girl meet at the beginning, then go through life's many tribulations and finally end up together at the end (happily ever after, of course). In such a case, love becomes a precursor to marriage and social stability; the sustenance of the family unit - a means to an end. Which is why films like Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (Shakun Batra, 2012) come as a breath of fresh air, where the two protagonists reject any traditional happy endings. Which is why it is nearly impossible to see any love story in which the protagonists are homosexual.

Such films also presume that the process and psychology of falling in love is the same for everyone. You meet, you woo, and bam, you're "in a relationship". But is this how it happens for everyone? No matter how universal the emotion, is this how we all fall in love? 

In Paperman, love is magic. Something that destiny ordains and guides us towards, even if this might be against our best efforts. The paper planes in this film, then, become signs, that won't leave the man alone until he finds the woman that he so helplessly has fallen in love with at first sight. Even the title "Paperman" reminds us of superhero films with similar titles like "Spiderman", "Superman" and "Batman". So, love also becomes heroic - something that makes superheroes and superheroines out of all of us. 'Cause sometimes that's what love feels like, doesn't it? That if we have it, we could conquer the world and catch bullets in our teeth.

Love is such a major preoccupation for most of us that it is impossible to dedicate only one blog to it. There's more about films and love, then, on the other side of this blog... .

The 80's Are Back..But Why?

The trailor of the new Himmatwala is doing the rounds on television these days. Judging from the promos, it looks like the film has two basic selling points: testosterone-fueled action sequences and a reboot of the song "Nainon mein sapna". Right at the end the trailor proclaims gleefully "The 80's Are Back". Now, I found this a bit strange - why would the 80's want to be back in 2013? In fact, there are several very good reasons why the 80's most definitely should not be back now.

The 80's were an exceptionally disastrous decade for Hindi cinema. Most of the films made in this decade had unimaginative plots, regurgitated storylines and very poor music and song picturization. The original "Nainon mein sapna" is as ludicrous as it gets - the song screams larger than life through each of its frames and the dance moves are exaggerated. There were a total of, maybe, three storylines doing the rounds...

Storyline 1: Poor hero falls for rich snobbish girl-rich girl's father does bad things to the hero-rich girl is locked up in her room by daddy-love triumphs all-happy ending.

Storyline 2: Bad guy kills hero's father-hero's only life-purpose is to avenge his dad's death-hero beats up several goony-looking men on the way-couple of songs with heroine-kills bad guy-happy ending

Storyline 3: Virginal boy and girl are madly in love-Yeh paapi duniya can't see them happy-bad things happen to girl and boy-love triumphs all-happy ending (or sometimes love cops out and both boy and girl die as in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or Ek Duje Ke Liye)

There were, however, some film-makers who were willing to take a risk with unusual stories, full-bodied male and female protagonists, and songs that did not come with in your face picturization. Unfortunately, these people got slotted into the category of "parallel cinema", which meant that even though their films were hailed by the critics and recommended by intellectual types, they almost never drew crowds and were not box office hits.

Coming back to the new Himmatwala, there was something else that struck me while watching the song "Nainon mein sapna" about the performers Ajay Devgn and Tammanah. I'm not sure they are the right people to re-do the song. Even though I've referred to the song as ludicrous here, there is something about the sheer madness of the original that I love. When Sridevi and Jeetendra do those Mass P.T. inspired steps, I know they fully believe in them. There is no hint of the silly on their faces; they dance in full earnestness and joy. Not the case with Ajay Devgn and Tammanah, though. She is coy, not super-confident like Sridevi was in her performances; he looks plain silly and has a smirk on his lips like he is thinking "What the twinkle-toes am I doing? The film better make a 100 crores and then some!"

I don't have any plans to see this new and improved version of Himmatwala because I suspect it will simply be a new and improved version of Devgn's earlier blockbuster Singham. I know it will join the "100 crore"club - and that, perhaps, will be its only claim to fame.

The Yash Chopra that We Forgot

There has been a common theme in all the Hindi film award functions this year - a tribute to Yash Chopra. Mostly, these tributes feature Shah Rukh Khan serananding Yash Chopra heroines from the yesteryears to the current times. So, in one award function that I saw, Katrina Kaif floated down to the stage in a white dress, while in another Rekha made an appearance on stage in her trademark shiny, gold saree. Now, in all this veneration of Yash Chopra as the "man who taught us how to love" or the "king of romance" the film folk have conveniently forgotten the earlier films of Yash Chopra which are far from romantic, and even further from conformist.

Case in point: Chopra's first film Dhool Ka Phool. This film, released in 1959, tells the story of a boy born out of wedlock, and the derision that he has to face from society as a result of this. Featuring the memorable song "Tu hindu banega na musalman banega, insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega", the film provides a unique humanistic perspective on this sensitive topic, without the usual moralizing and melodrama of plots involving naajaayaz aulads. The film does not implicate the mother only, as other films with similar storylines do (like Aradhana, 1969), but both the parents in refusing to take responsibility for the baby they unintentionally made. There is no romance in this story, no indulgence from Chopra's side in making his heroine (Mala Sinha) look unrealistically aesthetic - it a simple film that makes a strong social comment, about a hypocritical society that revels in sitting on a high horse, categorizing people and then demeaning them.

Chopra also directed one of the first multi-starers, Waqt (1965), which boasted of a casting coup of Sharmila Tagore, Shashi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Sadhana and Raaj Kumar. This trend was later used by film-makers like Nasir Hussain, Manmohan Desai, and more recently Karan Johar. But this film is significant for me not for its star cast, but the manner in which the characters and backgrounds are represented here. This variation in the background of the characters somehow disappeared from Chopra's other films like Silsila (1981), which only focused on the high society of Delhi without problematizing issues such as class and glaring differences between the haves and the have-nots. 

But the most ground-breaking of Chopra's film would have to be Ittefaaq (1969), a song-less thriller starring Nanda and a young and very dishy Rajesh Khanna. The film uses the hand-held camera technique to heighten the intrigue of the crisp, no-nonsense murder mystery. The Ram Gopal Verma style topsy-turvey camera angles seem a far cry from the soft focus sanitization of Chopra's later cinema.

Then, somewhere along the way, this perceptive and intelligent director changed into the "King of Romance". The love story element in his films has occupied our collective consciousness to such an extent that we miss the moments of the unexpected in his films. Sample the mother-son banter of Kabhi Kabhie (1976) between Rishi Kapoor and Rakhi. Or the deep frienship between Anupam Kher and Anil Kapoor in Lamhe (1991). Turning the ek ladka aur ladki kabhi dost nahi ho sakte myth around in Dil To Pagal Hai (1997)in the relationship of Karisma Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan. And the most surprising of all - casting loverboy Shah Rukh Khan as a stalker and sociopath in the film Darr (1993).

If we look at Yash Chopra's films only as romances, then we unfortunately conformize him. But in a way he confomized himself as well in films like Chandni (1989), Silsila and his latest, Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012). And sadly we remember him only for these films, which fit into our notion of an ideal escapist world, where women are pretty and chiffon-clad and men are rich and own fancy cars. 

WHY LES MISERABLES MADE ME MISERABLE

I like musicals. Right from Sound of Music to more modern ones like High School Musical, I quite enjoy watching them. And hello? Aren't all Hindi films musical after all? I even enjoyed Hum Aapke Hain Kaun - in spite of its fourteen and a half songs - I did not get bored or impatient. So the prospect of watching the musical version of Victor Hugo's tome Les Miserables was a rather inviting one, and I was looking forward to watching a large-scale historical melodrama, with two of my favourite stars - Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. I had already watched the Golden Globes and the Critics' Awards, in which this film had won many accolades, so obviously expectations were high.

Unfortunately, nothing could have prepared me for the next two and a half odd hours of dreariness that I was about to encounter when I settled into my seat in the cinema hall. The movie started well. A slave-master overseeing his slaves pulling a huge ship into the harbour in relentless rain - the song "Look Down", sung by the slaves, relating their abject, hopeless state. And then Hugh Jackman (playing Jean Valjean) broke into song...and did not stop till the end of the film! Well, it was not quite song even. It was meant, I think, to be this grand operatic style, but on Jackman it sounded like a unstoppable nasal wail. I'm not being mean, but it was really not pleasant. The film is a "sung-through" musical, which means that every dialogue, every single thought that it going through a character's mind is laid out in front of the audience. And this is what I found most problematic about the film. 

I have not read Victor Hugo's novel, but from what I have heard and read about it I understand that it is a story that even today is relevant and easy to identify with. It speaks of a time when the haves - the ones with all the power and the means - could easily exploit and control the lives of those who don't have the means (financial means, that is) to better their own condition. Doesn't sound all that different from our times, does it? But then if you're poor and then sing opera to tell me about how poor you are, I really can't take you seriously now, can I? One doesn't notice the pain or the angst of slaves or the women forced to sell their body because they are always singing about it. There are no moments of silence or subtlety to give the audience time to take it all in. 

Not all the songs are out of place though. There is Anne Hathaway (Fantine) singing "I dreamed a dream" which does bring a tear to your eye. There's Samantha Barks, who plays Ebonine, singing a very Taylor Swifty "On my own" which makes you sympathize with her for being at the wrong end of the love triangle. ANd there's the rousing "Red and Black" - the song of the revolution, which speaks of change in the midst of a very dark situation. Those are the highlights -  the rest is all, well, Jackman's not-so-pleasant baritone. By the end of the film, when he gives it one last go, the entire audience - some 200 people - all made an impatient "tsk" sound, so I was not the only one with the low tolerance level. I even left the hall with only fifteen minutes of the film to go, because I just could not take another moment of Jackman's lower jaw vibrating to let out a "a-a-a-a-a-a-a" sound anymore.

Fourteen songs in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun does not seem so tiresome now....

AWARD FUNCTIONS KA SUPERHIT FORMULA!

January is my favourite month of the year. Yes, it's the new year and it's time to begin the year with renewed enthusiasm and all that, but mostly because it's award season. And even though I might pseudo-intellectually admit that, "Please...who watches those?" I actually do watch those - all of those - and, well, I enjoy them too.

I do hope that we will be treated to something a bit different this year in terms of the show format. Most - no, make that all of the award functions look like the script of a done-to-death formula film. So this is my must-have list for "Bollywood" Award function night:

• Two tuxedo-clad male hosts (because women toh funny ho hi nahi sakte na...)
• One of the tuxedo-clad hosts maybe Shah Rukh Khan, in which case he will also crack self-deprecating little jokes about his own questionable choice of films
• At least two-three jiggly item number dance performances by - take your pick - Kareena, Priyanka, or if you're really lucky, Katrina
• One awkward dance performance by Salman Khan
• One "comeback" performance by some yesteryear diva like Sridevi or Karisma Kapoor, depending upon whose film is releasing that year
• One Best Actor Award to - none other than - hold your breath - hold it in some more - drumroll - Shah Rukh Khan

Bas, once you have all these elements in, you have the perfect award show, with high TRPs and sponsors with deep pockets. So, January is obviously a lot of other people's favourite months too.

I do have my wishlist for this year's awards though. 2012 was an exciting year for Hindi films, with several watchable movies releasing that year. The Best Actor award should go to Irrfan Khan for Paan Singh Tomar, or even Nawazuddin Siddiqui for Gangs of Wasseypur. Best Actress, no doubt, Sridevi for enthralling us in the subtle yet effective English Vinglish. Best Director, this one's tough. Anurag Kashyap for Gangs, or maybe someone unexpected and new like Gauri Shinde for English, or Shoojit Sarcar for the hilarious Vicky Donor. Best Film - that one's again tricky - how about English Vinglish again, though this is the most debatable one according to me.

Whether fresh and surprising, or cheesy and boring I know I'll be glued to the television enjoying the awards anyway!