It happened one harsh summer afternoon – abhisek suggested that i watch the matrix instead of doing what i usually do – play computer games. I will thank that suggestion for the rest of my life ‘coz through the act of implementing it i realised what could probably be my biggest passion – collecting and watching movies from all over the world. Today i and abhisek have together built a movie collection that we are quite proud of, and something that we believe can challenge any collector’s archive.
But this collection comprises predominantly English and foreign language movies and only about 10% Indian movies. Whenever i used to watch latin American, French, Italian or even west asian movies i used to wonder why in such an atmosphere of intense experimentation Indian film makers choose the safest middle path. Well not any more. Indian cinema has long been bifurcated into mainstream commercial cinema and parallel cinema, innocently or snobbishly named an “art film”. A marriage of the two is what eluded the Indian audience big time, except on certain widely separated durations. But today i see hope, and not only me alone... judging by reactions of the generation of my age, i guess everybody is hopeful. i see a few prominent players who are leading this revolution – Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee being two of them. The first time i took note of Anurag Kashyap when i came to know that he is the co-writer of the brilliant movie “Satya”. Then again i noticed him in what could be his best work till date, “Black Friday”.
But what delighted me the most was “Dev D” – frankly speaking i am not an old-timer and over melodramatic old black and white hindi movies don’t cater to my taste – so i have never completely watched the oder versions of devdas and certainly i did not enjoy an overacting and pretentious srk in bhansali’s chaotic devdas. “Dev D” was devdas at its present realistic best.
The movie had an ambience that can never get out of my mind. And there was the intense “Gulaal”. Dibakar Banerjee has on the other hand brought out the true flavour of North India.
“Khosla ka Ghosla” is brilliant. When you talk of Indian comedy films like “Golmaal” always come to your mind. “Khodla ka Ghosla although not as good as “Golmaal” , nevertheless is a work of great promise. “Oye Lucky!Lukcy Oye!”, was delightful but not as good as Khosla.... But this weekend i believe i have seen a film that is a path breaker in Indian Cinema - a film named “LSD”. Its a brave work and believe me, every move in the movie has moved me in some way or the other. I must say the movie has left a deep impression in my mind just like what Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’ “The Blair Witch Project” did to me. Its a brilliant movie that i will watch over and over again. Bravo, fellow Bengali – you make me feel proud ! apart from these, there has been a marked difference in which the erstwhile tree-to-tree fleeting Indian superstars approach commercial cinema these days. Srk has come out of his comfort zone to perform challenging roles in “swades”, “chak de..” and “mnk”, though it must be said that its only swades in which he has not over acted. Since the late 90s aamir khan had switched gears to thinking cinema based on unconventional plots and has shown great promise both as a director and an actor. When you see young directors like farhan actor make movies like “dil chahta hai “ or a sriram raghavan making “johny gaddar” , you are only filled with hope. However there is always a fear that this trend might lead to the westernization of Indian cinema. Here it has to be noted that modern Mexican , French, Italian, argentine, Israeli, Iranian films mostly depict the local rather than the foreign. Hopefully india walks the same way or a better untrodden road if there be one !
One can hope only wish that the day is not far when the likes scorcese, spielberg, coppola, lean, Nolan start emerging from india
