The dude in the black shirt, the dudette in yellow boots and the ShoMan from Pakistan

The stage was all set for a hat-trick of Eid blockbusters from Sallu-bhai through a literal overdose of sponsored content across all media – TV, FM, Print & Outdoor. And hum sabka bhaijaan (as the refrain goes in the title song) didn’t disappoint the cash registers at least. Bodyguard raked in the moolah like never before as both the fanboys and sceptics made a beeline for the tickets in equal measure (Okay, that was hyperbole…but aren’t we talking about a Salman blockbuster here? What’s the harm in a little bit of hyperbole?). So, aal izz well. The shirtless dude turned out in a black uniform (albeit just for a few minutes), the diva no. 1 scored a point for equal rights, the media revelled in the customary Page 3 euphoria and the audience feasted on good humoured but inane hyperbole on a truly extended festival weekend. Paisa vasool, isn’t it?

The big guns never fail to point out how crucial it is for these big ticket ventures to succeed as their success would mean that many more such films can be made. It secures employment for so many who survive on the industry for their bread & butter, they argue in an attempt to portray their concern for the lesser beings. Ironical then, that Facebook activism is shaming dozens of media companies through a blacklist of people who don’t pay. Anyways, the business of cinema is neither my domain nor the concern I want to voice through this piece. The mention of this irony owes itself to the shallowness of the argument put forth by filmmakers to justify their part in the concern that I intend to voice here.

I find it amusing, and at times disturbing too, that a large number of Hindi film viewers who scoff at the so-called Rajni genre of films (those southie flicks starring fat & ugly heroes with bushy moutaches indulging in hyperbolic action sequences, as these audiences describe it) stay steadfastly loyal to a Wanted or a Singham. I wonder what sets them apart from the south Indian films except for the chiselled features & lesser facial hair on the stars. Forget the south Indian stars for a moment, these audiences choose to distance themselves even from similar hyperbolic films starring someone like a Mithun Chakraborty. The logical inference being that its not the school of filmmaking that’s being scoffed at in this setting, it’s rather the lack of glamour. Glamour is what is being paraded through these runaway hits, and glamour is what is being consumed by its votaries.

The moot point that arises here is why these filmmakers are happy substituting content with oversized dollops of glamour and why our audiences are lapping it up lock, stock & barrel. And don’t get me wrong here – I’m not advocating obliteration of glamour from our cinema. I’m neither advocating a compromise on the entertainment stakes. It would be a mistake to assume a sudden influx of a heightened artistic awareness in our pop-culture. My argument is more on the lines of glamour and content co-existing in a wholesome ecosystem that caters entertainment to the audiences that crave for it. It happens elsewhere, it has happened in our own industry in the past and there’s no reason why it can’t happen here again.

Each star in Bollywood today has an aura around him. While Salman Khan is the machismo-oozing hunk, Aamir Khan is the methodical perfectionist. While Shahrukh Khan is the undying romantic, Amitabh Bachchan is well…Amitabh Bachchan. Film after film featuring these stars (the most dependable names in the industry with respect to BO pull) draws on these auras to generate the buzz. And each film further reinforces the aura as they’re built around it. Till this vicious circle is not broken, we are doomed to formulaic films ruling the roost. The need of the hour is a sincere attempt from our filmmakers to move away from this feeding into and deriving from the aura around the stars.

Bodyguard provides for an interesting case in point. The first half of the film was fairly entertaining. There was an interesting build-up to the romantic angle between the two leads and I was pleasantly anticipating a fun romcom. But the inevitable takeover of the script & direction by Salman’s aura happened sooner than I had expected, bringing with it baddies waiting to be beaten up by the hunk and some heavy melodrama for good measure. Out went the romcom for a toss, to be replaced by stencilled Salman Khan masala. For the gullible audience, it was a snide middle-finger seeped in Bollywood elitism – “You won’t be able to appreciate Salman Khan in a romcom, so we’re doing you a favour by presenting him to you the way you want him”. But who among the audience cares? They’re busy waiting for Sallu to rip his shirt off.

On the other hand, we have Anurag Kashyap canvassing for 650,000 tickets of his latest film, That Girl in Yellow Boots, to be sold so that more such films can be made. Now, that’s quite interesting. As I said, the business of cinema is not my forte, but I’ll take Anurag’s calculations that arrived at the figure of 650,000, at face value – that he does his maths right is evident from his piece on the mathematics of Udaan. But I’m wary about supporting this campaign for 650,000 tickets, the engaging craftsmanship of Anurag (amply demonstrated in TGIYB as well) notwithstanding. For in spite of all its plus points in terms of the casting, performances, approachability sans spoonfeeding and the maverick direction that we so love Anurag for, the film betrayed a disturbing avowal of the star aura phenomenon. The aim of enhancing leading lady Kalki’s aura as a diva with a devil-may-care attitude (established through Dev D & further emphasised in Shaitaan) looks like having been a decisive factor right from the characterisation and all the way to the edit table. Institutionalization of the rebel, shall we say? And as Abhimanyu from the epic Mahabharata would testify, it’s way easier to get into a vicious circle than to come out of it. We’d love to see a lot more happening on the indie circuit in India, but not at the cost of the indie idiom becoming a poor cousin of the blockbuster formula.

While bollywood wrestles with this star-driven culture, Shoaib Mansoor (popularly called ShoMan in Pakistan) lands from across the border with his second film, Bol…and how. Bol stands apart because it celebrates the true purpose of cinema, which is telling a story and/or making a statement (be it personal, political, philosophical or any kind) through an audio-visual medium and not being a showcase for tinsel hunks & divas. Not that Bol doesn’t have a star in it, it does. But Shoaib makes sure that Atif Aslam is tastefully underplayed and never threatenes to grow larger than the story being told or the statement being made. Bol doesn’t boast of the big bucks that Bodyguard had at its disposal, and Shoaib Mansoor isn’t half the craftsman Anurag Kashyap is…but as a film, it was Bol that promises to stay with me the longest from amongst the three releases of the past weekend. And if Shoaib Mansoor were to make an appeal for 650,000 tickets to be sold, I’d have gone that extra mile in contributing to that figure. Now that I think of it, appeal or no appeal, I’ll do just that.