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CINEMA:
FUSION
Marketing
Doesn't Mean Compromise
What
sets the new directors apart is their willingness to communicate and their
understanding of ground reality. Their idealism to move beyond the standard
commercial cinema is, however, tempered with the knowledge that in Bollywood,
box office is all. So marketing doesn't equal compromise. And being self-consciously
opaque is out. "My job is to tell a story," says Mehra. "Naukri
kar rahaa hoon. If I don't tell a story, I don't have a job tomorrow."
Adds DPMLY writer Saurabh Shukla: "You say it teda but you make it
understandable. You have to communicate."
Their timing
is also right. Bollywood is ripe for a change. The feel-good family drama
and fluff ball romance formulas seem to be petering out. Year 2000 has
only seen one blockbuster, Kaho Na Pyar Hai, and a spate of small
but unlikely successes like the comedy Hera Pheri and the zero-star
value melodrama, Kya Kehna. Obviously, the audience is eager for
something new. "The audience is rejecting that larger-than-life fantasy
level," says director Mahesh Manjrekar who recently released the
small but significant Astitva. "Pundits think they know what
the audience wants but 90 per cent of the films are flopping." Stars,
Bollywood's driving force, also seem open to experimentation. Salman,
notoriously undisciplined, is not only having regular sittings with Niwas
but also contributing to character sketches and storyline. Says Niwas:
"He's as excited as I am. Right now, everyone wants real kind of
cinema, not the run of the mill." Mishra's experience is similar.
"I find no difference between working with Anil Kapoor and Om Puri,"
he says. "Today, an actor like Kapoor is also looking for a director
to take him on a more adventurous path."
Eventually,
of course, everything depends on the box office. Satya's house-full
collections spoke volumes to a disbelieving trade. As did the other gritty
underworld saga, Vaastav. Manjrekar knows the score: "One
success gives me freedom but two flops will put me back in the same place."
The wannabe auteurs need another Satya to keep the flag flying.
Khalid Mohammad's Fiza, about a young Muslim boy who turns to terrorism
after the Bombay riots, opened to packed houses but later fizzled out.
Both DPMLY and Astitva have had shaky starts.
Govind Nihalani,
high priest of the arthouse movement, isn't sure that fusion cinema will
be anything more than a fad. "I find that an intellectual rigour
and ideological position is lacking in these films," he says, "which
is why they aren't convincing the audience either. But if that
comes, then these films will be a most welcome change." Absolutely.
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Relics
of old empires exist everywhere. Why can't the Mani Shankar Aiyars of
India let them be? asks INDIA TODAY Senior Editor Ravi Shankar in
