Bigger but not better

As budgets get larger and movies get worse, the writer looks at why our industry must examine how much it really loves cinema

January 31, 2015 06:01 pm | Updated 06:01 pm IST

A still from I

A still from I

A large body of cinema exists, classified as ‘pulp’, that one does not necessarily critique. It is work that exists, thrives and perpetuates itself well below the radar of informed or passionate criticism. As it should. These films don’t excite anger or disdain. Neither do they excite enthusiasm or interest in anyone who wants to engage intellectually with cinema. They are released, they reach a certain audience, they serve a certain purpose, and they go away.

Then, there are the other films. These, by virtue of scale, reach, cinematic quality or vision, demand that we engage with them. Whether we, as viewers, critics or thinkers, like or dislike them is entirely our choice. But we must engage with them because they represent cinema in some of its most visible and massive avatars.

Now the conflict arises when you watch a film like I . Where do you place it? It behaves like pulp, yet comes with the cachet of size, prestige and budget that means it can’t be ignored. How do you respond to it? It’s the sort of conflict I felt while watching Dasavathaaram some years ago. Or Enthiran .

The conflict arises because one expects some basic cinematic standards from the above-radar guys, whether actors or directors, and one is left floundering in its absence. Given that these are not nouvelle vague or abstract films, surely we can expect screenplay, dialogues, and characterisation of a minimal level? Given the kind of mega budgets, surely we can expect some degree of research into the milieu or the pseudo-science that's bandied about?

These seem like modest expectations from filmmakers of a certain order. Yet, they are rejected. Quality, cinematic integrity, research, even storyline, we are told, is unimportant in the overall scheme of things — a sort of elitist quest for the grail — because ‘people’ don’t want quality; they just want a film as ‘time pass’. The same 'people' in a Kerala or West Bengal seem able to appreciate much more. Isn't it time we credited Tamil audiences with more?

The second response — in a sort of filmi twist to the ‘too big to fail’ economic theory — is that some directors and actors are so big that they must be given bigger and bigger budgets to make sillier and sillier films.

And that’s rather unforgivable because the bigger you are, the more you can afford to spend time on some of these aspects of cinematic craft. We see films like Angadi Theru or Aravaan or Jigarthanda , with much smaller budgets, do just that. They too use popular tropes and tell an ordinary story but they put their hearts out there and every sinew of effort shows.

The third response is that even the best filmmakers have a bad hair day; that every film can't be a work of art. That is absolutely fair. But here’s the thing. From a good or even just competent filmmaker, what one can and must legitimately expect is that even their worst outing doesn’t fall foul of the craft. You can like or dislike it, but cinematically it must meet the mark.

It's a pity that massive budgets should go towards an exotic location — only for a song. Or on special graphics that are not organic to the film but just exist as proof of money spent. The argument that three hours of incompetence are somehow salvaged by expensive make-up or gimmicky fight sequences just does not wash.

That’s actually a mark of how pathetically low our expectations as film-goers are forced to be pegged. It’s like sambhar made with imported shallots chopped by a gold knife and cooked in a silver dish by a chef standing on his head. I still insist that the sambhar be tasty; if not, then none of the above salvages it. Surely filmmakers who love their work should spend some of that money on screenplay or research rather than consistently talk down to their audiences.

And that is the unkindest cut of all. That as filmmakers, they are unfaithful to their own craft.

A mega movie spends $300 million but you leave the theatre believing in blue-skinned giants and flying dragon-horses and talking trees because James Cameron is invested in the story and in filmmaking.

He creates and films Pandora in painstaking detail, from Na’vi beds to Na’vi food to Na’vi speak. Avatar too is just a masala movie with a clichéd plot and predictable characters but despite that, it brings to its job of filmmaking a high degree of honesty and professionalism because its makers are faithful to cinema. And that is really the very least that our film-goers deserve.

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