“And you have to sleep all the way to the TOP…!”
That’s what we all know even without being in the industry which is called fashion. Who cares about the sexual orientations and who cares the moral principles and who comprehends the words like “sacred” and “solemn”! Who tells you the good and bad touch, when instead of prayer sleeping around can bring luck. When options becomes requirements and “Oh my GOD!” becomes “what’s big deal!” than you know, with a muted expression on the face your legs are walking on a long platform of a fashion industry. Dropping and putting on clothes within nano seconds is not a business of just greenrooms, yeah than you know you are swimming neck deep in the muddy path of Fashion industry.
5...4...3...2...1… Now
--- a sound which switches the person within the 5 foot some inches tall slim body of human… S/he walks between the glitz and glamour... Loud music, lots of flashes … reaches between the huge set of crowd applauding … but she is not there to acknowledge... She is there as a mannequin of some designer wearing some identity that night. . . . wrapped in some strings/straps, showing off more than expected … some strings/straps meant to be falling just at the rightly fixed wrong time … but she is not expected to behave as “Sati Savitri” … she will cover herself again and pose for the photos .. Will walk back with the same poise to the green room will shed a tear or two for the first time …. But soon the tear ducts will dry. She will change … will walk out on the lonely roads to some rave parties or to an abusive boyfriend, will take “drugs”. One day either with increasing wrinkles or by other rising-newly-slept–glam-dolls will be replaced. She covers the journey from a Show Stopper to an unidentified 7th number model of any fashion event. If she can take it, Great! If she can’t, she will end up on a street, unnamed and unidentified!
That’s what happens in Fashion Industry as per Madhur Bhandarkar. That’s what happened with Big time model/Show stopper “Shonali” (Kangana) when one small-town-gal ‘Meghna’ (Priyanka Chopra) with big-dream and lots-of-attitude walk into Mumbai. With a help of a small time designer and some few struggling steps, adding onto few tears shed at appropriate places, she becomes a Super Model. But good times never come with a lifetime guarantee esp. when you have a wrong attitude. She falls prey to the same mistakes made by Shonali and history repeats, she gets replaced by another glam doll. But since this is Hindi movie she is meant to bounce back, realize certain good principles instilled in her and make it good in the end. She comes back, not to fall again. This time she achieves the same place with her hard work, good deeds and a bunch of friends (side actors) as a better human.
‘Fashion’… the much awaited movie of the year, belonging to the director of realistic cinema who is known to call a ‘spade a spade’, our very own ‘Madhur Bhandarkar’. He has raised our expectations with his ever shocking account of “Film Industry” through his super hit movie “Page 3”. Followed by movies like “Corporate”, “Traffic Signal” and his next venture is “Jail”. But was Fashion as good a movie as we expected, is a good question to ponder on. With almost a week over after release its house full… but if you ask the general opinion of classes’ average response in blogs, reviews that I have read says “Disappointed”. Blame it to Madhur’s earlier work or audience improved knowledge of fashion industry; they already know the ABCD of fashion that has been shown. Whether its wardrobe malfunction, sleeping around to fame, drugs, overnight change of models everything.
‘Fashion’ looks stale after a point of time with nothing new to offer, with wrong choice of characters. The very first wrong choice is “Priyanka Chopra” who just could not shed her image and looked more like a Priyanka than Meghna. Now I will not call it Madhur’s mistake because he has done a wonderful job with ‘Tabu’ as a bar dancer and ‘Bipasha’ as a corporate worker. Harsh Chhaya was a big disappointment in the role of Designer. Somehow I hated him and felt he was the wrong choice for the role and he did it horribly.
Some good characters were Mugda, Sameer Soni and Arjun Bajwa. I need to mention Kangana separately because she was the real showstopper for me in the movie. The best character who takes the cake and though she did “the act of Carol Gracias” (the unfortunate incident of wardrobe malfunction), she ensured to raise Goosebumps. Kudos to her performance!
Music is the best part of the movie. Cinematography is good not great, but Editing towards the end goes on for a toss and movies stretches more than expected and it ends with yawns on our faces.
For a common man ‘Fashion Industry’ is just like a Dream or a forbidden fruit which they want to taste. Anything with a tag “Sex” “Unaccepted” “Censored” sells more today and so Madhur is busy making it. I don’t question his intentions, but when you are aware of the effect that media has on people lets not raise “facts” on Homophiles (I will not call it an Issue) as a mockery. It’s high time you present it in a way that people start knowing it, accepting it rather than having a “hearty laugh” over it.
Madhur calls himself a purely a middleclass man and one who believes in portraying the realities of society through his films as medium. In Fashion though he was able to show the nuances of fashion industry but somewhere he failed to connect it clearly with the society and social issues. Thus the common man failed to relate to the movie and classes got disappointed. With a sensible director like Madhur, we expect to bring a revolution make the society more aware of the trends, facts and figures they don’t know, or they know but they don’t accept. This time he has failed drastically as a director at least for me. Probably he is late with his movie with so much literature and Fashion mags at our disposal.
Fashion still stays like a dream to a common man but the one for whom its an ART they have the luxury to be complete in it… but with so much of competition, backstabbing, running around for survival, the Creativity in art goes missing and that’s leaves the Fashion world People .. Restless.. Lost …INCOMPLETE…!! Because no ART is complete without Creativity!!
Still the flash, glitz, glamour… mesmerizes you… and you are all set.. to sleep the way to glory !!