Are there too much restrictions on Indian cinema? Or do we need to impose more?
One topic that has been burning at many places, and sometimes sadly too literally. The recent bomb blasts at the liberty cinema halls at the showing of the film ’’Jo Bole So Nihaal’’ stands out for the fact. that some kind of cinema, which provokes or hurts peoples emotions can lead them to do disastrous acts. Terrorism or no terrorism - the truth remains that innocent people were killed, in their attempt to put forth a point.
Showing smoking on screen has been banned by the parliament. A step forward or backward for Indian cinema? That’s the question on many minds. While the people for the ban argue tat the silver screen glorifies the act of smoking, thus encouraging young people to look at smoking as an act to look ’’cool’’. The people against the ban ( arguably tobacco manufacturers, who now longer will not get those star endorsements) feel that people don’t take up to smoking when the see it. What’s the dig of the common man on it?
Super star chucked his cigarette to give in for the bubble-gum in chandramukhi. A great decision indeed!! with every other kid on the streets of tamilnadu trying to emulate ’Namma superstar’, it is a matter of concern if the * introduction is in surrounded by cigar smoke. It is all right if a character reqiures to be shown as a smoker, and so it has been. It is discretion that must be put to use. The problem lies when stars try to make style statements with a burning cancer rolled in a piece of paper. Well if u cant do any good, the next best option is not to cause any harm. This basic tenet is wat CM has tried and is seeing results coming in thru box fulls of cash @ box office.
And there in Bollywood is the changing trend of ’Item’ number being all the more important than the actual film itself. ’’Mahesh Bhatt’’ - the leader of the Bhatt campaign who feel it is in their hands to liberalize Indian minds and bring it on par with the world. Raaz becomes a hit! Murder too. Churning out Murders and other flicks by the dozen. Picking up every other actress in the filmdom... Wow, they’ve extended it to the neighboring countries as well. That’s what is called ’neighborhood bonding’. And their only mantra is that they’ve got to get the Indian audience watch their films in this highly competitive market. And accept it guys.... Crap sells, we might love it or hate it but never never ignore a bhatt flick. Most of us just don’t want to.
The truth sadly as accepted by most of the film makers is that there is too much mediocrity in the e whole film industry. They have a hit, and they keep dishing out either family melodramas or titillating soft porn, romantic triangular love stories or gruesome horror. And we all spend the result of the nightouts and mind breaking queries watching total crap that is so volatile that it evaporates once we are out of the cinema halls. Hullo... I spend the amount close to one good shirt on a film in which the heroine barely wears 1 meter of dress??
The more we watch, the more successful the film is. And the film makers will keep dishing out those Kya Kool Hain Hums by the day. We will watch that too. A vicious loop. And our taste will reach such an abysmally low levels that we shall lose the ability to discern the difference between the moral and the immoral. The normal and the kinky. The sensible and the trash. All shall be the same. Until we consciously decide to stop somewhere.
For man is what he enjoys doing the most....