In the past few days I have successfully managed to watch two Hindi movies – Kya Kool Hai Hum and Bombay to Goa. It is God’s grace that I am still sane and am able to write this piece. For the past few months I have not seen a single good Hindi movie being released. Gone are the golden ages of bollywood. Most of the Hindi movies are too pathetic to even sit through them. I really do not understand how bollywood comes up with these movies and who watches them!
Most of the plots of bollywood movies these days are borrowed from Hollywood movies. They are shameless enough not even to modify these plots. I shall not go into modern Hindi movie songs for this is an area of controversy. I hate them from the bottom of my heart while others really appreciate them. Where has the Indian moviegoer’s taste gone. Movies like Kya Kool Hai Hum and others have no message for society at large, instead they portray heroes running after the wealth of a girl, dumping her only when he realises that it is not a “she” but a “he”. Lets not go into messages to society but at least they should be enjoyable! They are not even that. The humour is on the face and sometimes the distinction between humour and vulgarity get dissolved, watch Kya Kool for an example.
If we just look at present English movies and past Hindi movies, we see a stark difference. English movies have a very subtle sense of humour. When the humour is on the face or tending towards vulgarity, the movie is completely so like the American Pie series but even there they know how to make people laugh and cry. A very close friend of mine ended up crying while watching American Pie 3: The Wedding! Another very good but irritating friend of mine alleges that English movies send even cows to space ( the actual Bengali words are “golper goru space e tola”). It is true that the plots sometimes become bizarre and even superhuman and supernatural but the way it is presented by means of tying them down with believable things that you go into a “willing suspension of disbelief”. People complain that the superiority of English movies is due to the profusion of capital. This is a Marxist argument and like all of them, this too has serious flaws. This years Oscar went to The Hurt Locker, which was made from a meagre budget as compared to the much hyped multi-million dollar Avatar. There is my point – it is the plot and the execution that makes a film and not the money. Why do we need to have plots that try to save the world and locate them at exotic places at exorbitant budgets? Why can we not make movies like The Bucket List or Life is Beautiful? These movies have a very strong plot base that makes them hits.
My appeal to Indian moviemakers is to come up with original plots. Indian literature and folk traditions are rich with enthralling plots. Why do we not tap into them? My request to the moviegoers is stop watching these low grade movies so that the moviemakers realise that there is no demand for such movies. But I cannot blame the moviegoers as such for most of them look at the ratings before going for a movie and these ratings end up giving 3 stars to movies like The Appartment! Also I realise that the teaming masses want such movies because nothing other than crass humour can appeal to their basic instincts, otherwise how can a movie like Sangharsh flop at the Box Office and Singh is King become a hit! The Indian masses need to improve their intellect to motivate our commerce maniac moviemakers to come up with better plots.
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