difficulties of commercial cinema: rab ne banadi jodi

i have always been amused by film makers (especially the 'parallel' ones) announcing in costly events, with a smile on their face- "i am planning to make typical bollywood masala movie". for residents of timbuktu- masala means "commercial"- which means what i do not know....

last time someone made an announcement like that.... hero hiralal happened. ... then happened 'phir bhi dil hai hind...' then 'serious' commercial cinema came with the name of mangal pandey.. whose mangal happened i am knoT sure... there have been such attempts at 'commercial cinema' off and on. thanks to these attempts we kept getting some real cheesy movies... off an on. i am yet to see an announcement of this kind getting resulted in a successful movie....

true, 90% of masala flicks in bollywood are unpalatable. 90% of bollywood smells strongly of the disease called mediocrity. but then is'nt that the case everywhere? i mean, how many of these art films are really the memorable ones? i still cannot figure out why albert pinto used to get so angry (ok- there was the 70s oppression thingy and all that- but make a full blown movie about it???), or why was maya memsaab made? i believe the director was obsessed with his wife's genetilia and wanted to share the same with the rest of the world. and in the days without mms etc movie would have been the only option. not that i mind... anyways, that's not what i want to talk about....

the fact is good movie directors- art and commercial both, just direct the movies they want to. it is just their self expression. so a david dhawan even in real life reflects the persona of his movies. and so does a kjo. and the sharp sarcasm of farah khan oozes into the wit which is there in her movies. these guys just cannot think otherwise. tell david saab to make a tight 'bourne'-isk thriller and see the abs mess he comes up with. or tell subhash ghai to make a movie relevant to the millennium.... i mean you better not tell him. he already is trying and torturing us in every possible way. imagine a guy with a surname of yuvraaj... its ok as a rarity in real life. but imagine a director thinking as such for his main protagonists. and with horror everyone will remember black and white. that was when he wanted to make an art movie....

having said all this the problem which happens to many really good directors is that they fall into the trap of the formula. in some cases it succeeds for some time but in most cases it fails. you can take the cases of so many directors who showed so much promise and then went caput. yash chopra started a career on really honest movies. Dharmaputra was a really strong movie for a first timer. then he discovered the magic of love. he started making absolute brilliant movies to start with. then he got sucked in. love triangle, quadrangle, pentagon.... then one day he wanted to make the ultimate formula movie with all the masala-he made parampara... he he! and films which followed- chandni etc were really very ordinary. he did have the moment of inspiration in lamhe. but instead of making a movie from his heart he again tried to put the formula thing inside the movie and it became a mish-mash. the last time he took the director's chair he made a really forgettable "dil to .... " which was a torture sans the almost edible female leads and shiamak davar's choreography.

when aditya chopra started making ddlj, obviously he was unaware that he was in presence of greatness inside his own self. when ddlj became the movie to have defined rommance in our times, i am sure he would have been overwhelmed at what he had ended up achieving. success and success of this kind right at the beginning has its own trappings. aditya chopra started believing in his own self image. that is very clear by the fact that he ventured only twice in the next whole decade to make a movie and both the times he has been trying hard to make that ultimate romantic movie instead of just making a movie he wants to. you cannot create greatness. you just do what you want to. sometimes you get great results. when you are in the process of creating greatness you usually fall flat on your face. how do you define greatness? how can you the hidden wishes in the hearts of millions of viewers? how can you reach the innermost regions of a million hearts every time?

even if you look at the career of his illustrious father, yash chopra managed greatness only a few times in his four decades of film making. the positive side to his career was that his non-great movies were very watchable as he was seldom living or working in any make-believe aura. once he wanted to make that ultimate love quadrangle. he roped in the best actors, the best technicians etc. and then he delivered silsila- better known as silly-sila..

or the other greats if we look at.. raj kapoor in mera naam joker, guru dutt in kagaz ke phool (much as i love the movie, i cannot help even today admitting the ultra heavy streak of self pity which ran through it and which was more responsible for its failure and not because it was ahead of time or any such crap- truth is quality of content only receded post 50s)....

the question here then remains as to why did the really good director in AC did not realise this fact even after delivering a whimper in mohabbatein? the problem is shahrukh khan. and AB. the fact is, the box office success of this movie was delivered by these two gents and some great music. and in spite of the abominable presence of overaged school "kids". or perhaps he did get the message... i cannot say obviously...

the promos of RNBDJ had this attaempt at greatness thing all over it right from the start. "extra-ordinary love story in every ordinary couple" bla bla bla......all the attempts at novelty- having the new heroine and all.... new look of sharukh...

and then there was the brilliant idea. ordinary guy- extra-ordinary love story. guaranteed mass heart-touches. and that was the idea that killed the movie. the movie just did not move ahead of this great idea.

was ddlj success because of the idea of the nri-good-locales-indian values thing? i guess not... there was much more to it than the idea. think of the contrasting fathers, the punjabi munda-gabru suitor, the over-smart sister, the cliched but lovely mother. then there were those dialogues- "bade bade shahron mein chhoti ....", the "senorita" thing, the chemistry of amrish puri and shahrukh... then those scenes.. the mustard field embrace, the final climax, the scene between the mother and daughter where she asks them to run away.... think of the songs...

the truth is, ddlj or any movie which achieves greatness has much much more to it than just the first idea.

this is where RNBDJ fails miserably. the movie moves around 3 characters and exactly 3 characters. for 3 hours we have 3 characters to look at. and at the end of it what do we come to know about them? nothing much really. yes surinder is a geek and very "ordinary" (the wife keeps telling every second scene), the alter-ego raj very smart bubbly etc... dunno how the former manages to put on such a good show in his avtar as the latter. we have the girl who has lost everything and is hell bent on leading a very bad life. she is obviously shattered. but how does a very bubbly girl suddenly start giving up everything she ever stood for from her childhood? then there is the eternal freind. with a heart of gold. also a barber- which is really handy! plastic characters in a plastic set up. would it have taken more than 25 minutes to know these characters? or forget them? the director was not paying attention to these silly details obviously. he was too busy in his creating the greatness....

the songs? you take one of the more ordinary music director duos for a film like this? your magnum opus? what were you thinking? yes they gave some good numbers in chak de. but there is a sea of difference between an out and out romantic music and other genre songs. not many are able to breach it. but i would like to give the benefit of doubt to the director. the duo came up with a copy for a title song and we don't even remember the rest. and all the while they were doing this what was the director doing?

so we have plastic characters- 3 in total, one semblance of a song- that too a copy. what else? scenes.... from the time the lady comes in till the end does anyone remember what happened? some vaguely memorable ones were there to be fair. the golgabba scene will make you laugh if you try hard. the sumo scene gives some scope to shahrukh to work something up, the entry of vinay pathak raises hopes ( only to dash them)... but then what? and those catch lines? Taani-partner- the sound of this term makes me want to go to the loo. compare this with the way shahrukh utter senorita in ddlj? the tragedy is that then mr. chopra was not trying to get any legendary catch-line. this time he was. and what was that about that parting shot of those movie names? for a moment was having a feeling that i had come into the wrong theatre to watch some old rajshree production movie. and that song!!!! when was the last time we saw a multi-starrer song charting the history of hindi cinema? and in all this was there even an iota of ingenuity or creativity? well one scene i cannot forget. the heroine asks RAB who is the person who is her RAB or jisme usse rab dikhna chahiye. and then we see SHarukh! and then she realises everything in life. wow! so subtle and so innovative!!!

finally the dialogues! uff!remember the efforts of raj being funny. or the punch lines of vinay pathak's charracter? you do remember? god bless you!

to put the nails in the coffins, we have sets designed by drama-school freshers. one feels sad for the 3 actors who have tried very hard to lend credibility to the movie and the hollow charracters. and there are moments which almost deliver a promise of magic. but every time the director burns own fingers. remember the cliamx which inspite of the bad sets etc delivers warmth. only to be brought down by the dialogue - "rabji mujhse naraaz to nahin ho jayengey ke mein tum se unsey bhi zyaada mohabbat karta hun?" OH MY GOD! i remembered a song (song not dialogue!)from sohni mehwal made 25 years back!

the fact of the matter is that the director was really not bothered. he was to caught in with his "ultimate big idea". the fact of the matter is, he should have tried to make a movie. because when you are making a movie and NOT a magnum opus (term which all the paid trumpeteers kept trumpeting to describe the movie) you focus on the movie. not on the idea, or the heroine ( remember James by RGV?) or the hero (Barsaat anyone?) or the action scenes (did not watch mission ista...)bla bla bla.... and you put the right people for the job and you can spot where you are going wrong.

some times people learn. RK learnt from mera naam joker which almost finished him, yash chopra learnt from silsila and focussed on things other than lead actors, rakesh roshan started focusing on quality when his koyla left him black faced. and RGV never learnt. nor did dev anand.

will RNBDJ prove to be adi's mera naam joker? i hope it does. i am praying hard that does. for a relatively serious film enthusiast, watching an out and out commercial venture (ddlj) more than a dozen times is equivalent to magic. and when you have tasted magic once, you keep craving for more..... so adi- saab, stop trying to make magnum opuses and just make a movie. the magnums and the opuses will keep happening on their own sir!

jai hind!