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Hey all. I have the privilege to fill in for Patrix for a few days as he is snowed under work (See: Previous Post)! You can listen to us ramble on Indicast, but, while writing this post (that’s a first!), I realised that writing can be a serious business and a time consuming one! So, here is a big shout out to patrix and all you bloggers out there who create original and more importantly consistent content! Wish me luck…
The trouble with movie reviews
In Indian cinema, the process of making a film is fairly simple. Unless you are an Ashutosh Gowarikar daring a Lagaan or a Mira Nair adapting Lahiri’s Namesake, an average Indian director weaves the illusionary script around a story (if it exists) and if he gets lucky, the “process” works too. In Hollywood (the closest rival to Bollywood!), where the director (Read: Scorcesse) moves around to choose his cast with the script in hand, here, our ambitious film makers have their script writers pen the dialogues at almost real time while the make up artists work on our melodramatic actors in the “artist room”.
According to me, these are a few givens that our movie reviewers writing for national newspapers should acknowledge and respect. For example, if the movie is good, the review should start with the caveat, ‘Other things remaining equal,” the film can still beat the likes of a Ben Hur or that may be it is too late in the day for the director to consider a career shift. Bollywood is Bollywood inspite of or probably because of these idiosyncracies. But, our beloved journalists seem to dwell on the wrong side of Bollywood.
What bothers me is the shallowness of the movie reviews that are carried in leading media vehicles today. I understand that India churnes out more movies per year than any other country (where 9 out of 10 movies flop is another piece of important information) and that the journalists have to endure almost all of them with deadlines biting away their precious time to fill in the next day’s column which will be read by a million people from metros for there is not much to read in the papers apart from the chronicles of detailed follow up to celebrity weddings.
Knowing that there is an audience who would want to know about the movie, the reviewers do gross injustice with the few words that they are asked to write. With half of the article dedicated to summarising the movie, consider some cliches that you may come across in the other “perceptive” half from the ‘first day first show’ journos: A tolerent journalist would write about a bad film, ‘The dialogues were shallow and the acting superficial,’ and if the writer has nothing good to say about the director, he uses the ubiquitous line from his archives, ‘The direction was shoddy and the camerawork amature.’ If he wants to convey that the actress had nothing much to do in the film and if he has a soft corner for Aishwarya Rai, (Mrs. Bachchan), ‘Aishwarya Rai’s beauty falls in the way of her acting which goes unnoticed yet again.’ And lately, Abhishek Bachchan delivered ‘a powerpacked performance‘ in all the reviews.
While what most authors say may be true, it is too generic. All of the above lines can hold true for all movies. There is nothing new that the author brings to the table about the movie that the reader whould want to read or would love to know about.
A Roger Ebert or a James Berardinelli tell you why they felt that the direction was shoddy. They seem to respect the space that they are given in the news papers. They will help you visualise why a Stanley Kubrick’s steady cam did the trick in ‘The Shining‘ and why Oliver Stone got it all wrong with his infatuation with turbulent camera jerks in ‘Any Given Sunday.‘ Aren’t Indian writers competant enough to use the english language to give us something new? May be our movies do not warrant the kind of clinical perception. But, with every Rang de basanti or a Munnabhai or the more recent, ‘Gandhi, my Father’ there are a hunderd reviews born and one among those stands out and gives me hope that the movie reviewing business ain’t dead. Not as yet. It is just that our writers are plain lazy to put their mind on paper. Oh, the writing is just too shoddy!
by Abhishek | on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 5:02 am | 
India, Media, Movies . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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August 9th, 2007 at 7:17 am reply
Welcome to ipatrix Abhishek! Hope you have as much fun writing as you have gabbing with Aditya. And totally agree with you on the reviews. For Desi movies, I have stopped reading reviews except Rangan’s now…
August 9th, 2007 at 7:58 am reply
I think they do that so they won’t piss off the actor/actress. People liken criticism to insults in our culture, even constructive criticism.
August 9th, 2007 at 10:00 am reply
Nice post, Abhishek. Now I don’t want to ‘review’ your post (have already used the ‘n’ word) coz then you would write a post on blog reviews as well :) just kidding. You are doing great here…cannot thank you enough for keeping this space alive.
And yup, ditto curiouscat…have come to rely a lot on Baradwaj Rangan’s reviews. He is a refreshing change from the kind of reviews I used to read in TOI when I was in India.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:45 pm reply
now as patrix would say- ” idon’t want to - review - your post” - however one small request- which was repeatedly made to patrix- short posts- with a personal approach - they make for more interesting reading………..sorry but when you are taking over - you are going to be critiqued a bit at first.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:50 pm reply
[...] writes about the shallowness of movie reviews in Indian media What bothers me is the shallowness of the movie reviews that are [...]
August 9th, 2007 at 4:41 pm reply
Lagaan was a very stupid movie. That it’s considered “daring” by self-confessed movie connoisseurs illustrates yet again the lack of subtlety among the Indhi audience (and people in general). A moview review can’t be more shallow than the movie itself.
Good films in Thamizh come out and make money, better than the rate of 1 on 10. That’s perhaps why Thamizh Nadu should secede from India.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:50 pm reply
Good points Abhishek (and unlike others, I wont critique your critique on critics[1]). I would like to point though that India did have good, perceptive movie critics - Chidananda Dasgupta is one name that comes to mind - perhaps the lack of good ones now is related to a general fall in the standards of journalism.
Also, a minor quibble - Mira Nair could hardly be considered an Indian director (other than for the fact that most of her films have an Indian theme).
[1] - apologies for the bad joke.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:25 pm reply
A movie “review” in its true sense should just be that - it should tell you whether you liked it or not and whether you recommend it or not. Nothing more.
However movie reviews have ceased to be everything but that - now they are nothing more than overlong thesis on the movie. Movie reviews today basically give everything away except the ending; Movie reviews, hollywood or bollywood have become particularly useless.
August 12th, 2007 at 10:23 am reply
[...] I am not going to review the movie, especially after the previous post! I request you guys to read what a friend of mine thinks. He is an aspiring film maker and hopes to [...]
August 12th, 2007 at 10:34 am reply
Curiouscat: Thanks for the kind words! Hope I won’t disappoint you on Patrix’s space!
Santosh: Ah, I think we are all game for some constructive criticism, aren’t we? But, as you say, a few of them aact like grown up kids!
Patrix: Thanks man! You would be the last person whom I would want my posts to be reviewed! :) I picture you as a professor scolding this first time blogger to get the grammar and the punctuation right!
M: I promise. Smaller posts from next week on…
I: Nice to know that someone shares a strong opinion about Lagaan. I didn’t know it was a daring attempt until I got my hands on on Satyajit Bhatkal’s ‘The Spirit of Lagaan.’ If you can, please do read it. It doesn’t explain the nuances of film making. It is a case study of how an Indian movie was made flying in the face of convention.
Bongopundit: Chidananda Dasgupta! Thanks for this one. I read his review on ‘Partner’ and thoroughly enjoyed the film as well as the movie! Yup, Mira Nair is not an Indian film maker. I agree… She is on Shantaram as well. Am waiting for that!