cinema

I have heard it so often, particularly from some of our moronic Indian film makers that cinema is only about entertainment and nothing else. I agree in so far as it is important to tell a good story in an entertaining fashion, to suggest that it is only about entertainment would not be doing justice to cinema’s potential in being the agent of change. We also tend to forget that the world over, cinema is also one of the many forms of art.

Even if we accept that the language of cinema will always be couched in terms of mass entertainers, the grammar of it has to reflect the reality and zeitgeist of our times. No matter how much we pat ourselves on the back, Indian films have a long way to go before they find a place in the consciousness of mainstream western audience. We will be able to do that if we tell engaging stories that are rooted in our soil and reflect the reality of our society, told in a matter of fact way without descending into the mire of excessive melodrama. As long as we keep churning out arriviste, rootless and living in a kind of cuckoo land kind of mindless drivel, the wider world will not take Indian cinema seriously and we will be happy with odd praises in some third world markets and delude ourselves that we have truly arrived. The visual medium is a powerful medium and we must use it to communicate our vision for change and progress in society. At the moment barring a few honorable exceptions, most of Indian film makers are content to wallow in the cesspool of mediocrity and therefore sinking to a new level of ignorance.