Not Really Diwali-cious

Traditionally, Diwali releases are box office crackers. Think DDLJ or Om Shanti Om. But don’t get your hopes up this year

Films released on the Friday of Diwali week generally have no conscious design in plot, theme or genre. The logistics of film production in Hindi cinema precludes this. During the making of a movie, the dates of stars, notoriously difficult to pin down, and film finance, often dependent on star value, fluctuate like a weather cock. Then, post production, an early release is sought due to heavy investment and financiers’ desire to recover their money quickly.

There are also practical reasons why a film can’t remain in the cans and wait for the fireworks of Diwali to announce its arrival.  News travels fast in Hindi cinema and  special previews of movies can communicate a lot of things, not all of them pleasant. Most of this news relate to the three essentials—plot, performance and music—which then directly affects the pre-publicity of the movie. 

Dress, hairdo, make-up and choreography may not form the essence of cinema for the general audience, but in an age where the ‘look’ of the film is as important as the content, these are some  of the things that can make or break a movie. An actress is often a fashion icon and the dress she wears in the film, the high profile designer whose label it is, the hairstyle to go with it, can be copied by the next production house faster than you can say Tarun Tahiliani.

But Diwali is our new year, it is a fresh beginning, it is the season of goodwill, it is the golden week for consumer durables and consumer ephemerals (movies), and  so it is auspicious in every way for Hindi cinema.  Secrecy is the key then, and some years ago that was indeed possible.

Dil To Pagal Hai was the Diwali release of 1997.  It is a movie about dance in which Shah Rukh Khan plays the director of a trendy troupe with Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor as the lead dancers. It is the first Hindi film that  Shiamak Davar did the choreography for, and, given his western influences, dramatically altered the way dance was perceived in popular Hindi cinema.

For this reason Yash Chopra kept tight security control over the film. Even the press show, if memory serves one right, was only on the day of release. Not a great film in terms of plot and performances, it was brand new in look and presentation, and came as a breath of fresh air on Diwali.

Frankly, this cocoon of secrecy would have been impossible today in the context of our changed media and marketing scenario.  Clips of the music and dance would be all over television, weeks before Diwali, and though the film might still have worked, it would have been done to death by the time it was released. More importantly, the media and industry grapevine would have conveyed the dancer’s dress and movements to other less scrupulous production houses.

Madhuri Dixit and Karisma Kapoor’s clothes in Dil To Pagal Hai were designed by Manish Malhotra. He also designed the get-up for Kajol in the Diwali release Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995), for Karisma Kapoor in  Raja Hindustani (Diwali, 1996), for Kajol and Rani Mukerji in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Diwali, 1998). He designed for Shah Rukh Khan in Mohabbatein (Diwali, 2000) and was one of the designers for Om Shanti Om (Diwali,2007).

That is one bagful of costumes for Diwali. The point is that in the midst of Diwali is Lakshmi Puja, the honouring of the Goddess of Wealth and Beauty, and what people like to see in their movies at this time is, well, wealth and beauty. And plenty of it. We know those costumes cost an arm and a leg, and the art direction of these films, too, have a lot of flamboyance.

So though the logistics of film production allow no conscious design of  plot and genre for a Diwali film, the subconscious mind prays to Goddess Lakshmi and the subconscious in the filmmaker believes that the film must look spectacular.

This is one of the problems with the two Diwali releases last week. The genre of both, Action Replayy and Golmaal 3, is comedy, but neither of the films are particularly beautiful and only one displays some wealth.  Golmaal 3 is set in Goa, so most of the actors are dressed in the formal attire of that state: shorts and tees. A Manish Malhotra, if he lived here or was asked to design costumes for the actors, would have to collect unemployment benefits.

The only character remotely interested in wealth in Golmaal 3 is Johnny Lever, and that too because he has pinched the necklace of the ‘maharani’ and can’t remember where he has hidden it. The others, two group of rival gangs that kick sand in each others’ faces, so to speak, until their respective single parents (Mithun Chakraborty and Ratna Pathak Shah) finally decide to get hitched, are slumming it out right through the film.

When the old folks get married, the gangs have to share a home, they have to decide who sleeps in the store-room and who in the bedroom, and that is the substance of the comedy. Reprising roles from Golmaal and Golmaal Returns, the film uses mime effectively (Tusshar Kapoor) and some of it is genuinely funny, but the talking parts are a drag. Ajay Devgn, God bless his soul, has never been the life of the party in any movie, and here he plays a strong silent man with a compulsive disorder—he must break any finger pointed at him, behaviour not likely to endear him to the fun loving people of Goa. Kareena Kapoor contributes even less to the general merriment, and so, apart from a scene or two, Golmaal 3 does not really entertain.

But Golmaal 3 is a masterpiece compared with Action Replayy. Ripped off from Back to the Future, this film is about a time machine that takes us back to 1975. It has Aishwarya Rai trying her damndest to do a Zeenat Aman. This is where dress designing and hair styling  really matter, where art direction and mise-en-scene become important, and the movie is totally unconvincing. No tops were cut that low in the Bombay of  the 1970s and the skirts did not ride that high, the men did not all wear bell bottoms, and trendy did not mean the Elvis look.

So, when wealth and beauty are given the go by, the fire cracker in a Diwali release  can easily become a damp squib.

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