In defence of seriously bad cinema

Is there such a thing as a universally panned flick?

The ‘First day first show’ (FDFS) of a film, usually between 9.30 and 11 am on a Friday at a theatre near you, is a lonely hearts’ club. I’ve been its honorary member for over a decade, mainly because of work. As the lights come on in the interval, each week I notice a near vacant hall with its seating plan dotted by self-contained, solitary middle-aged men, waiting for the film to start again. The backrows and corner seats are reserved for canoodling couples—some of them lost in teenage love, many others old and seemingly too happy to be married (to each other).

In crowded cities, the cinema doubles up as that rare, vast empty space where you can be in public and still feel like you’re completely by yourself. The killer air-conditioner and cushy seats provide comfort. Dark halls encourage privacy. You could cry or laugh yourself silly in such public places and nobody will know, especially at the FDFS, where everybody is seated so far apart.

Every few months, a major blockbuster hits the theatre, disturbing the peace of this otherwise calm Friday club. The pandemonium is at its peak during Diwali, Dussehra, Christmas or Eid—giving the term ‘festival films’ an altogether other meaning in India. These big pictures, on the back of a massive marketing push, compel millions to check what the fuss is all about. Curiosity is contagious. Huge budgets help filmmakers set aside money for special effects, stunt sequences or ‘magic of the big screen’—one of the main reasons people watch movies anyway. You expect a long line for an early morning darshan of a popular star headlining such a film.

Then there is that odd weekend when you enter the theatre shocked, like some other members of the Friday club, to find the auditorium mysteriously packed. Few will recall a flick called Janasheen (2003). I had to score that ticket from a shadey scalper or ‘blackiya’ (wherever have they disappeared now?). You could barely decipher the gibberish from the screen as the grand old Feroz Khan launched into ‘abracadabra’ in Pashtun or Arabic, leaving his core audience delirious with joy.

The delight in catching a popular song’s picturisation on 70 mm, I suspect, drives a lot of people to the cinemas. Even Jackky Bhagnani has delivered a hit (called Faltu) on that account (a track called Char Baj Gaye). If music weren’t the mainstay of Indian movies, mainstream filmmakers would have to struggle with scripts. Music companies that produce films know this. Who cares what T-Series’ Yaarian was all about? It was apparently a hit because of Yo Yo Honey Singh’s ‘ear-worm’ (Paani Paani Paani). Sex is another determinant of course. In the pre-internet days, I could guess the sexual content of art-house films from the number of uncles lined up outside embassy retrospective screenings in New Delhi. It was impossible to get into The Last Tango in Paris at the gigantic Siri Fort auditorium. Certainly that crowd hadn’t landed up for Bernardo Betrolucci. Even body-doubles of Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider would do.

Many others use the big screen and dark halls to travel to exotic desitinations. My mom always wants to know where a film is shot: “Kahan ka dikhaya hai?” There is the access to culture that some crave. Yash Chopra realised this when his ‘NRI’ movie Lamhein bombed domestically but cracked it abroad. He spawned a new genre called the ‘overseas territory’. Germans fell in love with these romantic melodramas. Even Shah Rukh Khan’s Swades was freshly cut for German TV. The Best movie of 2009, according to readers of a German Bollywood magazine Ishq, was Yash Raj’s Dil Bole Hadippa. This fixation with genre spreads to the boondocks of Bihar, where cathartic, violent films have traditionally ruled. Akshay Kumar’s Jaanwar (1999) remains the greatest hit ever. I once noticed a poster of the comedy All The Best there with heroes holding a gun! A theatre owner in Patna told me that as the law and order in the state improved, people started to prefer comedies (3 Idiots had done exceedingly well in 2009). This must also be the case with fairly educated, reasonably affluent audiences—with cerebral day-jobs—who just love grotesquery and negative IQ comedies because it just helps them not to think.

Bearing these permutations and combinations in mind, filmmakers roll the dice every Friday. Each member of the audience, like a trained dog, sniffs out the content from the promo and heads for the theatre regardless. Everybody with a film ticket and a Twitter/Facebook account blasts the hell out of Sajid Khan’s Humshakals. It collects Rs 40 crore on its first weekend. Am I surprised? No. Do you look for memorable characters and stories in your movies? Ha ha, good for you.

3 IdiotscinemaJanasheenYaarian