The rotten state of Indian cinema

Scores of articles have been written about the degradation in quality and variety of Indian movies. Hundreds of critics have condemned the characters and roles played by heroes in some of the recent movies. Still, nothing seems to be changing. The same old love story, girl either rich or good in studies, guy either poor or a rogue, opposition from family, initial apprehension on the part of the girl, the volte-face of the hero and the ‘becoming’ of a good guy, hero and heroine running and singing among trees and valleys ranging from Thar desert to Switzerland, and finally everything ending well. It’s so ridiculously boring! With hundreds of directors exploiting each and every possible love-angle, nothing seems to be new in any of the recent movies, except for a few new faces among heroines. Mind you, hero never loses form or charm - atleast not for 10 odd years.

All such love centric cinema-making in a society where love is considered taboo, and arranged marriage is the norm! Come to think of it, it’s all very weird, and all too farcical. Even in the western societies where marriages are made by the brides and grooms and not by their parents, cinema is not at all love centric. Ofcourse, there are romance movies, some of them stressing on the jolly-go, laissez faire attitude towards life, and some of them really casual. But on the most part, English movies, in general, have some feel-good element, or tangible learning points that our Indian movies are grossly lacking. I’m not going to argue whether our culture and societal orientation is good or bad. My only complaint is about the love-centric, lack-of-variety Indian movies, with us living in a love-bashing society. Ofcourse, there is an odd classic here and there – like ‘Roja’ by Mani Rathnam, or the ‘Kaakka kaakka’. But such classics come once in a blue moon. Isn’t all this really ironical?

For all these years, Tamil cinema world (Kollywood) was producing the maximum number of movies in the country (even exceeding Bollywood). The success rate of Tamil movies was also significantly higher. But of late, thanks to some cheap stake, third rated movies, Kollywood is shifting towards a totally filthy direction. Scolding parents, losing self-respect, speaking in a cheap language, all assortments of bad habits etc characterize the contemporary movies. I recently watched such a movie called 7G Rainbow Colony. The movie was a supposed hit, and the director was credited for attracting masses. But honestly, I was appalled watching the so-called psychotic hero and his attitude towards life for the most part. I can’t imagine the kind of impact these movies will have on the gullible adolescent youth, particularly in the middle and lower-middle class segment who seem to be the predominant audience for such movies. Sure, the director knows to make money – but at the terrible cost of deifying a psychotic in front of vulnerable youth. This movie isn’t an exception. A row of such movies with all sorts of psychotic flavors have been released, with most of them being successful. The scene is no different in Bollywood, where ‘showing flesh’ seems to be the driving factor.

Although I’ve almost stopped watching Indian movies because of all these reasons (the primary one being the sheer lack of variety and thought), I pray that such trends change and good, positive movies with a lot more variety and fun come by.