Revive Malayalam film industry

I am always wondering why Malayalam cinema is not matured till now. The time is reached to say bye to stardom from Malayalam film industry. It is like “thondayile mullu”. The time is reached to say to the veteran actors like Mamooty, Mohanlal and suresh gopi - ENOUGH. Now we need better cinema, not the old moral value system that these actors are still representing. We need new stories on human relationships and man-woman relationships. We need political expressions in cinema not “SHIT DIALOGUES”. We need better visual story telling methods not MTV cuts and Shaji Kailas cuts. We need new experiments with MUSIC and SOUND. We need new stories exploring our cultural tradition and history. We need to explore the folklores and political movements of our history. We need to question our male shovanistic society. Middle class and upper middle class have high jacked our films years ago. PLEASE take back our cinema from their hand.  

I am not just saying we need young directors and actors. But we need new narration methods. If the new comers just imitate their older generation, what is the use..?

Hindu groom and Muslim bride - Secularism of indian film industry

It is very interesting to observe the notion of secularism in Hindi films. We have to appreciate the film industry to uphold the values of secularism during the initial decades of post independent period when the nation was divided and communal riots broke out. It is the time when the left movement had a great influence on the film industry through artists like Balraj Sahni, Mehboob Khan, Bimal Roy etc.,. Later years also this tradition of secular values sustained in hindi films along with some minor deviations. Why this happened…. is an interesting question to answer.

I believe this broader sense of humanity came from the constituent structure of the film industry. People from various parts of the country, from various religious as well as social backgrounds came to form our Hindi film industry. If you take a typical hindi film in 50s, most probably the director could be a Bengali, script writer could be from MP or UP, technical crew could be from South India, actors could be from regions like Punjab etc., Also the contribution from Goanian(from Goa) music orchestrators to the hindi film music world was enormous.

We can also see that minority community had played a major role in the development of the film industry. The main excluded section was the tribal community (It is very rare that hindi film industry has addressed tribal issues).

This unification of cultural diversity had provided a secular platform for hindi film industry.

But interestingly there are many paradoxes in the secular stand of the film industry. Some of them are- if there is any Hindu-Muslim marriage, the groom is always from Hindu religion and the bride is from Muslim religion….. The responsibility to uphold religious amity always falls on the Hindu character… Most of the time Christian character would be a “professional” drinker and morally westernized….. etc.,

Even these paradoxes existed, hindi film industry was more over secular up to late 70s. In 80s and 90s we can see the rise communal messages in hindi films inspired from the large political atmosphere of the country.

Wednesday vs Mumbai Meri Jaan - Two approach towards Terrorism

Wednesday
In my opinion it is very dangerous movie in our present political scenario. The basic idea conveyed by the director can said like this - Terrorist kills innocent people.....police can't do anything against them, even if they arrest terrorists (indirectly director is indicating towards a "strong" law required to tackle terrorists)....the terrorists are no doubt "Muslims"......since police and judiciory can't handle terrorists, it is time for "Aam Janta"[common man(not woman)] to take the law in their hand...... lets kill all the terrorists.......then they will learn a lesson....

I have some questions to ask.... how can we know that who are the terrorists...???? Do police only catch real culprits??.... Many times they also catch innocents and torture them(due to different reasons)... remember those arrested from Hyderabad....govt at last accepted that they were not terrorists but police picked them intentionally...those people were given compensation for the torture .....But according to the director of this film.... these innocent people should be killed...Terrorism is a complex issue, u can't simply it...... by looking at the news paper headings or watching TV news reports, you can't find out real terrorists....

Subject wise the film is not better than any of our Ranji Panikar/Suresh gopi movies or Shankar movies like "Anyan". The common man's revenge against the incapable system....!!

Simplifying issue may give popularity but it genuinely lacks depth. I agree that Wednesday is well made movie…the rhythm of editing…..suspense factor…it is a good entertainer. But we should think what is inside the beautiful envelope…. a dangerous ideology.

Mumbai Meri Jaan
The film has a very different approach towards the issue of terrorism. it carries very positive messege....

What terrorists (belongs to any religion or political group) would like to do by carrying out a terrorist attack....??? do they simply wants to kill some people and satisfy in it...Not at all....terrorist attacks are always a triggering point.....to polarise a society.... it will destabilise the society…creates an atmosphere where human rights have no value….it will promote arm race…. It will give more power to STATE, religious and political groups to squeeze individual freedom…

Do u even thought....why terrorism is a phenomenon of this period.....?? Now terrorism is identified as an effective tool to polarise the society… Terrorism creates an invincible enemy… a fear psychosis…. An atmosphere of mistrust is a good field for seeding extremist politics.

There are Muslim extremists group as well as Hindu extremist groups. Both of them need each other to survive.

So what should we (common citizen) do in this difficult period? Should we hate each other and participate in extremist politics..? or take law in our hand and kill those we believe as terrorists..? is it solve our problem..?Do we have to abandon our humanity..? do we have to stop love each other or stop living together..? This film tries to give answer to many such questions, without being overstated…..

It is foolish to think that there is no terrorism in our society… we should be cautious about it…. The best way is to study the political climate of our society and to isolate all kind of extremism among the society. Keep religion and every kind of fundamentalism away from our political life… it is the best way and only way to stop terrorism.Please do not forget to live and love ….. in the times of darkness… I think it is the message of this movie.

New Chinese Cinema - Conflict within

it is very interesting to observe new Chinese movies....the echoes of economical development in the urban china are heard in the new generation Chinese movies.....urban based...technological overstatements...visual effects... many of the new Chinese movies are over filled with dreams of a country to reach the top of the world....

But u can also see another trend in Chinese movies..... The film makers who are interested to make meaningful films turned their canvas towards rural china... They are mainly concerned with the rise of inequities in the new development paradigm. Along with the self critical evaluation of the society, we can also see the nostalgic exploration of the past, retelling the stories of heroes who were committed towards the society. But there is no soft corner towards the earlier mistakes like Cultural Revolution. Realistic elements of cinema were rediscovered... simple and direct story narrations... issue based but with lot of human elements.... individual suffering in the context of social changes......nature becomes a major character in the film.....

So we can see a direct conflict with these streams in modern Chinese film industry. Interestingly the STATE is promoting both kind of films....may be to keep up the "development mania" in the first case and not to lose all the human values in the era of development in the second case.

The second stream has produced a number of heart touching films of our time. Some of such films are

1) Getting Home (2007, Dir: Zhang Yang)
2) Still Life (2006, Jia Zhang Ke)
3) Courthouse on Horseback (2006, Dir: Lifu Wang)
4) The story of Xiano Yan (2004, Dir: Gangliang Fang)
5) The Road Home (2000, Dir: Zhang Yimou)
6) Not one less (1999, Dir: Zhang Yimou)
7) Going To School With Dad on My Back (1997, Dir: Youchao Zhou)