Sundays are horrible if you've gone the whole morning without an espresso, when Katrina Kaif starts to look like Bar Rafaeli. it is now theoretically impossible to open a webpage without Shahrukh's Khan's holographic image dragging you to a theater to watch the shambolic casket of racism that is Chennai Express. This is probably the umpteenth attempt at trying to make sense of the neuron killing machine that is a Rohit Shetty movie. So there have been articles, comic strips, lampoons, reviews scribblings on the back of a pigeon, graffiti written with saliva that have either praised and/or decried the phenomenon of marketing louder than a Punjabi wedding about Bollywood's official horror show.
This post claims to do something a bit different. Like not claim to be funny (no pretences, also), talk about how irrational the movie is (but its fun no, LOL, play badminton) or why that sequence of dance steps has been imprinted onto my occipital lobe even before the release. This is just a simple step back, to ground zero to see what it is we are going crazy about.
Clearly, Chennai Express doesn't announce itself as a film of the French independent era caliber. And everyone somehow excuses it for that. For the amount of money that even the spot boys on the set would make, you'd expect the movie to rebuild the Amazon rainforest. The idea here is simple, its not enough to take the public and squish them into a giant mass of zombies (unless they're on an island in Goa with a Russian Saif Ali Khan), calling it just 'fun'.
Why? you might ask. Yes, the two of you who're bothering to read this. Well, because its not like these movies are a new wave or provide a break from serious cinema. This IS serious cinema. Its come to the point that when silly lightbulb dances, a whole host of stereotypical nonsense and an objectified lead female are what is normalized as the 'expected' routine, there is very little impetus for anyone to make a movie that has two bits of sense in it. Its created a massive vacuum, which prevents any innovation or artistic credibility.
Moreover, its nefarious (haan, because humour nahin toh ek do angrezi ke bade words!) to acting and cinema in society. It trivializes the problems, like the bigotry that residents in North India face, if from any other part of the country. It legitimizes viewpoints of those who haven't been exposed to new ideas and are big Bollywood fanatics. This 'ah! its a no-brains movie so let it go' attitude needs to stop. There may be jokes in the next piece. Till then: Mind it.
This post claims to do something a bit different. Like not claim to be funny (no pretences, also), talk about how irrational the movie is (but its fun no, LOL, play badminton) or why that sequence of dance steps has been imprinted onto my occipital lobe even before the release. This is just a simple step back, to ground zero to see what it is we are going crazy about.
Clearly, Chennai Express doesn't announce itself as a film of the French independent era caliber. And everyone somehow excuses it for that. For the amount of money that even the spot boys on the set would make, you'd expect the movie to rebuild the Amazon rainforest. The idea here is simple, its not enough to take the public and squish them into a giant mass of zombies (unless they're on an island in Goa with a Russian Saif Ali Khan), calling it just 'fun'.
Why? you might ask. Yes, the two of you who're bothering to read this. Well, because its not like these movies are a new wave or provide a break from serious cinema. This IS serious cinema. Its come to the point that when silly lightbulb dances, a whole host of stereotypical nonsense and an objectified lead female are what is normalized as the 'expected' routine, there is very little impetus for anyone to make a movie that has two bits of sense in it. Its created a massive vacuum, which prevents any innovation or artistic credibility.
Moreover, its nefarious (haan, because humour nahin toh ek do angrezi ke bade words!) to acting and cinema in society. It trivializes the problems, like the bigotry that residents in North India face, if from any other part of the country. It legitimizes viewpoints of those who haven't been exposed to new ideas and are big Bollywood fanatics. This 'ah! its a no-brains movie so let it go' attitude needs to stop. There may be jokes in the next piece. Till then: Mind it.
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