Here is why honest film review in India is not dead: there comes in a decade a film or two that actually deserve three stars or more.
Here is why honest film review in India is not dead: there comes in a decade a film or two that actually deserve three stars or more.
Five or six films may be, if it is an exceptional decade like this one -- Dil Chahta Hai, Company, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Swades, Rang De Basanti, Dev D...
But while you can trash reviewers, it is hard to even imagine yourself in their place. The business team in your paper will cite you as the one who stands between the organisation and astounding profits. Stars, producers and their PR machinery will go to any extent to ensure you pick up and praise the onscreen poop they usually produce.
An actor actually got a film journalist dismissed from the job using his godfather political fixer to arm-twist the paper's owners. Reason? A bad review!
These stars then claim moral high ground by ranting against the media, cheered on from the sides by loony cronies and hired PR goons.
The film industry has got so insecure and has entered such a high-stake game that it no longer trusts its own work. Nothing can be left to chance: overpower the audience with the chloroform of heady marketing and paid reviews, kill the mockingbirds by blackmailing newspaper managements.
It's strange that viewers still have their heads in place. They can see through the four or five stars. Most rubbish still bombs, good films by and large do well.
But in all this, the one writing the suicide note is the media. Newspapers endlessly crib about falling circulation.
Why would the reader come to you if you lie? A reviewer can go wrong in her criticism, but as long as she is honest, the reader understands. When you fake it, readers know. Most of us do not give our spouses a second chance when they betray our trust, why should a newspaper or channel expect to get away with cheating?
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The post of the film reviewer is, for all practical purposes, dead in the newsroom. With shrinking budgets and just a handful of specialised reviewers around, film reporters fill that slot now. Which can be dangerous.
Reporters on the film beat network with stars, filmmakers and their PR machinery to get stories and exclusives.
They feel important when a star personally calls them to their private dos.
When they review a film, most find it hard to not be driven by obligation or personal grudge against a star who has been good or obnoxious. Ideally, the reviewer should have a distance from the people who have made the film.
The trend of appointing film trade guys as so-called reviewers doesn't even merit discussion. Let's not call such a thing "review"; there's another sexually explicit word for it.
The new wave of honest reviews could come from gifted bloggers who have a strong technical and aesthetic understanding of cinema and are not part of the film reporting circuit. Provided, of course, newspapers are willing to give them space. They ought to, if they still want to be in the business of trust.
I disagree with Khalid Mohamed on many of his reviews, but bleakly hope that five years later, a youngster will have the gall to use the only two words he once used while reviewing a bad film: "No comments."
Abhijit Majumder is Executive Editor, MiD DAY
Follow him on twitter.com/abhijitmajumder
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