Script is king--- Aamir's Ghajini

Are we slipping back to the times when big budget, formula-ridden, star-studded extravaganzas defined audience sensibilities, asks Derek Bose


The record-breaking run of Aamir Khan’s Ghajini has thrown up some disturbing questions for Bollywood. No, it is not as though the film was expected to fail. Nor is it that anybody had underestimated Aamir’s crowd-pulling power as the film’s hero. What has come as a surprise is that a remake of a silly South Indian revenge drama has emerged as the biggest Hindi hit of this century.

The film is no patch on Christopher Nolan’s Momento, the Hollywood head-spinner about a guy suffering from short-term memory lapses who needs to tattoo his body with notes in order to hunt down his wife’s killer. Aamir acknowledges that Ghajini is an inspired copy of the film. The director, A R Murugadoss is an unknown entity in Hindi cinema. The heroine too is new. The villain is a joke. The songs are forgettable. All that remains with you after watching Ghajini is a fast and furious Aamir flaunting a funny haircut and a few letters and numbers tattooed on his sculpted body. Yet, the film has managed to take Bollywood by storm.

Does this mean that theme, structure, treatment and all other elements that make for a good viewing experience have become irrelevant? Above all, does the script now matter? What about all those so-called issue-based or concept-driven films when ultimately it is nothing but star power that determines box-office success? Are we slipping back to the times when big budget, formula-ridden, star-studded extravaganzas defined audience sensibilities? Does a small or medium budget film that is closer to reality and articulates the concerns of the common man stand a chance in this changing scenario?

These questions assume relevance as we are faced with another monstrous blockbuster, Chandni Chowk to China, starring Akshay Kumar. From all indications, it should go the Ghajini way, despite all its incredulities, flights of fancy and creative license the director indulges in. This appears to be the recipe for success Bollywood has discovered of late, particularly after Akshay’s last starrer, Singh is Kiing hit the screen last year. Other recent money-spinners include Aditya Chopra’s Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (with Shah Rukh Khan), Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Jodhaa Akbar (Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai), Abbas-Mastan’s Race (Saif Ali Khan-Anil Kapoor-Katrina Kaif) and Tarun Mansukhani’s Dostana (John Abraham-Abhishek Bachchan-Priyanka Chopra).

There have also been some commendable but non-starry films like Nishikant Kamath’s Mumbai Meri Jaan, Raj Kumar Gupta’s Aamir and Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday, all produced on small budgets and raking in good money. However, the earnings of all these films put together can come nowhere close to what a single Shah Rukh Khan-starrer generates from various platforms. The table profits alone of Chandni Chowk to China can finance at least half-a-dozen films of the scale of Mumbai Meri Jaan.

This is where the significance of the script needs to be examined. Take Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, for example. Aditya Chopra is said to have written the story and screenplay of the film in 18 days flat. And what do we see? A married woman, sharing the same roof with her husband, fails to recognize him when they meet outdoors because he is without his moustache! This is a fundamental scripting flaw in the film. All else may be excused — the many convenient coincidences, the forced song-and-dance sequences, Shah Rukh’s improbable triumph over a Sumo wrestler, and so on. But how do you get around the idea of a woman not recognizing her husband during daytime — especially when he has Shah Rukh Khan’s nose and dimples? Yet, the audience has no problem in lapping up the absurdity.

This leap of faith can lead to even more bizarre results, as in Singh is Kiing, the film credited with breaking the record of the biggest box-office opening held by Om Shanti Om in 2007. Right from the start when Akshay Kumar and Om Puri lose their passports and land in Egypt instead of Australia to their ending up in Sydney (how?) and their involvement with a group of crackpot Sikh thugs, the same law student (Katrina Kaif) they meet in Cairo showing up in Sydney and the abrupt ending with a farcical marriage ceremony, the film is packed with uproarious howlers, defying common sense and logic. Bazmi, on his part as scriptwriter and director, is just not bothered, because he knows that any reasoning is completely unnecessary. He could as well have got Akshay Kumar to stand on his head and make him do nothing else for two-and-half hours and the public would still have bought tickets for the film.

Here lies the biggest danger for Bollywood. When a filmmaker relies on star power to take his film through the box-office, he is bound to take liberties with his work. He will stretch logic beyond all credible limits, make compromises, devise short-cuts and create crazy situations in his script (if at all, there is one), all because he takes his audience for granted. This is precisely what we have been seeing in every other star-driven film, be it Dostana or Race, Ghajini or Chandni Chowk to China. Rarely does a filmmaker’s trust on his lead star backfire the way Vijay Krishna’s hugely ambitious Tashan and Goldie Behl’s spectacularly mounted Drona did. By and large, stars do not disappoint.

The chances of a non-star, low-cost but believable film standing up to these multi-crore, escapist extravaganzas are virtually zero. This explains why no producer of consequence is risking a release till such time the biggies of Shah Rukh, Aamir and Akshay Kumar are around. Between a star-driven film and a script-driven film, people still prefer the former, no matter what the pundits might have to say about ‘small is beautiful’. The dynamics of the film trade just do not permit the two to co-exist within the same exhibition space. If small, meaningful films like Bheja Fry, Cheeni Kum and Aamir have thrived in recent times, the reason is that all leading stars have cut down drastically on work. There are not as many mega releases these days as in the 80s or 90s.

The biggest blessing though, is that the audience today is able to distinguish between good story-telling and bad. Exposure to strong script-driven films has made the viewer mature enough to intuitively set standards for every new release. If it does not have prominent stars, the bar is automatically raised for the script and should the film then fall below expectations, it is promptly rejected.

This explains why several small-budget films like Maharathi, Meerabai Not Out and Dil Kabaddi keep sinking unceremoniously, while some like Aamir, Jannat and Fashion become runaway hits. Their strength lies in their narrative quality.

In the case of star-driven films, a different set of yardsticks is applied and the audience would willingly suspend judgment and partake in the nonsensical fare as ‘time-pass’. A big budget film would have to be inexcusably atrocious (Tashan, Kidnap, Drona...) to earn a thumbs-down from the audience. There are of course, other factors such as media hype, timing of release and connected controversies that determine the success or failure of a film. But at the core of it all, content does matter — the script and the star cast being equally important.

For some strange reason, our filmmakers have been treating one at the expense of the other. And that, unfortunately, accounts for Bollywood failing to produce cinema that can be rated as truly world class.


Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/Content/Jan112009/enter20090110111752.asp



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