Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Saw Salaam Namaste again. Good stuff. I like the way that Siddharth leave so many scenes unresolved in the movie - thereby breaking a Bollywood movie-making myth of decades - you don't have to resolve a scene for the sake of resolution. You don't have to shove emotion in people's faces, for them to understand what's going. Its called an undercurrent! Things can be subtle, things can be left to perception - its ok, Mr. Ghai. A woman doesn't have to cry buckets, with her "lets-wake-the-dead" wailing, to portray sadness. A guy doesn't have to be visibly overcome by random facial contortions to represent anger and resentment. Anyhow, I digress. Small example of what I mean by "unresolved scenes" - a technique best scene (sic) in Tarantinos and Scorceses - the part where Arshad is all depressed about losing his dog because he's married now, and Saif goes "Tu rone waala hai kya? (are you gonna cry?)". And CUT! Just like that. As Paris Hilton would say in her flagrantly lavish vocabulary, "That's hot!". Gulzar used to do a lot of that - unresolved scenes, I mean, not turn generic verbal sputum into a designer brand just 'cuz daddy's got hyperpositive cash flow - I'm talking about flicks like Angoor or Ijaazat. That scene in SM wouldve probably gone by unnoticed by most because the audience was eager to catch the next piece of eye candy, but it really made me stop 'n' think about the changing tides, that the new breed of directors are bringing in. Although the influence of Hollywood is a major factor, I think it isn't necessary that all our new and upcoming movies, which are deemed revolutionary, are rehashes of Hollyflix (Black from Miracle Man, Chocolate from Usual Suspects). With technological advances and elements of significant advancements rearing their heads (peeking, actually, because we are still subjected to a dominant dose of stereotype), I think its time Bollywood starts developing some more high quality original scripts. We don't need to piggyback on the tried and tested.

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