The debate of good cinema

How does one define it? Everyman has got his own his definition to it, and everyman deserves his/her opinion be respected. People tell me I watch movies that are not entertaining, or movies that are very slow and boring. Recently I recommended one of my friends “Dark City” and his response was it took him 5 days to watch it.

I wondered everyman would find a film like “Blue Valentine” or “Shame” or “Rampart” a boring picture, because they would want a film to be about heroes, bad guy going boom by the good ones, but how can someone find a film like “Dark City” boring? After all, that film dwelled in mystery and fantasy and good and evil and every spice that an entertaining film comprises of, it isn’t that slow, it wasn’t meant to be taken that seriously, it was even funny in its own way. The thought of it makes me wonder that, perhaps, most of us people have long accepted monotony, in terms of our life and if not there then at-least in terms of cinema. Where inside a cinema hall, even if we don’t know the reality, our superstars exploding the screens and thrashing the villains encompass the entertainment, if they are angry we are angry, of they are scared, we are if they cry, well, we do so as well.

This sometimes makes me feel proud of myself and sometimes it disappoints me. Because at times, I wonder had I been a die-hard fan of a hero/heroine/director, I might have accepted his mediocre work, but since I am not, I can reject it and easily have a neutral opinion. But this disappoints me too because I being one looking for most unique forms of entertainment, if I forward it to someone they simply refuse it, and at times degrade me on my taste of cinema, because at a point of time, I rejected his.

Perhaps this turmoil between us people who look for quality v/s those who look for style, or may be vice versa (because through their eyes, it could be the other way round), would continue. There would always be movies, universally accepted by all, accepted by a majority, accepted by a minority, or a cult who would be ready to fight for it no matter how huge is the population hating the art form, after all every film once produced does something to the audience. After all, cinema is like food, Indians here prefer spicy, tangy food, also the way people talk, live in a superfluous fashion, so is the taste in cinema, and it doesn’t matter how bad it might be for health, after all everyone needs pleasure and if most of them like it, what’s wrong in it being successful, the only thing wrong is us trying to explain how bad it is, after all people like it and they have full right to do so and when they reject a film like “Being Cyrus” or “My Wife’s Murder”, perhaps they didn’t find what they were looking for and they didn’t buy it, nothing wrong there is it?

Which makes me think, whether I should tell someone a film I liked, or should I watch a film someone else liked, well, nothing wrong in trying but the best way to have a peaceful thought of being a film lover is, by stopping this bad habit of showing off the kind of films I watch and love and ranting about how good they are, better watch them alone and marvel the craft and achievement of it, rest can have fun watching their superstars making a fool of themselves. Last statement was indeed slightly emotional, but what can I say when one of my room-mates, when he watched it on full HD quality, he said “‘Hugo’ is a good picture”, on which I told him that it is so unfortunate that such great a film also flopped, even there in the US, to which he replied “it was bound to flop, because it is very slow and it isn’t entertaining”. Last weekend, he watched “Rowdy Rathore” twice, I didn’t reply then when he said “Hugo isn’t entertaining” and don’t intend to, to each his own, period.

Salil Shankar

Film-maker || Technical Writer || Blogger

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