One-Time-Watch

There is this oft repeated cliche that movies should be a reflection of real life. And ironically, oft repeated cliches are often nothing more than just that.

Having watched so many movies since childhood, Hollywood and Bollywood alike, I learnt the golden rule, and at quite an early stage - Never compare the two. They both cater to different needs of the audience and in that way we Indians are lucky to have a choice. While there is the typical Hollywood flick, light years ahead in terms of cinematography, screenplay, story and other such technical details, there is the typical Bollywood film that is capable of evoking a myriad of vicarious thrills, all in a 3-hr sitting. It is capable of transporting you to a different world from your oh-so-monotonous life and this can sometimes be at the expense of logic and common sense. But nobody seems to mind. The Indian audience has over the years learnt to overlook obvious logical flaws. No wonder that the Indian director so casually uses his right to 'cinematic liberty'. The question however is, whether the constant and increasing use of this liberty has led to the degradation of the quality of our films.

I often find myself saying that I liked a movie, not because I found it exceptional, but because the movie had stood up to my expectation and sometimes even surpassed it. The scary part is that my expectation was not substantial at the first place. Having seen my expectation take a battering so often in the past, I have been lowering it gradually over the years and unconsciously. I am sure that I am speaking the minds of others too when I say this.

The last when I made extraordinary concessions to like a movie was when I watched Aditya Chopra's 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'. Some concessions that I made -

1) Taani is incapable of comprehending 'Raj' and 'Surinder' to be one and the same. May be because she is a dumb Punjabi kudi.
2) Soori is spontaneously funny and well dressed when he is playing Raj. So he is not boring by default but it is a choice that he makes.
3) “Hum hain raahi pyaar ke, phir milenge, chalte chalte” is obviously funny! And the song doesn't bear any resemblance with "Dhoom Taana",Om Shanti Om.
4) "Mein duniya ki sabse achhi patni ban ke dikhaoongi" and "Mein tum ko kabhi pyar nahi kar paoongi" obviously aren't contradictory statements. Which wife has ever loved her husband?
5) Taani is so effectively portrayed as an innocent Punjabi girl -
One day she is ready to elope with Raj, so effectively living up to her promise of being the best wife in the world. The other day she is touching Soori's feet. She is amazingly steady with her decisions. She can do stunts with the bike that even John cannot do.

This list of concessions was a little longer than the one that I had to make for the last movie that I hated myself for liking - Dostana. And sadly the list has been growing.

Our growing tendency of making concessions for Bollywood flicks explains the phenomenal success of mindless movies like 'Heyy Babyy', 'Singh is King', 'Jannat' et al this year. When we so casually use the 'one-time-watch' phrase, do we really mean it or is it our guilt of having spent a portion of our hard earned money and time on that movie.