There’s Hindi cinema with content, and then there’s ‘candy floss’ entertainment bereft of sanity & imagination. ‘Content’ is what connects you emotionally with the characters and keeps you glued to the screen, it subsumes your inner desires & notions by presenting a totally different perspective. Although, content is considered hard to be digested by the audience & hence is assumed to only reach a certain class of moviegoers. In Bollywood where brilliant scripts have turned out to be virtual duds because the film lacked technique or the filmmakers handled the idea shoddily it failed to make an impression. While on the other hand, stories that have been picturised a million times previously generated more interest at the box office because the content got a different context to thrive. Take the case of Marathi film Sairaat which set the box office rolling as a prime example of content that struck a chord with the audiences with its nuanced acting and music, despite being a story about teenage love and patrimonial furore being rehashed several times in countless movies. Content requires a conscientious effort in juggling the myriad dots in designing a vision that enthrals the audiences through its characters & script while the actors fade in the veneer of the narrative.
For ages, Bollywood had categorized movies with content as ‘art cinema’. For example, in the 80s, actors of the likes of Farooque Sheikh, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, and Smita Patil, delivered methodical performances in movies such as Bazaar, Paar, Arth, and Chakra, bringing cerebral content and realism to mainstream masses, winning accolades, but still being perceived as ‘parallel cinema’ actors and not getting their dues at the box office. In contrast, commercial cinema focussed on masala content and relied heavily on the stars to churn ‘candy floss’, run-of-the-mill plots to set the cash registers ringing, also winning awards. Thus, box office performances regardless of the content value of the movie became the norm for success, provoking producers to pour capital into promotions with the sole aim of pulling herds of spectators into theatres, and this trend has continued even today with weekend runs at multiplexes. Now, with the recent face-off between Thugs of Hindostan (TOH) and Badhaai Ho that demarcation of the two worlds of cinema fraternities is surely getting blurred and content seems to be taking the front seat yet again albeit in a commercial avatar.
With an experienced star cast, TOH wasn’t expected to do so badly at the box office, although considering the box office records set by Aamir Khan he’s not only delivered a flop after ages but TOH is heading towards becoming the biggest disaster of 2018. But let that debacle not take the limelight away from a small budget Badhaai Ho, a simple story of believable characters and a drama that’s bereft of ‘candy floss’ and big stars, that is raking in the moolah without the usual Bollywood fanfare. That’s the magic of content cinema which Bollywood must embrace as a template of victory wholeheartedly. In short, content has made a much-needed comeback, and rest assured this time, the actors won’t be consigned to the oblivion and the cinema won’t be called anything but ‘good cinema’.
