Chennai is in a festive mood. It all began in style last week with the immersion of lord Ganesha in the Bay of Bengal which marks the commencement of the festival season in Chennai. What stand out this time is the four-day carnival being organised as part of the centenary celebrations of Indian cinema.
Saturday evening saw Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, who herself was the lead heroine of Tamil movies for almost two decades, inaugurating the jamboree in the presence of the whose who of Tamil film industry.
The next three days will see Chennai honouring titans of, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada movies. Not without reason. Chennai and Tamil Nadu were the headquarters of south Indian film industry till the 80s. More than two dozen studios, big and small alike, played host to artistes from the three south Indian States to churn out potboilers which ended up as blockbusters and mega hits. Jayalalithaa honoured the likes of Sowcar Janaki, Saroja Devi, Vaijayanthimala, the yesteryear heartthrobs on Saturday.
Super stars and artistes from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala will descend in Chennai for the next three days. Tuesday will see the President of India flying down to Chennai to greet the film fraternity in the grand finale of the centenary celebrations. He is being joined by Amitab Bachchan, Sharukh Khan and others to add flavour to the show. The only notable face which is conspicuous by his absence will be M Karunanidhi, the DMK chief, a film script writer who has penned story and dialogues for a number of Tamil movies.
There is nothing surprising in the absence of Karunanidhi as it is customary in Tamil Nadu not to acknowledge individuals who are nona grata to the reigning political leadership. “Jayalalithaa had been side-lined during 2006 to 2011 by the same film fraternity and hence there is nothing official about it,” said Sundar Das, south Indian film critic.
Randor Guy, south Indian film chronicler, said there was nothing to celebrate about the centenary of the Indian movies. “We are where we started in 1913. Indian movies in general and south Indian movies in particular have not moved an inch forward. It is all the same. Personalities have been changed to accommodate youth. That’s the only notable change,” said Guy who did not attend the fun though he had been invited.
Guy is sad that south Indian language films continue to be the extension of the old theatre. “There is no semblance of reality to the real life. There should be logic, reasoning and art in the product. Do you think hard hitting dialogues, songs shot with hundreds of co-stars in exotic locations, the hero single-handedly bashing up the goons and walking away with the heroine makes a good movieIJ I am aghast.. Most of the directors have not seen classical movies and they have not read good books too,” said Guy.
He recounted his experience of being part of the movie Nenjil Oru Aalayam (A temple inside the heart). “The movie was sent as an entry for the Oscar Award. The man in charge of the category for which the movie was sent laughed at us and asked weren’t there any divorce laws in India. He told us that the story could have been cut short had the protagonists approached the court of law instead of singing songs and mouthing tough dialogues,” said Guy.
If films represent only glamour and nothing else, well, there is no need to elaborate. If even third grade movies could throw up global leaders from the fraternity, imagine, what could have been the scenario had we produced movies matching the ones made in HollywoodIJ
The only consolation of the four-day event was some plain speaking by Chief Minister Jayalalithaa who reminded the film fraternity about the camaraderie existed in films during the fifties and sixties. “There was attempt by some evil forces to bring the film world to their subjugation. But that was foiled and Tamil films could breath easily now,” she said.