The lights came up at the premiere of the highly anticipated "Saawariya." The crme de la crme of the film fraternity walked out in silence. The customary praise and calculated adulation was shared with the cast and crew of the film. Everyone got into their cars and left the venue. And then…the mobiles came out. The real reviews came crackling through Nokia Communicators and bejeweled Motorola's. Opinions from the color palette to the pace of the film were animatedly discussed. The fraternity was happy. The fraternity was celebrating. Celebrating the failure of a film. Celebrating the failure of a filmmaker.
I went back home that night and sat on my bed. Something was bothering me. I asked myself if a part of me was secretly happy that "Saawariya" might bite the dust. Was I happy that a competitor might have erred in judgment? And the truth is, I was happy, and that made me feel sick.
It took me back to the weekend of the release of "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham." My first film, "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" was a hit and was received wonderfully by the industry and audiences at large. With my second film I had set out to tell a story with the unity of family as the primary sentiment, but all anyone had to say in the lobbies of screening rooms, the columns of newspapers, and hallways of production offices was that it was overtly melodramatic. The critics said it was over the top, and the trades claimed it to be a disaster. That was the buzz, and it got louder and louder with each passing show time.
And that's fine. I'm perfectly okay with people not getting into my films. I'll admit, I had set out to make a moving, poignant film, a classic, if you must. I truly value the opinions of other filmmakers and am always ready to swallow a reality pill, but I couldn't understand the excitement in pulling me down. The irony is that K3G was the biggest box office success of that year, the highest grossing Hindi film overseas. I'm still not saying I made a masterpiece, but it left me questioning why the industry that raised me would be so eager to love to hate my work. Why were some of my peers so keen to bash a film that was, on all box office accounts at least, booming?
It doesn't really matter how hard you introspect for that answer, the reality is that it's just human nature. It's how we're wired, more so in a creative field, where it's just too easy to wrangle a good idea into the flop bin. It is our natural disposition to be jealous of someone for his or her success, or for his or her ability to tell a story better than the rest of us. Yet here I was, six years later, feeling pleasure from a colleague's imminent pain.
Why is it so easy, so natural for me, for the rest of the industry to feel a tinge of excitement when another filmmaker misses the mark with their film? What collective ego are we trying to feed and pamper here? Why is a section of the fraternity secretly (or not so secretly, you be the judge of that) thrilled that Yash Raj hasn't played the greatest hand this year? That company has provided us with some of the greatest films to ever grace our screens. Why are people celebrating? What's the matter with us? If the very thing that derives pleasure stems from a place of negativity, it's only a matter of time before it turns into poisonous resentment. It just doesn't seem very neighborly to me anymore.
We're all competitive, and that spirit is exhilarating and bold. But how much more evolved (and resolved) would we be if we collectively took the hit (pun unintended) for a poorly received film? Wouldn't it speak volumes of us as leading contributors of world cinema to act as a co-op, supporting the highs and the lows in tandem, with respect?
Idealistic, I know. It's too tempting to relish someone else's cinematic failures, but if we could turn that debilitating jealousy into the more socially acceptable cardinal sin, envy, I think we'd give solidarity a run for it's money.
Anupamaa
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