Anurag Kashyap is returning to the big screen after a gap of 4 years with the sci-fi mystery film. dobaaraa, starring Taapsee Pannu. The director has grown in stature over the years not only as an auteur but also thanks to his candor and a rare quality of being unabashed and open in his speech.
In his recent interview with film critic Baradwaj Rangan for Galatta Plus, Kashyap spoke about the evolving face of cinema worldwide and the current state of Hindi cinema in particular.
As someone who has been privy to the workings of all the different film industries in India, Anurag Kashyap’s take on the matter considers the cultural factors that govern the quality of cinema and why good films should always reflect the reality of the outside world. .
“Down south, you see filmmakers coming from all walks of life, all cultures. I was part of the jury when Maanagaram came out (in 2017) and you wouldn’t have imagined that the same Lokesh Kanagaraj would grow up to be become what it is. Today. And the industry (referring to the Tamil film industry) is such that people from all walks of life will continue to come, but that is not the case with Hindi cinema.”
“Here, the cinema is essentially controlled by second-generation filmmakers who have mostly grown up in courtrooms, those who haven’t lived the life. So they refer to it based on cinema (and not real life) and whatever they it wouldn’t be seen on screen, it wouldn’t qualify as cinema for them,” said the Dobaaraa director, saying that “outsiders” should always be encouraged to talk about their worlds and realities.
And speaking of the ongoing debacle in Hindi cinema, especially with big production houses like YRF (Yash Raj Films) which has brought back-to-back box office failures such as Samrat Prithviraj, Jayeshbhai Jordaarand the Ranbir Kapoor starrer oftenKashyap added that the same ‘rehearsal room effect’ is evident in their approach.
“You get a story and you want to make one Pirates of the Caribbean out of it so it becomes one Bandits of Hindostan. You get a different story and you want it to be like that Mad Max: Fury Road, and it becomes Shamshera. Basically, you’re not making the original root of the idea into a movie, because you can never imagine that as a cinematographer, your first reaction to any story is “That’s great, let’s do it like Mad Max: Fury Roadnot to spare any cost”.
The same Shamshera would have worked about 2-3 years ago, but a lot has changed in the meantime – now people are exposed. When they look at one Squid game, they understand Korean culture because cinema is always a ‘gentle’ cultural ambassador of any country. What soft culture are we spreading through hindu movies? Our films do not represent us at all…”.
Anurag Kashyap’s Dobaaraa is the official remake of the 2018 Spanish film Mirage. The film stars Taapsee Pannu, Rahul Bhatt, Pavail Gulati, Saswata Chatterjee and others.
