My 5 minute cinematic experience in the theater
As I sit here writing to you, it has been a couple of minutes since I reached home to vent my fury out on this blog. My boiling rage is targeted at the general public, what now I truly believe as the not so smart film-goer.
For those people it seems cinema is a way to have some dumb fun with the family or friends.
Yes, yes I know films are supposed to be for the entertainment of the crowd. But cinema itself was created as an art form, it is meant to be for a Director and his team as a painting is for a painter, especially for those with true creative vision.
Just cause a few movies don't include crass jokes, spoon feeding amounts of exposition or high profile 'actors' (in quotes for obvious reasons...they can't fucking act!).
Ok so back to the point; I went today to watch a relatively low key Bollywood film by the name of Prague. Don't bother searching for showtimes in your areas, your bound not to find them easily.
Prague a true indie film in Bollywood may not have got overtly great reviews, but it did get some good recognition this past week. Unfortunately box office numbers would say otherwise, and thats where my experience comes in.
I set out to watch the film close to a nearby theater, as I reached the ticket counter I was informed that the showtime had been cancelled and I was the first in three days to come watch this film. That angered me to ungodly proportions. I get that the movies showing is a business, and if a film doesn't run it needs to be removed.
But shouldn't it be fair, that any film be given a chance to survive through the weekend? After all it was a small film with only one showtime through the day. That means in a weekend there would be only three shows, and as far as I'm concerned in three shows one customer is better than none. In the end it seems from the timings I read, there was not other show set to replace Prague through the weekend. So clearly this theatre doesn't seem to want my money.
Maybe I'm looking at this from a selfish perspective, maybe this huge rant isn't justified but I still want to write (not that you have to read it).
All I know is that today I wasted 5 minutes and 80 rupees of my life just to catch a glimpse of what could have been a great intellectual cinematic experience.
What I feel sad for is the makers who decided to go ahead and distribute something as different as Prague knowing that they might not make their money back, what I feel sad for is the people who worked in making this film because they potentially lost at least four-five customers more that could appreciate their hard work.
Instead all those mindless fucking Indians can go watch the misogynist piece of crap that is Grand Masti (currently earning money that it isn't even worthy of).
Truly in some smaller way I have just seen a part of a smaller but greater class of Indian cinema die. I might be a bit bias, Prague might not be that great; but as I said it still deserved a chance to be seen.
Aneesh Raikundalia
No comments:
Post a Comment