In the movie world, there is no pre-defined success formula;
familiarity succeeds sometimes while novelty succeeds some other times, heroism
succeeds many times but fails quite a few times too. Technical wizardry dazzles
the box office occasionally but falls flat most other times if not supplemented
by other cinematic elements. In India, apart from all these success factors,
emotions, especially family emotions, play a major role in shaping a
movie’s success. The film director, as a
manager of resources, from actors to departments and from finance to time, needs
to have a success recipe probably customized to each genre that rules the heart
as much as the mind. The challenge is particularly daunting given the
heterogeneity of cultures, languages and nativities in India. Two recent Indian
movie blockbusters, Baahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijan, have demonstrated that the
Indian movie audience, despite its huge diversity, appreciates movies of
completely different polarities.
Baahubali, the recently released Telugu blockbuster set in a
background of mythical fiction, has some interesting lessons in this respect.
Primarily, the movie which is a gripping story of warring royal brothers
reinforces an easy to postulate but difficult to execute premise that
across-the-board excellence from characters to departments, high on technology
and visuals as well as valorous emotions assures success. On the other hand,
Bajrangi Bhaijan which is a tender, heart-warming story of an innocent Bajrangi
Bhakt risking his life to return a mute girl child to her unknown home in
Pakistan has proved to be an equally sensational hit. This movie reinforces the
commonly subscribed postulate that an emotionally gripping movie that has
excellent characterization is an eternal winning formula for Indians despite
the changes in family values.
My earlier blog post on Baahubali in Strategy Musings, July
19, 2015 addresses its success formula (http://cbrao2008.blogspot.in/2015/07/the-epic-sweep-of-rajamoulis-baahubali.html)
while this blog post looks at the success drivers of Bajrangi Bhaijan. But as a
management blog, this post first takes some liberties of analysis.
Dissimilarly similar
At first glance, Baahubali and Bajrangi seem as different as
chalk and cheese. On the contrary, they are also dissimilarly similar,
appealing to both mind and heart. The subtle but important difference is that
Baahubali appeals to the mind first and touches the heart next while Bajrangi
touches the heart first and appeals to the mind next. Both the movies are based
on ‘lost and found’ theme; Baahubali develops it in a virtual mythical context
while Bajrangi works on it in a real life geo-political context. Both the
movies are based on heroism, with Baahubali focusing on raw physical heroism
while Bajrangi focuses on sensitive emotional heroism. Baahubali makes
extraordinary hero of a normal movie hero while Bajrangi portrays an extremely
macho movie hero with extraordinary heroism of a charming simpleton. Both the
movies seek to elevate commonly desired values to genuine humanistic purity;
Bahubali messages that good prevails over evil while Bajrangi messages that
love dissolves hatred.
Baahubali makes the unfamiliar (Mahishmati kingdom) familiar
in one’s imagination while Bajrangi makes the familiar (Indo-Pak border
separation) disappear in one’s desire. In both cases, the directors prefer
brevity to detail (fast paced tight screen plays) and rely on expansiveness to enhance
visualization (vast climaxes). Both are products of meticulous preplanning and
consummate choice of locations that are appropriate for the respective
storylines. Baahubali bridges royalty and commons while Bajrangi bridges Hindu
and Muslim religions. Baahubali makes us wonder if the hero or his mother is
the real hero while Bajrangi makes us wonder if Bajrangi or the lost child is
the real hero. Both movies impress because of a few important characters with
powerful characterization and apt casting. And, finally the stories of both the
movies, belonging to completely distinct genres, have been penned by the same
creative writer K V Vijayendra Prasad!
Such stretched comparisons apart, the truth is that Bajrangi
excels in doing something that only Indian movies can do – touch the heart and
impress the mind, simply, sensitively and superbly!
Director’s blockbuster
Bajrangi, as a blockbuster, is an out and out director’s
movie. A director’s movie is one in which one feels the roles and never sees
the actors, roles come to life from the first frame itself, and viewers
themselves start living the roles. The emotions that one sees on the screen,
from tears to raptures, are involuntarily experienced by the viewers.
Typically, the viewers race with the movie to anticipate the outcomes that they
desire. A consummate director brings out hitherto unseen talent from his
actors. He makes the viewers feel that they have been in the locations shown in
the movie at some point of time in their lives even if they have never been. To
be able to do all of this, the director first makes all of his actors and
technicians experience the impact of the movie as they come on board. Kabir Khan as the director of Bajrangi has
been able to provide this unique experience to his actors and technicians and,
as a result, to the viewers in full measure leading to its blockbuster status. That
he has been able to treat boldly issues of Indo-Pak relations and religious
tolerance with a deft combination of humour and humanism speaks highly of his
capabilities.
Although Bajrangi is racing to cross the earnings of all
other previous blockbusters of Hindi screen (more revenues in lesser number of
days than PK or Dhoom 3), a true blockbuster is characterized by different
benchmarks. It draws viewers of all ages and of all backgrounds as well as
different ideologies to theatres; it has viewers trooping in before the title
card is played, has the viewers glued to their seats except for intermission
and has them leaving the theatre only after the scroll of the last title cards
ends. And more importantly, the viewers resolve that they must spread the
message of the movie to their near and dear and long to return to the movie
sooner than later. For a country such as India with diverse languages and
multiple cultural subsets a blockbuster movie is also one that appeals
universally without either retake or dubbing options. And finally, a
blockbuster movie stands on its own despite other blockbusters released.
Bajrangi fulfils all these criteria effortlessly (as does Baahubali too).
Defining moments
Bajrangi ranks extremely high on emotional quotient.
Normally, blockbusters have impressive scenes but true blockbusters have defining
moments. In Bajrangi, as the trains couple and decouple and chug off even as
the child from Pakistan gets stranded trying to save a lamb on the ground is
the first such defining moment. As the child helplessly tries to follow the
moving train, the viewers get instantly connected with the child with their
hearts shaken – and their journey for rehabilitation and re-joining of the
child begins as much as it does for the child in the movie. Every time the child
tries to connect with Bajrangi, the viewers merge with the screen trying to
connect instead. When Bajrangi tries to disconnect (albeit reluctantly) from
the child, the viewers revolt. Another defining moment occurs when Bajrangi
leaves her with the travel agent (with the child helplessly waving from behind
the glass door); and the viewers become truly relieved when Bajrangi reclaims
the child from the travel agent’s evil designs (smashing the evil doers in the
sole macho scene of the movie)! All this is made poignant by the fact of the
child not being able to speak.
Continuing the emotional journey, viewers get excited when
Bajrangi decides to go to Pakistan to return the child to her mother and
father, completely and innocently unmindful of the adversities of crossing the
Indo-Pak border without any documents and without any knowledge of her home’s
location. One of the final defining moments comes when the child is able to
spot her mother in the journalist’s video of Dargah. The defining moments of
the movie are critically important as they touch the heart, tug the emotions
and make us live the emotional journey of Bajrangi and the child. It is not
that the movie does not have its lighter moments, all of them anchored around
the childlike innocence of Bajrangi or the well-meaning efforts of the journalist.
Even the lighter moments invariably warm our hearts. The sum-total of the
defining moments makes Bajrangi Bhaijan a truly defining movie, with natural emotionalism
expressed in the most delicate and sensitive manner.
Cast to perfection
Bajrangi Bhaijan scores very high in terms of how roles have
been defined and characterization effected. Each role in the movie is
delicately etched and thoughtfully enacted. Three principal characters carry
the entire film, in a manner of speaking.
The initial crowd puller, of course, is Salman Khan who played the role
of a devout Hindu Bramhin and a Hanuman Bhakt, called in the film as Pawan
Kumar Chaturvedi or Bajrangi. The real heart stealer, however, is Harshaali
Malhotra who expressively and touchingly played the role of Shahida or Munni, a
mute hapless Muslim girl from Pakistan lost in unknown land. The third is
Nawazuddin Siddiqui who played the role of Chand Nawaz, an intrepid TV channel
journalist who understands genuine human emotions with empathy. The great thing
about the characterization is that the director brought them out as good,
lovable human beings even if they are also prone to some ordinary human
proclivities. For example, Bajrangi is an exceptionally innocent do-gooder but
his first reaction to the child tagging along with him is to detach himself;
similarly when he comes to know that Munni is, in fact, a devout Muslim child,
he entrusts her to a deceitful travel agent to take her to Pakistan (to protect
his guardian family’s emotional stability) not knowing the consequences
thereof.
Shahida, the girl child, despite being taken care of very
well in Dayanand’s family prays with devotion when she gets into a Masjid or
erupts with joy when she has the opportunity to eat non-vegetarian food. Chand
Nawaz, who plays a major role in guiding and protecting Bajrangi in the hostile
Pakistani territory and the cops on chase, initially follows Bajrangi and
Shahida just to get a scoop on Hindustani jasoos (spies). All other roles have
been portrayed with a similar touch of realism. Probably, the true idealist in
the movie is Rasika, daughter of Dayanand (played by Sharat Saxena) and who
loves Pawan for his simple innocence; she acts as the moral compass for the
family, and more importantly to Bajrangi, beleaguered in a swathe of emotions
from time to time. It is the touch of
absolute human normality in otherwise sterling hearts that makes all the
characters come real without even a touch of superficiality. The script writer
and the director have together brought to life a set of characters who resonate
with the inner subtleties and innate warmth of typical humans whether they are
jeans clad ultra-modern youngsters or traditional-to-the-core family elders of
this highly materialistic era.
Emotive power and visual
splendour
Indian cinema, as Indian movie goers are aware, has had a
glorious record of heart-warming family dramas, each with real-life portrayal
of sensitive human emotions by India’s famed thespians. Bajrangi Bhaijan,
without doubt, represents another evocative evolution of the emotive dimension
of the Indian cinema. The movie also demonstrates that movie makers and movie
actors can cast themselves in roles contrarian to their past, and in less than
three hours deliver soothing messages of human oneness and togetherness which
decades of harangue fail to deliver. In addition, Baahubali and Bajrangi herald
a new wave of globalization of Indian cinema. The movie, like Baahubali, is
another striking example of what an insightful director with a clear vision can
achieve in making blockbusters that could appeal universally. The Baahubali and
Bajrangi Bhaaijan phenomena also demonstrate that movies that touch the heart
and appeal to the mind, with added visual splendour and musical vibrancy, have
all the potential to take the Indian cinema across global frontiers.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on August 9, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment