Column

I saw A Wednesday on Friday night itself primarily because Naseeruddin Shah had been liberal in its praise when I had interviewed him recently. Since he stars in the flick himself, Naseer should be expected to promote it, as is customary nowadays in the Hindi film industry. But then again, he is also a maverick, known to call even his own spade a shovel, so was this something really special or was Naseer going over the top?

For a review of the film, I’m afraid, readers may have to look elsewhere. Moreover, there is an O’Henry-like twist in the tale’s finale which would be unfair to reveal so casually. Suffice to say that I walked out of the hall privately debating the film’s basic premise, even while acknowledging the virtuoso performances of Naseer and Anupam Kher.

My favourite current philosopher AJ Grayling writes that actors “… must know what an audience understands by another’s ways of saying and seeming, moving and doing. The least of their craft thus demands skills of interpretation and representation. By connecting them, an actor mirrors the world, and makes audiences believe they see truth in the reflection.” Nasser is brilliant, and Anupam, well let’s just say, forces him to share the honours.

In a broader context, I believe that with these two and Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Paresh Rawal — to name a few others who don’t fall into the star system — Hindi cinema is blessed with extraordinary talent in the 50-plus age group. If only we were not so youth-obsessed.

That onus out of the way, I can discuss freely the significant issue emerging from within and outside this film. Terrorism and its myriad ramifications on everyday life and the national psyche is something that we have dealt with cagily or with mock seriousness — in reel as much as in real life. There has been some kind of self-imposed censorship (or turning a blind eye, if you prefer) to issues that have otherwise raged across drawing rooms, communities, societies and cities across the country.

In Hollywood, for instance, indigenous race conflicts and America’s wars with Korea and Vietnam — to name a few random issues — have been tackled frequently, often brilliantly, and with enough box-office success to suggest that good films will find an audience. (In The Heat of the Night, MASH and The Deer Hunter are three classics that come readily to mind.)

Hindi cinema, on the other hand, has been inexplicably defensive, despite the richness of subjects that have been available: Partition, umpteen riots, bomb blasts, class and caste exploitation and so on. Where such issues have been addressed, it has been with peripheral concern and knowledge, or with syrupy and nauseating silliness. Films like Garam Hawa, Nishant, Albert Pinto Ko… and the like have been exceptions.

By and large, there has been an inability to confront a raging issue head-on and give it cinematic idiom, largely on the excuse of a ‘social’ conscience and preserving amity.
The usual pretext is that the poor filmgoer pays good money to watch only ‘entertainment’ which will take his/her mind away from the worries of everyday life. That is correct to a large degree but beyond it, supercilious nonsense. To extend this argument to its extremity in some ways makes the public seem moronic, but in more ways reflects the fear and insecurity of film-makers in taking a ‘creative chance’ at the box-office.

Interestingly, however, there seems to be a ground-breaking trend emerging. A spate of films over the past few years have suddenly focused terrorism, bomb blasts, riots and the Hindu-Muslim divide, beginning with the grim and gripping Black Friday to A Wednesday and including Black and White, Aamir and a few others: Not all of them brilliant, but at least venturing out from the morass of mediocre and defensive thought.

Does this suggest a rising level of maturity among film-makers, and more pertinently among the filmgoers? And in life, as in art? The jury is out on that, but at least it seems we are now not sweeping everything under the carpet and pretending nothing ever happened.

Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net