The fantasy of make believe

Every time I go to a movie it’s magic, no matter what the movie’s about,”says Steven Spielberg somewhere, making eloquent perhaps the sentiment of the vast majority of the human race.

Cynics of cinema have argued that this majority lacks the courage to confront real life, seeks escape in make believe. My counter is that a ‘closed’ philosophical inquiry into the appeal of movies is in itself fleeing reality, and hence spurious.

The magic of cinema cuts across race, nationality, age, gender and generations. At its most sublime, films reflect life as the best art must; at its most crass, all that life isn’t. But since all art forms are an expression of the human condition, both these extremes have their relevance.
 
Even the most strait-jacketed approach to life, it can be further argued, is a form of escapism, so why should the world of make believe be faulted?

What is pertinent is whether cinema provides relief from the tedium and humdrumness of everyday existence, adds some value to it.

On a recent visit to a film studio just outside Hyderabad, I found some answers.

There was a discernible rise in the decibel level as the open-sided bus, which provided an unhindered view of the surroundings, began its cruise of Ramoji Film City. The excitement was palpable as new honeymooning couples, older couples on a new honeymoon, parents and young kids, grown up kids and their old parents, groups of friends and sundry soloists — all of whom had sat in pin drop silence when we boarded — suddenly broke into cacophonous chatter as the vehicle crossed over from the real world into the surreal.

“That’s where Salman Khan shot for Tere Naam,” said the guide pointing to a dilapidated structure bearing the legend ‘Central Jail’. The guide, we were to discover soon, could not only rattle off names, facts and figures but also had a pithy take on human existence. “The front façade of the building is a jail, but the rear can be a church or a temple. There are always two sides to life.”

There must be. A young mother, who had till then been clutching her young boy as if nothing else mattered in life, suddenly decided to let go off him when the guide pointed out to a set that had been Amitabh Bachchan’s haveli in one of his films. “Bahut bada ghar hai,” she gushed, unmindful of the fact that behind the façade was a void.
“Will we get too see a shooting?” inquired a long-haired young man from behind a pair of fancy, huge sunglasses. “I was told that sometimes visitors too can get a role in a film,” revealing his hand, as it were, even if his face was substantially covered.

The quick-witted guide was not going to miss out on this chance to score a brownie point. “Nothing on today, but if you have got your heroine along, we can organise one,” he said. The young man clucked in obvious disappointment. With a bit of luck, he could have been on his way to becoming a matinee idol. Perhaps next time…

The guide by now was in irrepressible form. As the bus passed a smallish garden, he was in rapt description. “This garden is special. See those flowers? They are real, but replaceable, it’s up to the director. If a heroine is wearing blue clothes, the garden can have blue flowers, if she is wearing yellow, then yellow flowers, and if she is wearing no clothes, then no flowers.”

The men in the bus seemed strangely stupefied into silence by this, perhaps in hope; the women broke into gurgles of laughter, perhaps at the futility of such male fantasy. As the guide had pointed out earlier, there are always two sides to life — and not just in the world of make believe.

Email: ayaz@dnaindia.net