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Shubhra Gupta

The launch of the film, Roja, in the international market has thrown open some intriguing questions about regional and cultural specificity, and their connection with that elusive crossover movie that filmmakers are hell-bent upon creat ing.

A still from the film, `Roja'.

On a trip to New Delhi last fortnight to launch the decade-old movie in the international market, the chief architects of `Roja', director Mani Ratnam and music maven A.R. Rahman, threw open some intriguing questions about regional and cultural specificity, and their connection with that elusive crossover movie that filmmakers these days are so hell-bent upon creating.

Sure, Kashmir is in the eye of the world these days, so it makes perfect sense to find fresh foreign markets for `Roja', which was about a young, urban, educated Indian's heightened love for his country: patriotism and terrorism has been big on the internal agenda since September 11, last year.

But not every movie is a `Roja' in terms of commercial success. `Bombay', Mani Ratnam's second movie of his anti-terrorism trilogy made money, but his `Dil Se', which focused on the insurgency in the North-East, bombed. Kamal Haasan's `Indian' (`Hindustani' in Hindi) made a mark, but Shankar's `Jeans' failed. Rajiv Menon's dubbed-in-Hindi `Sapnay' found North Indian moviegoers unresponsive, which led him to use English subtitles for `Kandukondain Kandukondain', which did much better. Clearly, a dubbed product has been finding the going difficult; subtitling, on the other hand, retains, in Mani Ratnam's phrase, the film's `emotional integrity', and is consequently that much more effective.

The skills required to promote and market a movie from another culture has become key, now that our movies are moving out of traditional NRI strongholds. "There is no point talking about Bollywood and Mollywood today," says Kandaswamy Bharatan, CEO of Digital Vision, which is marketing `Roja' internationally, "the time has come to talk about Indian films". Bharatan was the prime mover behind the huge success of Rajnikant-starrer `Muthu', in Japan, a territory, which has barely any NRI population. His `innovative strategies', which helped their Japanese distributing partners promote `Muthu' a full five or six months before the film released, included extended TV spots, and a surprise visit by the heroine Meena, at the film's premiere.

Two more films, `Ejaman', another Rajni-Meena starrer, and `Porkalam', were released in Japan, but then they were overshadowed when benchmarked against `Muthu', says Bharatan. But that doesn't dampen his belief that the time is ripe for Indian movies to "conquer the world".

And that's the only way left to go: if it weren't for the pounds and dollars that fetches in the money for Indian movies, they would be doing very badly indeed. The abysmal state of the industry domestically is a worrisome fact: it's not just Bollywood which has hit its worst patch this year; Mollywood, or the Chennai film industry, has been suffering a sharp decline as well. Investor confidence is at a low; and despite the formal industry status, interested institutions are hesitant to jump into the murky waters of film financing.

Bharatan, who came into the movies by a `happy accident' (his wife is the daughter of the legendary K. Balachander, whom he calls the `Bhishma' of the Tamil film industry, having mentored Kamal Haasan, introduced and nurtured Rajnikant through his initial years, and given breaks to countless young talented filmmakers in the last 40 years) refuses to be down at the mouth, though. "It is what I would call a very challenging phase," he says. "This is the only industry with products which can be consumed more than once; a good film can be seen several times, and this creates a tremendous revenue potential".

Awareness that banks, and institutional funding exists, needs to be spread among the smaller film makers; structures need to be put into place to increase confidence among banks who are ready to give money; and, most importantly, there needs to a high degree of transparency in the movement of money: what we are looking at here is `professionalising and corporatising' the film industry, and though Bharatan admits it is not going to happen overnight, the ex-IIM graduate is devoting his energies to make those changes in Kavithalaya, the production house promoted by Balachander, and then see it spread outward.

His passion to take Indian movies out of the country is propelling `Roja' on to a new course. I ask him, as we finish up our conversation, why, if Japan can embrace movies like `Muthu', can't he think of North India, where, ironically, it is only possible to catch a Mani Ratnam or a Santosh Sivan, in a film festival: we still haven't seen Mani Ratnam's `Alaipayuthe', or `Kannathil Muthamittal'. "That's where cultural differences comes in," he says, "a woman can wear a sari differently in Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka. If there is such a difference between neighbouring States, then you can just imagine the difference between Punjab and Tamil Nadu". We end on a happy, if slightly improbable note in these culturally and ethnically divisive times: let's diminish the divide, and begin a real, on-going crossover from the North and South. Both ways.

The author can be reached at Shubhrag@vsnl.com

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