The Hindu Business Line : Cinema fed on reality

Truth is stranger than fiction. Finally, this fact has dawned on the Hindi film industry. In the months to come, we shall see several movies based on true lives and incidents. "No, no, it is not a total shift from fantasy," explained a leading producer. "But when interesting episodes are available from real life, why can't we make films on them?"

There is a lot of truth in this. Scan the dailies and the TV channels and you will come across dozens of interesting themes packed with suspense, terror, human interest. The train bombings in Mumbai happened recently, but I can visualise producers and directors mentally recreating scenes from B.R. Chopra's Burning Train made some 30 years ago. We have never made a good, tense espionage film like the Richard Burton-Claire Bloom starrer The Spy who Came in From the Cold, but with so much talk of a `mole' in the Prime Minister's office, some of our more intelligent filmmakers will definitely spare a thought for the same. And why not a film on the experiences of Prince, the young boy who was rescued from a 60-ft deep well after remaining trapped in it for three days? Remember Naushad, the Kerala labourer who was involved in an eye-for-an-eye legal battle with the Saudi authorities for accidentally blinding a local citizen in a fight and was finally pardoned by the Saudi King. Nagesh Kukunoor, who directed excellent films like Hyderabad Blues and Iqbal, has been inspired to make a film on the incident. Remember the furore in Mumbai when a South Africa-born model was raped by two men? Producer Vikram Bhatt is working on the script for a film based on the rape case.

A feature film based on the 1993 Mumbai blasts titled Black Friday was ready sometime ago but could not be released because of court orders that it dealt with a highly sensitive theme. The special appeal of an ongoing controversy as a theme for a film is not lost on producers. Director Ujjwal Chatterjee made Escape from Taliban based on the true story of author Sushmita Banerjee's marriage to a man from Afghanistan. But the film ran into a storm of protests from extremist groups and had to be withdrawn. Chatterjee is now making films on two currently hot topics — Utthan based on the Jessica Lal case and another on the life of Zahira Sheikh, key witness in the Best Bakery case who is in jail, sentenced for perjury. Then there are the films based on the lives of individuals. Producer Mohit Suri is making Woh Lamhe where the main character closely resembles Parveen Babi, the glamorous star of the 1970s who suddenly disappeared to the US. She returned bloated, isolated herself, made bizarre accusations against some of her former co-stars including Amitabh Bachchan, and was one day found dead in her Juhu flat. Then there was the extradition and jailing of gangster Abu Salem and his girlfriend, Monica Bedi; we now have a film based on the theme called Gangster, lauded by critics and a hit at the box office. However, not all such efforts are successful. Madhubala based on starlet Preeti Jain, who accused director Madhur Bhandarker of raping her, sank without a trace.

Producer-director Mahesh Bhatt sees nothing wrong in borrowing from life. Maker of films like Naam, Arth and Janam, Bhatt has borrowed incidents from his own life because he understood them better than anyone else and they appealed to audiences. There is also the argument that fiction often borrowed heavily from real life. At the same time, producers like Pritish Nandy are not happy with `bogus' filmmakers cashing in on real-life incidents, distorting and sensationalising them for their films. But then, the audience is the ultimate judge.