Prakash Jha's hot potato

Pre-release is an edgy time for most filmmakers but somewhat more so for Prakash Jha, maker of what we journalists love to call ‘hard-hitting' films. Jha has rarely had it easy getting his films released and his latest Aarakshan , a film about education and the reservation system, has been no different, as you are perhaps aware, with every TV channel having debated the issue.

Of course, Jha is an old hand at this and he also knows exactly what he is getting into. Any filmmaker who picks up a controversial or politically sensitive subject in India is not only prepared for trouble, but the controversy could well be part of the package.

This is not to doubt Jha's motives though. He is one of our most politically aware directors and even stood (unsuccessfully though) for the Lok Sabha elections from Bihar in 2004 and 2009. Aarakshan and the subject of caste are ideas that have been brewing in his mind for quite some time. Before the release of his previous film, Raajneeti (2010), he told me he was very disturbed about “the manner in which the caste system is being raked up again with the Census. We are getting into very, very dangerous territory; it is going to take us back to the dark ages.”

Jha's films have themselves ventured into dangerous territory ever so often. Whether it is dynastic politics in Raajneeti , the Bhagalpur blindings in Gangaajal (2003) or Bihar's kidnapping industry in Apaharan (2005), he has built all his recent films around the concerns of our times. Inevitably, his films provoke political reactions. Take Raajneeti , about a political dynasty in which a murdered son's widow plunges into politics. Katrina Kaif, playing the widow, wore handloom saris, talked in stilted Hindi and waved in a manner reminiscent of you-know-who.

The Congress went into paranoia mode and some loyalists asked to see the film before it released. Jha refused, saying he would show it only to the Censor Board. So Tom Vadakkan (AICC Secretary) and Pankaj Sharma, associate editor of Congress Sandesh , wriggled their way into the Revising Committee of the Censor Board to take a dekko at it.

It's déjà vu for Jha with Aarakshan , but he has weathered the storm with his usual brand of non-deferential politeness and unwillingness to compromise.

Any filmmaker who picks up a political issue or, worse, a political figure knows the drill by now. Unless, of course, you have your ways of getting around the problem. Ram Gopal Varma may have denied he showed his Sarkar to Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray before its release but not many bought that line, really. Not anybody familiar with the Shiv Sena's strong-arm politics, anyway.

Our country is teeming with people who are not only touchy about a bewildering array of subjects and issues, they are also ready to get aggressive about it. Remember how hairdressers' associations got Shah Rukh Khan to change the name of his movie Billu Barber to Billu ? Problem is, stars are very high-profile targets — which translates into more publicity for protestors. Case in point: P.L. Punia, Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who has got more TV mileage for his rather laboured views than even he could have hoped for. It pays to target the biggies. Just think: when was the last time a small film got into this kind of trouble?

Our problems are of course minor in comparison with those faced by filmmakers in more strife-torn or repressive regimes. Iranian filmmakers Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof, who have been jailed for “propaganda against the State,” are recent high-profile examples. Panahi has also had a 20-year filmmaking ban imposed on him. Scores of other directors the world over have suffered because of political repression and prejudice.But the reverse is also true. How it hurts when we see a Michael Moore film taking on everyone from the President of the US downwards. How in heck does he get away with it, we wonder admiringly. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) was a searing indictment of President George W. Bush, following the attack on New York's World Trade Centre. Bowling for Columbine (2003) examined America's predilection for guns and violence; Capitalism: a Love Story (2009), on the financial crash of 2008, treaded an equally brave path.

There are more on Moore's side. Inside Job , another terrific documentary-style movie on the crash of 2008 (with a voiceover by Matt Damon), was astonishingly forthright in dealing with very powerful and public figures. And I remember being gobsmacked when I saw Curtis Hanson's Too Big to Fail and not only because it was a superb movie.

Here were Hollywood actors playing the roles of some of America's most powerful men on Wall Street and in government, with each character identified by his name and designation on the screen. So, when William Hurt appears, for instance, the screen tells you: ‘Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury'. Or ‘Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve', for Paul Giamatti.

Can we even begin to imagine a movie on the 2G scam that will show us a scene between A. Raja and P. Chidambaram, identified on the screen as such? Can we imagine a film on Sonia, or any of the latter-day Gandhis, on the lines of British director Stephen Frears' The Queen ? Can we even hope to have a scene like that in The King's Speech , when Colin Firth, playing George VI, utters a string of expletives? Would such a scene, showing any of our revered leaders mouthing obscenities, even if in a crucial and totally justified context, be ever passed?

Hollywood may produce a lot of trash, but it redeems itself now and then by producing and recognising controversial movies from time to time. The Queen got Helen Mirren a Best Actress Oscar for her supremely accomplished performance as a faltering Queen Elizabeth II during the royal crisis caused by Princess Diana's death. Colin Firth got a Best Actor trophy for The King's Speech . Michael Moore has a clutch of awards, including a Palme D'Or at Cannes for Fahrenheit 9/11 and an Oscar for Bowling for Columbine .

The one big aberration, perhaps, was Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ , which no Hollywood studio wanted to touch because of America's all-powerful Jewish lobby (is there a connection here to Mel Gibson's recent anti-Semitic rants?). So Gibson invested $30 million of his own, directed and released it himself. However, unlike in India, no one tried to stop its screening and, in fact, it recorded more pre-ticket sales than any other film in history at the time. It went on to collect staggering revenues of some $775 million at last count (it is believed to be the highest-grossing religious film ever).

I wish Prakash Jha equal success with his Aarakshan , helped along by some unintentional publicity from our netas . As he noted with Raajneeti , “We are not politically sensitive, we are political idiots… they've given my film so much publicity. What kind of political wisdom is this?”

With Aarakshan , as with Raajneeti , Jha might well be thanking that lack of political wisdom.

>shashibaliga@gmail.com

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