The search for a success mantra, and preferably some big bucks along with it, is ubiquitous enough for a bevy of questionable self-help books to be written on it. But here’s an industry that has managed to evade that search for decades now.

Bollywood’s mass-endorsed ‘formula’, a measured concoction of romance, action, comedy, a big fat Indian wedding, some heart-make-break, has been the perfect recipe to keep the box-office registers ringing, and its audiences happy. The latest proof of this being the stupendous success of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (YJHD) which shook the box office by essentially repackaging the beloved Bollywood ‘E=mc2s’: Dilwale dulhaniya le jaayenge and Kuch kuch hota hai (both of which incidentally were popularly known as DDL and KKHH), and delivering it to suit the sensibilities of the twitter-talk generation.

Formula fare

This kind of success for a movie where the hero neither played the role of a just cop nor an angry Sardar is a bit baffling, if you come to think of it. It wouldn’t be wholly presumptive to say that 100 crore is being increasingly associated with a kind of mindlessness – a potboiler of excesses. Although YJHD is markedly different from the regulars in the 100 crore today, it sits comfortably in the ones of the 90s that represented, well, another kind of excess. It gives off a depressing déjà vu with its snow-capped mountains and visual stunners that overwhelm the need for a good story line, the hero’s nomadic instincts that guide the plot, and a neuro-biology textbook with clichéd nerd glasses gives the leading lady a supposedly distinct personality. Terribly original and fresh, ain’t it? Simply put, YJHD is the cherry on top, minus the actual cake.

Gift-wrapping?

I would have dismissed it as yet another t-p (timepass) movie had it not been directed by Ayan Mukherjee and steered by exceptionally talented actors like Kalki Kochelin, Ranbir Kapoor and Aditya Roy Kapoor. They have made unconventional choices in the past and defied norms. Their choices, we hoped, would slightly alter the machinations of an industry that had much potential but more complacency. We are forced to ask if the cloak of “entertainment” is used to veil repetition. Do platitudes just gift-wrap a lazy script? Someone on twitter rightly said: #YJHD – how a bunch of star kids talk facebookish emo and rake up a hundred crores at the box office.

Ayan’s debut movie Wake up Sid explored, in a lighter vein, the descending of adulthood on a boy who was completely unprepared for it. It had a bit of honesty, a naivety that worked for its character. It was real, even if it was telling the story of a privileged, carefree young man caught in the throes of adulthood. The heroine, dusky and unglamorous, shopped at flea markets for secondhand furniture. She moved cities, carried a big bag of groceries every day up a building that was old enough to not have an elevator.

These are very real scenarios and instances, and one that young people who live in cities face. Cities with their magic and their monotony, so well portrayed. A movie like that can only raise expectations from the director. This is precisely why it is disappointing when a director like Ayan and his very talented team fall into the trappings of formulaic fare like YJHD. Yes, I take it upon myself to address such injustices with an inexplicable determination.

Bollynomics

While aesthetics and intelligence are one aspect of cinema, economics is another. In the 80s and 90s, single hall cinemas were the order of the day and a movie with a large turnover time at the box office graduated from a ‘smashing 20 days’ to a ‘golden 50 days’ and finally to a ‘Mega Hit 100 days’.

The collections took a long time for a movie to be financially secure and be declared a box office hit, so producers did not want to take too many risks. Big production houses stuck to safe scripts and cashed in on the star value of heroes. It is not difficult to comprehend then that there were significant barriers for small production houses and new directors.

An Anurag Kashyap script would have perhaps been the subject of much ridicule, even horror, or plainly dismissed while a re-incarnation story would have been as normal as your milkman delivering milk every morning.

Moreover, without the internet and social media, it was difficult for like-minded individuals to come together to discuss good cinema and how it would play out in the scheme of things then. In such a context, a non-formulaic cinema was doomed, with only the truly brave venturing into it.

Changing the game

But the burgeoning multiplexes have changed the game. This has led to quick turnover of movies with a typical movie lasting two weeks and the metric of success moving to how much money a movie collects between the weekends. Most of them are strategically placed in malls catering to a cash-dispensable India that has seen the fruits of globalisation. Plus, the urban young today are better exposed; their intellectual calibre is higher given the easy access to iconic movies of various decades, foreign cinema, alternative films.

The basic template of comparison is altered. Many production houses recognise this, and give opportunities to young directors who have original ideas. What also works for these directors and producers is the increasing popularity of the global film festival circuit and the possibility of exploring anything.

Bollywood now has a polarization; the formulaic movies follow the straight road to the 100 crore club while on the other, less taken road with twists and turns, a crop of movies like Vicky Donor , Kahaani , Gangs of Wasseypur are bumping their way into the horizon perhaps of a different kind of club. To be honest, deviations from the norm have always been there, in every decade. But when exceptions become frequent and become the face of an industry, it is exciting.

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