thirsting for pyaasa

what we make today is not cinema but superficial, downright dumb drivel is the byline for some impassioned vitriol from Sudhir Mishra in an opinion column for Outlook India. The article notes the ignorance fuelling Bollywood's auto-fellating spirit, the stronghold exercised by the stars and a ray of hope represented by a new breed of filmmakers who're more interested in telling stories instead of churning pages of captions accompanying polaroids of stars. My favourite nugget is a bit devoted to the industry reaction to Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi:

The continuing tragedy of Hindi cinema is that it is in the grip of the hegemony of a few stars, who patronise a select few filmmakers, often resulting in the tripe that is offered to the public. I was told by two of these megastars that Hazaaron Khwahishein was one of the worst scripts they had ever read. What these stars did with their next films is a part of history that I don't wish to dwell on.

related reading: An article that offers a comparative analysis (see page 2) of financial success in Bollywood and in the south indian film industry.

elsewhere hereabouts: notes on Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, easily the best Hindi film of 2005 and one of the best Indian films of the year | a review of Bhansali's Black that includes a pointer to Sudhir Mishra's caustic take on the film and the fawning industry reaction to the film.