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Fair enough, but should it be all style and no substance. “It’s all very nice to make a good-looking film, but there should be some content to justify it. A good-looking film without any other redeeming quality is quite pointless,” says Award-winning filmmaker Goutam Ghose.
Ghose’s doubts are not quite unfounded. In the past few years, Tollywood has seen a stream of what most filmmakers choose “multiplex films”. “Movies like Anuranan, Bong Connection, Chalo Let’s Go etc are targeted at the urbane crowd. These movies are faring exceptionally well at the box office,” says Subhasis Ganguli, regional general manager, INOX City Centre.
In other words they are films which cater to the urban audience and their sensibilities. “I would describe a multiplex film as a film which deals with the urban milieu. It talks about urban India and it’s problems,” says noted editor-turned filmmaker Rabiranjan Moitra started out by making a horror film, Mantra.
While films like Anjan Dutta’s Bong Connection and Chalo Let’s Go and Anirudhha Roy Chowdhury’s Anuranan have received a warm response from critics and masses alike, there have been others like Saron Dutta’s Raat Barota Paanch which have been unanimous failures. “That’s probably because of the fact that these films well all style and no substance. Audience won’t lap up anything,” states filmmaker Mainak Bhowmik, whose debut film Aamra, was an urban comedy.
Riingo, however, insists that urban or multiplex films need to be “glossy” because most urbanites cannot relate to “badly executed films”. “There is a definite market for this kind of films. Kolkata is a cosmopolitan city with people from all over the country residing here. We need to find a language of filmmaking which will appeal to them,” he claims. “One shouldn’t be able to discriminate between a Bollywood film and a Tollywood film,” he adds.
Ironically, in Bollywood, a multiplex film means something quite to the contrary. Films like Bheja Fry or Khosla Ka Ghosla, are not glossy, urban products. They are intelligently made films which appeal to a certain section of the audience,” says Bhowmik.
Ghose stresses on the importance of good storytelling. “Ultimately, the audience wants to watch a well-told story. When Satyajit Ray made films like Mahanagar or his Kolkata trilogy, he didn’t present us with overtly glossy takes on urban life. They were well made films on urban India. One should not approach a script thinking he or she will make a “good-looking film”. We must adapt our style according to needs of the story,” he sums up.
