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Komal Nahta

A few random thoughts this time:

The debacle of Raju Chacha is another pointer to the trend that has emerged in recent times.

Actors who turn producers have been failing with alarming regularity.

Consider: Shah Rukh Khan burnt his fingers rather bad with Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. Sunny Deol lost heavily in Dillagi, which was also directed by him. Salman Khan's experience with Hello Brother was disastrous. Kamal Haasan delivered a bomb in Hey! Ram. Jackie Shroff has not been able to release his Grahan three years after it has been completed and ready. Jackie, however, proved lucky with Jis Desh Mein Ganga Rehta Hai because he managed to make money out of it. Rishi Kapoor had to return to acting after his directorial debut, Aa Ab Laut Chalen.

That Aditya Chopra's Mohabbatein has clicked all over is beyond doubt.

What is interesting to recount how, once again, the public opinion has been at variance with trade verdict.

Almost everybody in the film trade had been quick in dismissing the second directorial venture of Aditya Chopra as a flop. Its length (running time of over three-and-a-half hours) was considered the biggest drawback which, people in the trade felt, would spell its death knell.

But the public patronised the film and made it a hugely successful one.

Of course, not everyone in the audience felt it was a great film. But then, there were mixed reports galore.

Bottomline: Majority voted in favour of Mohabbatein, even if they might have found it a bit too lengthy.

Industry buzz meanwhile had it that the love story sent wrong signals to the youth as it encouraged romancing in school premises. What they perhaps overlooked was the purpose behind the encouragement given to romancing.

Shah Rukh Khan's intentions were extremely noble and to achieve his aim, the audience didn't mind even if he 'used' three young love pairs. It cannot also be denied that Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan elevated their scenes to great heights.

But one cannot help lauding Aditya for his conviction: After all, how often do you come across a film in which the topmost heroine of the country (Aishwarya Rai) plays a ghost; in which one superstar (Amitabh Bachchan) has no heroine opposite him and another superstar (Shah Rukh Khan) has a ghost and mere memories for his costar? And how often do you come across a director who throws economics to the wind and opts for screening his film in three shows daily while paying theatre rentals for four shows rather than sacrificing the length of the film by making a slight compromise in the story?

That much for Aditya's courage of conviction.

The arrest of noted financier Bharat Shah has put the entire film industry in jeopardy. Producers are panicking and distributors are in such a dismal state of mind that they are avoiding Bombay like the plague.

Exhibitors, even otherwise, had been experiencing the worst because their business had been jeopardised much earlier. With no film sustaining at the BO, with a small part of Bollywood under the underworld influence and the large part of it under police surveillance, things couldn't have gotten worse.

On the one hand, the run of films is declining constantly. On the other, new cinemas are springing up all over.

The result: Cinemas are going abegging to the audience just as cinema owners and controllers are going abegging to distributors for playing programmes.

Gujarat's R World, the swankiest and also the latest multiplex in India, has had to reduce its admission rates in the morning shows to just Rs 30. City Gold, another multiplex, located in the heart of Ahmedabad city, has not just cut down its admission rate in the 12 noon shows to Rs 70 in all its five screens.

It has also suspended its 6 pm shows due to thin audiences. City Pulse, the first multiplex of Gujarat, has had to cancel shows due to lack of audiences. All this may be due to a severe cold wave sweeping Gujarat and the cold business in pre-Makar Sankranti days, but these are not the only causes.

With few films and too many cinemas, this will soon become the norm. More and more exhibitors will have to bring down their admission rates. Show cancellations will become the rule rather than the exception, at least in places where there is a surfeit of cinemas.

Not more than a year ago, City Pulse at Gandhinagar used to be a distributor's delight because it gave unheard of shares. But the scene has changed dramatically after R World and City Gold came up at Adalaj and Ahmedabad respectively.

Believe it or not, a full week's collections of one of the above three multiplexes were a meagre Rs 16 lakhs against a capacity of Rs 1.30 crores -- less than even 15%!

The condition of the other two multiplexes is only a shade better.

It's the poor quality of films is to be blamed. While the exhibition sector has kept pace with technological advancements the world over and has brought the latest equipments to India, filmmakers are lagging behind. Scripts are stale, the narration is sub-standard. Writers are a demoralised lot. Little wonder then that the entertainment-hungry audience is turning to television. TRPs are rising, figures in the DCRs are declining.

Will the multiplexes turn out to be 'multiple problems' for their owners?

A look at the week ending Tuesday, January 23, 2001

Earlier column                          

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