Lately, there’s been talk of the Indian Cinema audience having become more discerning and perceptive to novelty, exemplified by the success of movies like cheeni kum, metro, bheja fry etc. Whether this is a fact or not is an imponderable, my only contention is that barely few weeks after the aforesaid ‘intelligent’ films, we had the epitome of buffoonery smugly patting his back thanks to the mature viewers who thronged at theatres to watch aap ka suroor, an unabashed display of self-aggrandizement by director-music director-composer-hero-superstar himesh reshammiya. Never in the history of world cinema has anyone had enough gumption (read bigheadedness) to bring one’s childhood fantasies on screen.
Getting back to the presumably intelligent cinema, I watched ‘Cheeni kum’ with quite a bit of anticipation. After all, it had the two most versatile actors we have and the guy with the best comic timing. The film started beautifully, for the first hour the feeling was that of having a refreshing experience, something very different from what we are accustomed to and still very engaging. But gradually, everything started to fall apart and the movie started turning into the exact opposite of what its title proclaimed. The criminal was the unforgivable hackneyed character of the boo-hoo-hoo-I have blood cancer-still-I’m-so-cool girl. What made it worse was the girl’s performance. She ended up reminding you of the days when child artistes were ‘Master’ this and ‘Baby’ that and used to have Lata Mangeshkar sing ‘Hai Na, Bolo Bolo’ for them. The whole idea of the relationship between the girl and bachchan was so stale and cloying that it would make you throw up. The amateurish attempt to portray the girl as a smart-alec was so unconvincing that even bachchan was struggling in his scenes with her. It was frustrating to watch an otherwise good effort getting negated by some inane and nauseating sequences.
By the way, in the very days when the child actors used to be presented in Indian cinema as fat, fair and foolish, came the greatest Indian movie about children and on growing up, Kitaab. Gulzaar's greatest work after Angoor can remind you of Cinema Paradiso and Amarcord. Some excellent performances by Raju, Uttam Kumar and fairly good work by the other kids as well, combined with the characteristic sensitivity of Gulzar combined to create a memorable work of Indian cinema. And of course, the music by the greatest musician of Indian cinema, with the classic ‘Dhanno ki ankhon mein’ and the outrageous 'VIP underwear Banian' which by itself are reasons enough to watch the movie. It’s unfortunate that the theme of a child growing up, which has been exploited so beautifully in European cinema and which touches us all, had not seen any other movie as yet. Unless of course, you are ready to call rubbish like Ek chhoti si love story cinema.
