'Sir'cus and Black Magic!

There are 2 film-makers in Bollywood who are constantly referred to as 'Sir' by the wannabes. Sanjay Bhansali(can’t for the life of me call a guy Leela!) and Mani Ratnam. Why? Do they insist on being addressed as Sir? ‘Mani Saar’ and ‘Sanjay Saar’!.
Sanjay Bhansali did everything to make his ‘Black’ look and feel like a phoren film. He cleverly left out the song and dance routine conning the educated ( are they really?) middle-class into believing that Sanjay Saar has made a serious movie! That film was one big opera. That is his forte, borne out by the fact that ‘Padmavati’ the opera he has directed is doing quite well. All his films are operatic extravaganzas. That is why he is constantly referred to, by the polite set, as the director with a ‘different’ vision. It is the difference between cinema and opera. Shekhar Kapoor had once ( when he was booted out of Bollywood, I guess) famously described Hindi movies as ‘nautankis’ and Mr. Bachhan as the greatest nautank. He hit the nail bang on the head! Mr. Bhansali’s nautankis are misinterpreted by most as touching and moving cinema. Anil Grover, who used to write for Sunday magazine and The Telegraph, went so far as to claim that Black was good enough to compete in the main section and not just as a Foreign Language Film at the Oscars! Really, we Indians get so carried away by our little achievements!
To continue about that much-awarded film( the charade just went on and on and on, with Mr.Bhansali, chewing gum firmly in cheek, picking up every award imaginable and thanking his mother and sister, but no one from the film fraternity, for his great success.) , Dhritiman Chatterjee did all he could to look like a big actor. But he forgot that he was in a movie and not on stage. The explanation for his bizarre histrionics can be found in the fact that he has been making his mark on the English drama stage in Chennai for quite sometime now. He is an accomplished stage actor – and it showed. Ayesha, the little girl was quite good but a bit over the top. The script was written for Rani Mukherjee (did someone say, or is it my imagination, that she is God’s gift to Hindi cinema? Well, I think that person is right) and she did justice to it. Poor Mr.Bachhan had to play second fiddle throughout, but finally he had his revenge when his wig stole the show! I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Could you? If you close your eyes, I am sure, the vision will come back to haunt you even today. The general consensus was that he over-acted. But you see, he was in a Sanjay Bhansali film and when you are in a Sanjay Bhansali film you don’t just act but you over-act. Period. In all this din everyone missed the fact that the two really outstanding performances came from Shernaz Patel and Nandana Sen. They deserved to be talked about and handed over atleast 10% of the awards that Mr.Bhansali cornered.
Bye for now,
Uday