Wednesday, December 14, 2011

A Dilemma called The Dirty Picture

Since the news was out that The Dirty Picture was in making, one string was always harped on by its filmmakers, producers, actors and media that the film is based on the life of sex siren of the south, Vijayalakshmi, popularly known as Silk Smitha.

As the movie was close to its release, thousands of TV shows, newspapers and websites were pouring in with the information about the life of Silk Smitha.

After being acquainted with so many of bits and pieces of Silk Smitha’s life, when me and many others like me were at last in the theatre to watch the movie; to everyone’s surprise the movie began with the disclaimer, “This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.”

Well the deviation from the aforesaid claims hardly mattered to me and many others like me while watching the movie because Indian Cinema had really come of (cleav)age.

But after the movie, me and many other viewers like me (besides adulation for Vidya Balan’s performance) left the theatre with one common confusion: what exactly the movie intended to say? Or rather we left the theatre with too many of obscure and confusing messages?

The film begins with an interesting quote by Nietzsche – ‘One must still have chaos in oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.’ If the filmmaker had stuck to the gist of the quote, he would have created a milestone in Hindi Cinema but at the end of the film one realizes that the filmmaker has just missed from creating a milestone.

Of course the reason behind this failure is the flawed script… and the reason behind the flawed script is the confused approach towards the subject of the film. From the beginning till the end the filmmakers remain confused about whether the script should be based on Silk Smita’s life or should Silk Smita’s life be just an inspiration to pen the script ?

At few places in the script there are well-researched elements … (to be continued)

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