It’s very well to dissect cinema, bring out the finer points, try to fit it in one of the myriad categories, grade it using different criteria and so on. Finally, though, it has to satisfy one important condition – people must watch it. When it comes down to it, cinema is a business. Art needs patronage. In the old days, it was the kings and emperors who supported art. Why else would Bach dedicate his concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg? The kings have long gone and today it’s the people who are in charge. How do you get people to leave the comfort of their homes and come to theaters? This, literally, is a million dollar question.
Hollywood is spending millions to achieve this. Just Brad Pitt or George Clooney are no longer enough. You need to get them together along with Matt Damon and Julia Roberts. Nor just one superhero suffices, with the exception of a Tony Stark or Spiderman. Dinosaurs have become so passé. CGI has lost its shine. An alien ship destroys the Burj Khalifa with devastating audio-visual effects but is it enough to lure the viewer away from his smartphone? Best brains in Hollywood are trying to come up with new locations, new ideas – from Mars and black holes to slavery and espionage. Everything is being tested to find out what sticks.
Meanwhile, in India, a 65 year old actor stars in a gangster movie. And the fans are going absolutely crazy over this. The film is booked solid well before release, not just in India but in US, Japan, everywhere. Fans have made posters; arranged special flights, buses to watch the movie in Chennai; performed religious ceremonies.
This is not a movie release. It’s a phenomenon called Superstar Rajini.
If you try to find a rational reason behind this, you will be disappointed. How can you, when people start whistling as soon as they catch the first glimpse of great Thalaivar on the screen?
While watching Kabali, I felt as if the movie has broken the fourth wall. There are many scenes in it where Kabali meets ordinary people and these non-actors have to act as if they are greatly honoured by the presence of Kabali. Except that they don’t have to act! They are meeting the great Thalaivar!! I was watching these non-actors more closely than the Superstar himself and they looked as if they have just fulfilled a dream of a lifetime. And I am sure they did.
Stardom is hardly a new phenomenon, be it Elvis Presley in the US or Amitabh Bachchan in India. It also has a strong sociological aspect to it in that one has to consider the zeitgeist in which the star becomes popular. It is not possible to understand why Bachchan’s angry young man became so popular without taking into account developments in India during the seventies : the emergency, unemployment, disillusionment with the post-independence promises and so on. I do not have enough background on how Rajini became a Superstar but I am enthralled to watch the effects unfold before me.
Strength of Asia lies in numbers. When half a billion people like something, you cannot ignore it.
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One thing I liked about Kabali was : this was the first time I watched a Tamil movie in original with English subtitles in Maharashtra. (I understood only two words – sappadu (eat) and po (go)). I hope this trend continues and we get to watch movies from all over India in their original languages. I hate dubbed movies. You lose the voices, tones, inflections of the actors : something which they have spent years perfecting. It’s like losing half of the screen. The dubbed voices can never convey the right emotion even half as well as the actor. Give me subtitled movies any day. I want to hear the original Manipuri, Japanese or Swahili.
