Not again!

Nagesh Kukunoor has directed a film. Again. Much as one would want him to go back to being an environmental engineer or whatever he was before he started this unfortunate tryst with movie-making, the man perseveres.

This time, it’s a film called Iqbal, said to be about a deaf and dumb (ok, verbally challenged) village boy who wants to join the Indian cricket team and is trained by a character portrayed by Naseeruddin Shah, who for some inexplicable reason seems to like Nagesh K and the films he makes. He acted in Teen Deewarein before this.

I don’t know what Iqbal will be like; I only have the power to pre-judge it by the other Kukunoor films fate has consistently thrown my way. I saw Hyderabad Blues when I was in first year of college – and along with Bombay Boys, it had seemed, that time, like a breath of fresh air. Yet, there was a nagging feeling somewhere that something was not quite right. I was not in raptures over it, as I was over the infinitely better Bombay Boys. And a second viewing a year later told me why: it was such a shoddy film! I mean, it is all very well to have snappy dialogue in a few scenes, zoom in on a few typical characters of middle class India (eg the pallu-dropping aunt) and talk about NRI angst. But whatever happened to acting, and what about a good script, and some decent production values? Ok, so it was made on a shoestring budget, but is that a good enough excuse for turning out a film that could have been made better just by raising the standards of the few things you don’t need money to: screenplay, dialogue, acting? The dialogue, for instance, though effective in parts, was in general very trite – especially in the scenes that were not meant to be funny. And the standards of acting were lower than those of C-grade Bollywood skin flicks. (An aside here: Nagesh’s partner, professionally, is this charming woman called Elahe Hiptoolah, who likes to remain behind the scenes but is probably forced to do cameos in his films time and again. She has more acting talent in her little finger than most of the other cast he assembles for his amateurish ensemble movies. A genuinely under-used actress, for I haven’t seen her in any other films.)

Ok, but the film still had a breezy snappiness about it that washed down not so badly. Then came Bollywood Calling, again a film that had moments of genuine funniness but the deplorable tendency to sink into complete bathos. I mean, what was all that stuff about that firang guys having stomach cancer and all all about? Sheeesh!

In Teen Deewarein, Kukunoor was clearly out of his depth. And it would have been a better film if he had not made Jackie Shroff’s character spout terrible poetry and had refrained from acting in it himself.

But the worst film Kukunoor has made, till date, is the sequel to Hyderabad Blues. Those who have been unfortunate enough to watch it will know what I am talking about when I say there can be no worse film. It was a travesty of everything film-making has ever stood for, believe me. It had no script, no depth, no genuine insight into marriage (which it was supposedly about), no good acting to redeem it (again, the great director couldn’t stay away from the greasepaint) and was the most unintentionally funny film I have ever seen. Even the unintentional funny moments became a bit tedious after some time, it was that bad.

Now, what amazes me in all this is, how has this man who has consistently churned out bad cinema manage to sustain his credibility not only as a well-known film-maker, but as a ‘serious’ film-maker who is ‘committed to cinema’ and grandiose stuff like that? How does he get people to take him seriously, after making one amateurish film after the other? When it must be apparent to all that ALL his films have that feel of school skits hurriedly put together for a moral science class?

Listen to him go about the underdog in an interview (http://www.indiafm.com/news/2005/08/09/5604/) about his latest film: ““I’ve watched a number of sports-based movies in U.S. (sic) and most of them revolved around underdogs. By an uncanny coincidence, I would be rooting for the underdog in the film, you want him/her to succeed at the end of the day. That’s the essence of IQBAL as well.” What erudition! What insight! What an uncanny coincidence that ninety per cent of us also find ourselves rooting for the underdog ninety per cent of the time!

Even though all this vitriol may give the impression that the man has slighted me personally in the course of my illustrious journalistic career, I actually liked him the one time I met and interviewed him. A bit too full of himself with a tendency to take himself too seriously, but a genuinely likeable fellow in all other ways. At that interview (just after Teen Deewarein was released), he had told me some really great-sounding ideas that were festering within him. One was about an Indian cook in London who falls in love with a white woman; another was about Indian immigrant workers in Florida orange fields. I sincerely hope he turns over these ideas to a more competent film-maker than himself – for he knows how to kill a good idea like no one else.

And with my kind of luck, Iqbal will turn out to be a great film and everybody will hate me for being so mean to Nagesh. Sigh! I live in hope.