Why all our movies are same?

I am not a critic or an avid viewer of movies who is very eager or go in details of every movie that gets released on Fridays. In fact, the paucity of ideas in film makers is one of the main reasons for my loss of interest in present day movies. Have you ever listened to directors or producers during their publicity campaigns on television shows about their incoming movies? I think most of us hear them talking big as if they have found something which was never produced ever before in Indian cinema and it will change the whole way of thinking of Indian viewers or will be immediately get selected for Oscar. But when the film is released you find it revolving round the same 5-6 routine old ideas which you have been watching right from your childhood. 

And if the movie is a romantic one it even gets worse as our film makers have no new ideas but beating the same tracks. As matter of fact our film makers seriously need to come out of their present mindset. Our movies need a serious presence of something off the beaten track even in small quantities or amount that can keep the audience sit tight in their seats. If you look at the storylines of the present movies you will notice that if you reshuffle a couple of ideas from here to there every then almost every movie is same, based on same theme.

 The real Tamasha

Yes, I am writing all this about the latest movie TAMASHA after watching it in Delhi where we had gone primarily gone for visiting International Trade Fair but stayed overnight with a relative and finally decided to watch this movie. Let me be honest here, I took the decision for the sake of Deepika Padukone, one of my most favorite actresses in recent times. The movie Tamasha looks different in the beginning as the leading actors seem to have decided to something else than what they have been doing all the movies but in the beginning only. But they do something different only for a short duration as they came back to their normal behavior which has always irritated me.

Tamasha has almost the same characters, sceneries and theme which the director of this movie known for. Watch one movie directed by Imtiyaz Ali and you won’t ever need to watch any other from him since all are almost same in their theme or treatment, even the characters of every movie seem to be doing the same what they had been doing in his previous movies. I agree the starting of the movie is bit different as I said in the beginning but every passing moment brings it back to his previous films. You may ask what was new in the beginning, let me explain in detail.

The story of Tamasha begins in Corsica, the famous tourist destination in France where Ranbir and Deepika meet. Incidentally, they are Ved and Tara in this movie so I will use these names from here onward. Ved and Tara are on a vacation in France from different cities of India and what makes the beginning different is that Ved and Tara decide to stay strangers and will not talk anything on personal topics. That sounds interesting, isn’t it? They stayed in a same place but as total strangers without even asking each other’s name and a week passes by they talked nothing personal. As the seven days end Tara leaves for India without saying anything to Ved.

Back to India

Tara comes back to Kolkata and Ved goes to Delhi and the time flies by at its own speed. Tara had developed a soft corner for Ved during their stay in France but she did not disclosed it as per their agreement but she now felt her love for Ved and decided to go to Delhi without even any address or any other clue and as it’s possible in movies only she finds him without much of a trouble. Ved greets him nicely and they start dating but after a couple of meetings she discovers that Ved is not the same person whom she liked in Corsica but a different personality. Tara felt as if Ved has lost his liveliness, cheerfulness and the way he behaved and when he proposed her for marriage she found it tough to accept his proposal. 

Tara refused the proposal but it made no difference on Ved but he went through his regular schedule. He went to his office everyday as usual and agreed with his boss on every point even if some of his talks had no meaning or spent time with friends in the evening, in short nothing changed for Ved. Nothing changed for Ved but Tara felt too bad as she did not understand why Ved was behaving that way because she was in love with him. She was unable to understand why but she absolutely finds her at a loss differentiating in between the two characters of Ved the one she met in France and the other in Delhi. She fails to find the exact reason of such a change in him and found herself confused. 

Here I give credit to Imtiyaz for creating two entirely different characters of a person, one of them so happy and full of life and the other a sycophant who says yes to his boss for everything howsoever foolish or unreasonable and this keeps the story somewhat interesting. However, we have seen something similar in his older movies. For instance, the character of Ved is so similar to that of Shahid Kapoor in ‘Jab We met’ or Saif Ali Khan who gets nothing despite reaching to the top of his career. Ved character may remind you of Jordan played by Ranbir himself in ‘Rock Star’, who wanted to become a singer but his parents were eager to see he takes over the family business. However, Imtiyaz has given the role of a human robot that has no human feelings.

Back with same old story

Tamasha has good music composed by A.R. Rahman but even that did not succeed keeping me interested but I had to sit there for the sake of others. I don’t know how the others were tolerating watching the two characters constantly since the entire story had none else but these two center characters in the movie and one had nothing much as choice to shift their concentration. I found the movie like old theater style one where two characters take the center stage and keep talking with each other. The dramatic style of the drama days is altogether different from modern movies. I agree with the theme up to some extent but the director could have given it a different treatment. I don’t think most of the audience in the hall were expecting something like that which was far from entertaining. 

As I said in the beginning I went to see Tamasha for Deepika who did her best although Ranbir was also okay but he had no choice but to act according to director but he did a good job according to his capability. Deepika’s acting was of course outstanding and looks far ahead after ‘Piku’ and she did not disappoint with her acting even in Tamasha. For me the positive side of the movie was Corsica, being a travel loving person I enjoyed watching the beautiful spots of France. 

My Final views 

Imtiyaz Ali could have saved this movie from turning into a real Tamasha literally having such a lovely theme in his hands where two lovers were so eagerly willing to find their real chemistry in each other and director decided to play dumb and spoiled the whole thing. Just imagine the scenario in between the two lovers where one doesn’t stop the other one despite willing to stop but what I feel the director played the role of villain for hero, heroin and audience.