Big B, Kangana, Baahubali: National Film Awards all about money
Don't look at it as the National Awards for cinematic excellence and it vaguely seems to make sense. Think of the year's list of winners as a set of hints given out, to tell you what cinema the powers that be want to push right now and why.
Broadly, here is what the 63rd National Film Awards told us: Cinema is "good" only if it entertains, though an in-your-face message or two thrown in is not a bad idea.
Also, worth of an Indian film seems solely proportionate to its box-office spoils. No high art please, we are Indians.
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| Kangana was impeccable in Tanu Weds Manu Returns. |
If the year's National Awards send out those vibes, the notion has clearly been established that preferential treatment will be given to Hindi films. Commercial blockbusters fulfilling all of the above criteria happen in regional cinema too, but the only way a regional hit can be worthy of consideration is if it manages to woo the pan-Indian audience.
This year's jury is probably also trying to tell us how our mainstream cinema should be. The awards have all gone to undeniably laudable work. But more than quality of the efforts, what seems to have largely worked for the winners is a yen at trying something new within the mainstream format.
Consider the main categories. Amitabh Bachchan as Best Actor (Male) for Piku, Kangana Ranaut as Best Actor (Female) for Tanu Weds Manu Returns, and Baahubali as Best Film are all mainstream efforts toasting the unconventional. Best Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani would make history teachers baulk but the film did try redefining the classic Bollywood epic.
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| Amitabh Bachchan won Best Actor (Male) for Piku. |
Big B or Kangana's trophies for acting, in particular, seem to come as recognition for the Bollywood mainstream actor's willingness to step out of the comfort zone of hackneyed stardom. For a young star actress, Kangana took a calculated risk playing the bucktoothed Haryanvi Datto, one of the two roles she essays in Tanu Weds Manu Returns.
She was impeccable in her double role as Tanu and Datto, but then, you could argue, so was Bhumi Pednekar in Dum Laga Ke Haisha, plus at least half a dozen regional actresses in various other award-worthy performances.
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| Bhumi Pednekar and Ayushmann Khurrana in Dum Laga ke Haisha. |
Which brings us to what "worthy" actually stands for, going by this year's National Awards. To qualify as a potential winner, a film needs to make money. Kangana and Big B, while raising the bar of acting within Bollywood with their unusual roles, also made money with Tanu Weds Manu Returns and Piku respectively. Many other films with superlative performances may not necessarily stake that claim.
For that reason, debutant Kanu Behl for Titli might have lost out in the race for Best Director, though many felt it was the best directed film of 2015. Titli did not make money.
The National Awards this year were mainly about recognising unconventional work within popular cinema in the national language.
Which spawns an interesting aside: Would Baahubali manage its Best Film award had it not been dubbed in Hindi for all-India audiences? We will never know.
(Coutesy of Mail Today.)