Riya Sharma (BOMBAY TIMES; November 23, 2019)

On the last day of the 8th CII Big Picture Summit in Delhi, Swara Bhasker talked about the ‘Changing face of Indian cinema’. The actress discussed the factors that brought about the change, along with the films that are responsible for the change. Swara also talked about how social media has played a fundamental role in the way how stories are now being told.

CORPORATISATION OF THE INDUSTRY AND THE CHANGE IN FILM CONTENT
“If we talk about the changing phase of Indian cinema, and how it is changing, we should mark the moment when the government declared that the film industry will be an industry that can take loans. That marked the beginning of corporatisation of the film industry and the entry of studios. It was the first step in how content began to change,” said Swara.

Talking about the changing content, she said, “When a different film like Khosla Ka Ghosla! came out, we suddenly discovered that there is an audience for it. There was another interesting film, Bheja Fry, and with it, we again realised that if you give something new and good to the audience, they will consume it. Since then, I think that Hindi films have changed rapidly.”

The actress added, “For me, the two films that collapsed the idea of commercial and art films and also blurred the lines between these two were Peepli Live and Tanu Weds Manu. Nobody would have thought that Bollywood would tell the story of the struggles of Indian farmers, but that film collapsed the idea that meaningful cinema always makes losses and that it can never be profitable.”

Swara feels that the other film that marked a new phase in Bollywood was Tanu Weds Manu. “With this movie, we came back to the small towns of India and the movie also gave a new heroine to Bollywood, who was not your typical, self-sacrificing kind of girl. This was really a sort of badass, confused, angry, badly behaved heroine. It was something that the commercial Bollywood had not thought of, in terms of heroine. Also suddenly, you had these other characters who were not just side characters, but had something substantial and interesting of their own. The fact that both of these films worked at the box office were actually like sort of a a turning point for me,” said the actress.

‘CAN’T SHIELD OURSELVES FROM THE REAL REVIEWS OF THE AUDIENCE’
Another factor that changed films fundamentally, according to Swara, is social media. “Almost everybody has an account on various social media platforms. And, if you have an account, you are a reviewer yourself. You can tag the actor, director or the producer and you can be sure that we are reading it because we have a lot of time on our hands (laughs!). But there is no denying that the film was liked or disliked. We cannot shield ourselves from the real reviews of the audience and that has changed, in a very fundamental way, how stories are told. Even the biggest so-called masala films are looking for a story now,” she said.

As the conversation moved to her social media presence, Swara, who is known for giving it back to the trolls, said, “This is the time when it is wise to be apolitical and I am obviously an idiot. Artistes are also human beings and we are also citizens, we also vote, we pay taxes. Then why should we not be engaged in the world that we live in? I can understand being silent because you don’t want to be misunderstood, but I don’t believe that there is anything called being apolitical. It is the person that I am. I have to tell enough lies on screen, I spend all my time acting and sort of pretending, so I can’t pretend in real life.”

With his movie Island City up for release, actor Vinay Pathak tells us about his process of selecting a role
Deepali Singh (DNA; September 2, 2016)


How did Island City happen? What appealed to you about the script?
The movie happened by fluke. I met Ruchika Oberoi, the director and writer of the film at Film Bazaar at IFFI in Goa, and we got talking about this script that she had written for Screenwriter’s Lab. I pestered her to let me read the script and when I did, I flipped! It was such a crisp, intricately-woven satire, yet, so simple and beautiful. I called her right away and told her I’m on. Then NFDC came on board and the project got underway. It’s a fantastic script with a high entertainment quotient. The audience is going to experience all the navrasas when they watch this movie. It will open a pandora’s box in their head.

The title obviously refers to Mumbai. Do you think there has been a Mumbai overdose in our movies?
All his life, Woody Allen did nothing but make movies on New York. The city has always been one of the strongest characters in his movies and most of them are classics. Overdose? Mumbai city? No way!

How do you choose a movie? Is your role important or the script?
The script has to work. There are so many scripts I have said no to where I’m the protagonist. For me, the story is very important, followed by how it’s written in the screenplay format and who’s the director. When you speak to somebody, you gauge their sensibilities. Island City is Ruchika’s first film, but what a brave director she is! Her core team is full of cinema enthusiasts and within a week, I realised these people mean business. It was such a joy to be a part of a pure, cinematic experience.

In Ketan Mehta’s film Toba Tek Singh, you play the writer Sadat Hasan Manto’s role. Tell us a bit about the movie.
I have been a Manto fan all my life and Ketan has done a brilliant job with the story. He has created Manto as a character, as the supervisor of the mental asylum who comes in contact with all the inmates. Pankaj Kapur is in the main role and I also got the opportunity to work with some really talented actors. We shot in a village called Bassi Pathana, which is a few hours away from Chandigarh, while Toba Tek Singh is a village near Lahore.

There is a tendency to box people in categories and Hindi cinema has tried to put you in the ‘playing-the-fool’ box. But we have seen your serious side in movies such as Dasvidaniya and Gour Hari Dastaan. Is there a deliberate attempt to break out of the mould?
Nothing like that. The only deliberate move is to not repeat myself. People keep bringing me Bheja Fry kind of films. They want me to play the protagonist, shoot in one bungalow for 20 days in a limited budget and expect the film to be a success, just like Bheja Fry. But my question is, where is the story or the characterisation? I don’t want to get bored of my job. I love my work with utmost respect, passion and stubbornness. Cinema is in my veins, in the way I look at people and the way I look at life. And if I claim to love it so much, I can’t do work that sucks the joy out of it.

GADAR, BHEJA FRY and QUEEN managed to make the better weekend figure into better week totals also and it remains to be seen if DUM LAGA KE HAISHA can also do this.