Sunday, August 26, 2012

Awaiting Barfi! or not.

Barfi! starring Ranbir Kapoor is set for release on September 14.It is a story of a deaf and mute man and looking at the trailers, the acting seems commendable as the Kapoor stalwart does what every newcomer does to show that he can act, take on a role of an "abnormal" man.
But a personal take on this, I don't really think I am too comfortable watching films with such a subject matter.Somehow the Hindi film industry fails to hit the target like some other films like Rainman manage to do with a sensitive issue. I cannot pick point but there is a certain anomaly in our films with mentally challenged people. Be it My name is Khan or Black, the tone of the film, the settings and the music all adds a depressing "Oh you poor thing" feel to the movie that just diverts away from the whole story. In trying to show that the abnormal is normal, these films make the abnormal more abnormal and makes then stand apart.
So as SRK stood on a busy highway with a board reading, "My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist" or Amitabh Bachhan pirouetted around Viday Balan in Paa, you don't fall in love with the character but just feel sorry for them, a feeling the filmmaker were not trying to achieve (I hope).
Maybe the technicalities of the film are a bit botched or the someone is hitting the wrong spot. Another thing that I have noticed is the extensive use of depressing colours in the films. So if there is a blue setting, the film will have a sad bluish tinge or an orangish yellow casting an air of gloom all around. The music always seems like a funeral march and I don't understand if filmmakers can give over the top senseless sets to films like Cocktail and get amazingly Bollywood type music to that film, why can't the same be done in such films? Why do we have songs which are not even catchy but really umm for a lack of a better word, abnormal?