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HONOURED: French director Luc Besson
Yet nostalgiaphiles could not help missing New Delhi, the earlier venue of the event designed to expose Indian viewers and film personalities to the crème de la crème of world cinema. Far more internationally revered names would jet to the capital to partake of the festival.
In fact, way back in 1976, the festival had drawn the simultaneous attendance of such hallowed names as Akira Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni and Elia Kazan, besides the omnipresence of India’s own master film auteur, Satyajit Ray. This year, the only A-list name from world cinema happened to be the French director Luc Besson, who was incidentally honoured with a retrospective of his oeuvre.
Another French filmmaker, Bertrand Tavernier, was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award. Partiality towards French cinema was, ooh la la, more than evident. Curious this, because the Cannes Film Festival has been rather prejudiced against Indian cinema, grudgingly selecting a scant few every year. Indian critics have frequently complained about the Cannes apathy, in vain. In recent years, the screenings of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas and the Anurag Kashyap-produced Udaan at Cannes have been the rare exceptions.
Quite oddly, a retrospective was devoted to the films of Philip Noyce, the creator of such Hollywood hyper-commercial thrillers as Dead Calm and Clear and Present Danger. Commercialism is fine but surely comprehensive, heartfelt tributes could have been paid to India’s own film personalities who passed away this year — be it Mani Kaul, Bhupen Hazarika, Shammi Kapoor or MF Husain. They were represented with only a token film or two although each one of them has left behind a considerable body of work.
AT THE FESTIVAL: A scene from Paul Cox’s docufeature, The Bengali Detective; a still from the film, Pina
Husain’s Berlin festival award-winning documentary Through the Eyes of Painter was screened, but that was it: the artist had directed several other shorts and the two feature films, Gaja Gamini and Meenaxi: A Tale of Three Cities. Earlier this year, the iconic painter had been sidelined from the Mumbai’s MAMI film festival, as well. Reason: the organisers had received an email from a group of political activists objecting to a tribute to the painter-filmmaker. Again in Goa, Husain was given short shrift. Such is politics. Or should that be, cultural policing?
From the countless international films programmed, it was obvious that even art house filmmakers have succumbed to the allure of 3-D technology. It seems Germany’s widely-revered Werner Herzog had insisted on a normal format for Cave of Forgotten Dreams — the first glimpse of the earliest cave paintings known to humankind, in southern France. The documentary’s producer talked him into opting for 3-D.
Admittedly, the result is visually staggering but it would have been as compelling in any form given Herzog’s trademark poetic vision. Not surprisingly, he has said he would never shoot in 3-D again. In Herzog’s words, the technology is “nothing but a commercial gimmick.”
Germany’s Wim Wenders used the 3-D form inventively for Pina, his documentary on the late dancer Pina. Japan’s Takashi Miike’s Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai, too opted for an additional dimension for his swords-and-toga action extravaganza.
Speaking of Shah Rukh Khan, he inaugurated the IFFI once again after a break of a couple years. Madhuri Dixit jetted into the beach town as well. But neither the Khan nor la Dixit stayed on to watch any of the films. In general, the participation of top Bollywood celebrities was conspicuous by its absence.
Undoubtedly, the festival — conducted by New Delhi’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting with the state government — has lost its sheen and dynamism.
Competitive cinema expositions in Mumbai, Kolkata and Thiruvanthapuram have subtracted from its exclusivity. Indeed today, IFFI lives up to its name: it has become iffy.
(The writer has been reviewing Bollywood since he was in diapers. He has scripted three films and directed three others. Currently, he is working on a documentary and a book of short stories.)
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