Good films bring good luck

doweshowbellyad=0; Still from Eklavya: The Royal Guard. Are we sick and tired of hearing the phrase, ‘history repeats itself’? Possibly, but for a major problem. Time and again, we have to face the fact that history does —you-know-what!
Indian cinema experienced what the cliché implies when director Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya: The Royal Guard, was sent to the Oscars as India’s official entry in the Best Foreign Film category.Like Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti last year, and many other films before that, Eklavya’s challenge fell flat on its face when it did not make it to the list of nominations.
Why, then, do we fail to make it to the shortlist regularly? While Bollywood is a huge movie-making machine, the number of quality films being produced there is far from great. But, there are several other much smaller pockets in our country which produce fine films from time to time. Is it, therefore, fair to say that the films that are chosen for official entries are, mostly, not the ones that should be going in the first place? Are we guilty of selecting films which have a huge star cast and have been made with a lot of money, neither of which matters when the issue is that of nominating a top quality film?
Film producer Pritish Nandy thinks so. Says he, “The reason we don’t make it to the Oscars is that the wrong kind of films are being sent. A movie should be judged by its excellence and not its cast or budget. We invariably try to judge the movie on the basis of who is starring in it and how much money was spent on making it. Over there at the Oscars, nobody gives a damn about our movie cast or the budget.”
Actor Mohan Agashe has a different take on the issue. He reflects, “The sensitivity for Oscars is very different. So, you can’t really say why they liked something or why they didn’t. In any case, according to me getting appreciation from your own country is better than getting an Oscar.” Actor Pawan Malhotra observes, “There are two things to it. If your film gets nominated, you have to promote it and show it to the jury, which is strange. It means that those who have better sources will make it to the Oscars. It also depends on the competition as well. Many times, what happens is we think that we have made a good product. But, that is not the case in reality. For the people at Oscars, it might not be something new.”
That we have been guilty of sending some really fairly mediocre films in the past is unquestionable. Indeed, it is impossible to understand how a film like Jeans (made by Shankar and our entry in 1998) could have made any sort of an impact on a highly educated jury. Also, it is high time we sat back and analysed where we have gone wrong while sending a film, and what can be done to correct it. Apart from exceptions like Lagaan which put up a spirited fight for the award, we have been cutting a sorry figure regularly. And, each time that happens, we cannot curl our eyebrows heavenward, make a sad face and say: It was bad luck.