Small is intelligent, big movies bite the dust

So, what’s the latest buzz in Bollywood trade circles? It’s a new business mantra that comes straight from the current sleeper hit, Tere Bin Laden. The film succinctly hits the nail on the head, when it comes to defining the new business model for the quintessential Bollywood hit.
A smart poster of the film carries the mugs of Binny (Osama bin Laden) and Bushy (George Bush) beneath the catch phrase — and the title song — Ullu De Patthe.Buzzword: So, who’s the Ullu De Patthe in Bollywood? Answer: The brainless film producer who chooses to go in for bloat (read big budget extravaganzas) at a time when small is both beautiful and business savvy at the box office!
At a time when the industry is reeling under the impact of two of its biggest debacles — “Kites” and “Raavan” — the multiplexes are silently celebrating, and surviving on the collections of two smart films, “Tere Bin Laden” and
"Udaan". The low budget, non-starry, unpretentious little films have breathed new life into an asphyxiated industry, where, as Blaze Fernandes, head, Warner India, puts it: “The last year has seen us all (big producers, corporate houses) have our shirts stripped off our backs.”
Both “Udaan” and “Tere Bin Laden” had nothing to boast off in old-fashioned Bollywood terms: neither the blitkrieg of big stars nor the big budgets that bracketed bakwas sums of Rs 5-10 crores for songs alone. All they had was a smart storyline, an intelligent approach to filmmaking and a bunch of actors who were willing to infuse soul rather than image in their characters. If “Tere Bin Laden” scores with its comedy track that doesn’t rely for its laughs on the laugh-when-I-slip-on-the-banana-peel style of comedy (so typical of traditional Bollywood), “Udaan” enters completely new territory by dabbling in teenage angst for the first time. Earlier this year, it was another smallie that grabbed eyeballs and became the talking point of tinsel town: Dibakar Banerjee’s hand-held camera shot “Love Sex Aur Dhokha”, made with a bunch of newbies who poured their heart — and brains — into the film.
According to this new trend that’s re-defining box office success, anybody who wants to go in for a gargantuan budget, minus a storyline and a script, is the Ullu da pattha, destined to bite dust at the hustings. And that’s because the newage audience is laying down the ground rules for the neat and natty new business model for the hit film. The rules of the game read something like this: Don’t exceed your budget beyond Rs 10-15 crores, don’t dish out inflated star salaries, don’t invest in senseless exotic outdoor, overseas, extra-effected song-dance sequences, hire a smart story-writer, ensure your film has something to say, and most importantly, say it differently. As Anurag Kashyap sums up: ‘‘Life isn’t easy anymore. The audience is getting demanding. There is a whole new bunch of restless and highly creative filmmakers and story-tellers itching to tell a new story. The competition is getting tough!”
Bottomline? Join Bollywood’s new Bheja-fied bratpack (the hatke brigade) if you want better bottomlines. Or perish.