Regional cinema V/S Quality

The title of this post seems to suggest that regional cinema and quality are two different things... so, lemme first clarify the same.

NOTE: I am talking only about Kannada Cinema.

There are quite a few films in recent times in Kannada that can be termed as "Quality Entertainment". Most of the other films can be termed as pathetic.

Is it because we do not have good storywriters? Or is it because we do not bother about the social message that the film should portray? I'd rather think it is more because of the latter.

If we lacked good storywriters, we would not have had even a single quality movie in Kannada. We do have many quality films. We did have wonderful movies in the past and I hope we will continue to have movies that provide wholesome family entertainment.

"OM" was one of the first Kannada films to portray violence in a mass scale, but it did have a wonderful social message that violence would not lead you anywhere and also that taking revenge for something on someone will hamper someone else's life.

Unfortunately, not many have realized the social message in this movie. OM triggered off a lot of violent movies, all with either violent or tragic endings and the movies glorified violence. A few months back, I was unable to see any movie trailer without violence or without the use of a "lang" or a "macchu" or a "cycle chain" or some "nin akkan/amman" terms. "Dialogue King" Saikumar started the trend of vulgar / slang abuses in movies which continued with Thriller Manju and then, we started to have movie names like "Mental Manja, Duniya, Kariya, Jogi, Underworld, Gooli etc" which were portraying the anti-social elements as heroes in the movie.

Though these movies, probably, tried to bring out the message that violence will not do any good to you, just the thought of:

• Having an entire movie which would be broadcast to the entire film watching people in Karnataka about a particular rowdy or
• Roping in a few original rowdies to act in the movie and thereby, giving the opportunity for a rowdy to become a movie star
• Glorifying a rowdy after his death by having a movie about his life

increased the number of potential rowdies in the city.

No wonder, a seemingly romantic movie like Mungaaru Male got such rare reviews. Personally, I feel that Mungaaru Male did not have a good story, but it was okayish for time pass. That increased the number of movies being filmed in Karnataka's scenic locations and the importance of music and lyrics in a movie.

There is a saying which says that all sheep will follow each other and will fall into the same ditch. Similarly, once Mungaaru Male became such a good hit, the number of similar films, the rating for the GOLDEN STAR, the hype of getting Hindi Mainstream singers like Sonu Nigam or Kunal Ganjawala or Kumar Sanu or Shreya Goshal or Sunidhi Chauhan to sing for Kannada movies increased by leaps and bounds.

Namma Bengaluru was portrayed by these violent movies to the movie goers in different parts of Karnataka to be:

• Violent
• 24/7 active
• Supportive to people of different places
• Careless for any suffering

which was kind of good as it reduced the number of immigrants in one sense, but which was untrue to a great sense.

We did have wonderful film makers like Puttana Kanagal who gave a wonderful social message in their movies, Dr. RajKumar who acted so well that the common man was able to put himself in the character's shoes, wonderful lyrists like K Kalyan and we continue to have good movies and amazing lyrics, but the quantum of such movies which stand out today are very less.

There was also this season of tragic movies which dealt with orphans or "saas-bahu" types or even the "tabbali" series ov movies which wanted to bring some sense to the chauvinistic male to treat his wife/daughter-in-law/daughter as a human being. Then, there was this season of movies which had divine presence, so much so that people used to take fruits and flowers to the theatres to perform puja when the deity is portrayed on screen.

What do these movies contain when compared to Bollywood to say that Sandalwood (the term to Kannada Cinema Industry) is better than Bollywood if you still portray "Langs" or some half-dressed girls who are willing to get raped in any movie coz they are the hero's sister or the friend of the heroine etc. or even who are singing and dancing on screen without any purpose of their existence in a movie.

Bollywood movies are popular in a sense that:

• There are a lot of Hindi-speaking population these days in any city
• The films are made keeping in mind the changing tastes of youth
• The films are not so cheap imitations of any other regional language movie or from a Hollywood movie
• The actors know to ACT!
• The violence is not glorified and there are a lot of other emotions in the movie which get glorified putting the violence aside.
• The violence is more mature rather than having fist fights / "langs" or chains and the technology portrayed is also good.
• There are many radical directors like Madhur Bhandarkar, Ram Gopal Verma etc who think out of the box.
• The movies are made with a view to satisfy the various moviegoers from people who are aged to children.

No wonder Bollywood movies are eating into the share of regional movies. We need to have more mature and decent movies that do not glorify violence. We should have many more wholesome entertainers. We should have movies with better social messages than Death. We need to have better quality of comedy than having a "Senthil-Gaundamani" style or a few double meaning dialogues. And we should have more original movies than doing cheap and poor remakes of other regional films.

Just my 2 cents.