Losing Out On The Oscar,Again

When  will we ever learn? When would we stop sending the wrong  films to the Oscars, only to be rejected  every  time. Each time we come back looking like fools and no. it’s not because we are being victimized as a  third-world  country. The truth is, we don’t make films worthy of  international recognition, nothing  like Salvador Calvo’s Spanish Adu or Matías Piñeiro’s Argentinian Viola has come out  of India in a long long  time.

 Most  of the time Indian critics –and that includes yours truly—are  busy celebrating Indian  mediocrity on celluloid. There are  so  many recent  Indian(not just Bollywood) films  that  I’ve praised  on  release, only to  cringe when I returned to them.

Most  recent Hindi films lack durability.Jallikattu the Malayalam  film  that  we sent to the Oscars lacked not  just durability. It also lacked universality. As I had written when the  film  was announced as India’s entry to the  Oscars, “There is a  ferocious  fracas  at the heart of this unnerving film. It is  original  but  extremely violent.  And to be honest, after a  point  I found the gore to be a bore.I have  a feeling the  Oscars  jury would  feel the same way.”

So, here we are  , standing with  our heads bowed  as  losers once again. And the status  quo won’t change  until we send the correct  film to the Oscars. Geetu Mohandas’ Malayalam film Mothoon , for example, was a far more eligible  film with  a far better sense of  the universe. Let’s face it: we sent the wrong film again.

Better  luck next time.