New colours of Indian cinema

Saawariya was bathed in a blue light; Omkara flashed reds and oranges. Filmmakers today are experimenting with colour and cinematic imagery to lend a definite tone and tenor to their narratives on screen, writes Derek Bose

YEARS ago, when one was much too young to understand cinema, the only way a film could be remembered was by its setting — whether it was located in an urban milieu or rural. Many kids one grew up with admitted to relying upon such a reference point for ready recall. Later, as we were exposed to the cinemas of other lands, it was again this "look" in films that we found ourselves connecting with first. The star cast, storyline, even the music and songs sunk into our consciousness only afterwards.

Today, as Hindi cinema appears increasingly targeted at a young, upwardly mobile, so-called multiplex audience in metropolitan centres, it is the importance of a "rich look" everybody is talking about. The look has actually come to define the complexion of our movies and, in turn, their popularity everywhere. Accordingly, films with urban themes, with a good deal of glitz and glamour are gaining prominence, whereas narratives set against a rural backdrop with issues like feudal atrocity, landless labour, unemployment and deprivation have lost ground.

In effect, you do not expect a mainline actor like Shahrukh Khan or John Abraham to play a hapless, poverty-stricken farmer, the way yesteryear heroes like Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna and even Amitabh Bachchan did in their time. Likewise, leading women like Aishwarya Rai, Priyanka Chopra, Bipasha Basu and others are forever being featured as flighty, westernised bimbettes in roles that are clones of one another. In fact, if it were not for the look, there would be little to distinguish one film from another.

So what exactly makes for the look of a film?

It is actually the result of different inputs or elements that get into visual composition such as set design, location, backdrop, camerawork, make-up, costumes, special effects and so on, which together contribute to the mood and allure of a film. The elements could be as varied as Shahrukh’s stubble in Chak De! India or Aamir Khan’s Mohawk hairstyle in Taare Zameen Par, Farah Khan’s outrageous wardrobe of the 1970s in Om Shanti Om or the extravagant sets, costumes and period jewellery in Jodhaa Akbar and so on. Every shot and scene is meticulously designed around these elements so as to determine the tone and tenor of the film in question.

Vipul Shah’s Namastey London best explains how the look of a film can make a difference to public perception. Audiences suspected it to be an adaptation of either Manoj Kumar’s Purab Aur Paschim or Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, but could never be very sure which, so cleverly had the director disguised the remake. Despite a common plotline and theme, with better camerawork, improved story-telling and sleek production values, it was almost like watching a new film come alive for the viewers`85 and yet, keeping them on familiar terrain.

The same can, of course, be said of every other film — be it Deewar or Sholay, Umrao Jaan or Kaante, Cheeni Kum or Om Shanti Om — which has a forerunner in some form. Our filmmakers doing repeat shows are experts at re-packaging old wine in new bottles. But what has come as a definitive change and, in many ways, a revolutionary development in creating different looks for films is the colour palette employed. An easily identifiable example would be Saawariya in which virtually every frame was bathed in varying shades of blue. Effectively, the film was almost entirely a study in blue. Viewers, who could not relate to the chromatic language the director (see box) was experimenting with (while interpreting Fydor Dostoevsky’s White Nights), dismissed the exercise as a "blue film". It was not an altogether uncharitable comment because Bhansali had clearly gone overboard in applying a technique that is rather new to Indian cinema. Sadly, he had taken it to the point of pop art, lending a completely unnatural aura to his film.

Earlier, when the director explored the dramatic function of colour in Black, the effort was much more realistic and justified. The grades of grey and black that dominated the images went perfectly with the story of a blind girl (Rani Mukherji) wrapped in her world of darkness. The tonal values served in lending poignancy to the film in much the same manner music helps in raising the emotional temperature of a narrative on screen. In fact, this is the very purpose of working around specific colour schemes. But then, it is also a device, which if not judiciously applied, can distract rather than aid viewer interest. While being overindulgent with his blues in Saawariya, Bhansali betrayed a surprising disregard for audience sensibilities, thereby reducing the effort to plain gimmickry.

Flirting with form on film (at the cost of content) can appear attractive at times, but it is always fraught with danger. Colour is particularly dicey, as it is defined by cultural overtones and works at a subliminal level with a logic of its own not many filmmakers understand.

Foreign masters like the Italian Michelangelo Antonioni (L’Avventura) and Polish guru Krzysztof Kieslowski (Three Colours: Red`85) had taken this up as a challenge. In their bid to explore the tonal possibilities, they could produce some haunting visuals. Andrei Tarkovsky (Sacrifice) was another great master of this technique. In India, we have had a few art house filmmakers like Kumar Shahani (he played around with the three primary colours in Tarang) who have also been experimenting with different palettes, though with limited success.

For these experiments to be now taken forward by mainstream Hindi filmmakers is what bodes well for Bollywood cinema. Apart from Bhansali, there is Ram Gopal Varma who could successfully use a bluish-green tone to underscore the melancholy surrounding the doomed Lolitaesque affair in Nishabd. Likewise, Vishal Bharadwaj could very evocatively play up the undercurrent of distrust and vengeance with fiery reds and yellows in Omkara. And who could have missed the sepia tones Sudhir Mishra used to capture the period feel in Khoya Khoya Chand? Feroze Khan’s Gandhi, My Father was yet another period film which employed the same palette with remarkable effect.

Whether or not these films could qualify to be box-office hits is inconsequential. What matters is that there are filmmakers within the commercial space today, who are applying themselves at raising the bar and exploring dimensions of cinematic imagery beyond the demands of straightforward entertainment. Right now, these initiatives fall within a very grey area of specialisation that Bollywood crudely describes as "film design". It is distinct from art direction or camerawork; or for that matter, what filmmakers in the past did by way of trying to establish a distinct signature style. (Remember, the dramatic interplay of light and shade in the films of Guru Dutt, Yash Chopra’s early obsession with zooming in and zooming out, Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s rapid cuts, Karan Johar’s fixation for swirling ghagra-cholis in mandatory group dances...) Present-day filmmakers have mercifully outgrown all those superficial attention-grabbers.

Today, they are all intent on matching their skills to the best in the West. Access to modern technology and exposure to latest filmmaking trends worldwide have made this possible. So do not be surprised when you see a profusion of well-toned bodies, streaked hair and tanned make-up in 2008, particularly in films like Woodstock Villa, Alibaug and Drona. For the remake of Ghajini, Aamir Khan will be showing up all sculpted and six-packed like Hrithik and Shahrukh. Then there is Mallika Sherawat working on her leather-and-lash number in an urban comedy, Ugly Aur Pagli. And underlying all these moves, we would see some very bold and imaginative experimentation in colour schemes by a new generation of enterprising filmmakers. Indeed, we are in for more exciting times in Hindi cinema.