Tuesday, March 17, 2020
What plagues Nepali movies?
The following opinion piece was published on August 31, 2019 in Republica. The direct link to the article is here.
What plagues Nepali movies?
Recently, two supposedly super-hit Nepali movies uploaded
in Youtube caught my attention: Anmol KC starrer “Kri” and Ramesh Upreti
starrer “Aishwarya.” These movies highlight major issues plaguing the Nepali
movie industry today.
First, Nepali filmmakers need to ditch the “star
system.” Bollywood and Hollywood movie stars held sway over audiences for
decades, but the formula is now failing. Audiences are ditching big stars for
better stories and better performances. Look at Bollywood today. Stars can no
longer phone-in their performances. Zero, Tubelight, and Thugs of Hindustan
could not even recoup their costs.
Movie-watching audience in Nepal today is more
sophisticated than what Nepali filmmakers think. Movies can no longer succeed
on a star’s looks. You need good actors and good stories. There are dozens and
dozens of good theater actors in Nepal today, honing their skills and mastering
their craft. Only a handful of them have got opportunities in movies. Why
aren’t Nepali filmmakers looking more to theatres to scout good acting talents?
Second, Nepali filmmakers suffer from the “khichdi
syndrome.” A movie gets made, the filmmaker is interviewed, and his/her
response always is: “This movie is for everybody. It has romance, action,
thriller, suspense, and whatnot.” My question to these filmmakers is: are you
making a movie or a khichdi? Kri and Aishwarya both suffer from the khichdi
syndrome. There is a reason why we have one dedicated day in the year for eating
khichdi: nobody likes eating khichdi every day. When will Nepali filmmakers
realize that the audience can only tolerate so many khichdi movies in a year?
The audience today grows up watching movies from
Bollywood, Hollywood, and other movie industries around the world. We recognize
a crappy movie when we see one, and a good movie when we see one. This is why
even a mildly decent movie like Jatra or Loot ends up receiving lots of love
from the audience. These were not great movies, but they were better than the
other 99 khichdis that were cooked that year.
Third, filmmakers attempt to mask poor story and
performance with songs filmed in exotic locales. This is great for promoting domestic
tourism, but this is not why you make a movie. Jharana Thapa recently blamed
audiences for not being appreciative of the difficulty of filming songs in remote
mountains and lakes. The audience does not care how, when, and where you filmed
your movie or song. The audience only cares whether it was entertained or not.
It only cares whether the 500 rupees it just spent on the movie was worth it.
Maybe a few decades ago, people did go to the movies
to see Bollywood songs filmed in Switzerland. That is no longer the case these
days because songs get uploaded into YouTube months before the movie releases. If
going to the movies means going to watch beautifully filmed songs, why go if
you have already seen it in YouTube?
At the end of the day, a movie tells a story. That is
where the focus should be. Most song placements in movies don’t make sense
anyway. Placements are random and often hinder the flow of the story. Kri had a
middling story, but its editing saves the overall movie. Aishwarya was all over
the place with poor story, dialogues, and editing. The first half-hour of the
movie makes no sense. Aishwarya’s songs were filmed in exotic locations, but
had overtly bad computer paint job (whatever the movie-variant of a photoshop
is) with grass and hills painted awfully in post-production.
Fourth, some think of the movie industry as the
quickest way to achieving riches and fame. This is why the industry is filled
with dreamers and charlatans. Many dreamers are often genuine movie and art
lovers. They enter the industry to fulfill their personal dreams or hope to steer
the industry towards a better direction. Some succeed, some fail. The chutzpah
of two dreamers making a movie that tops every movie critics’ best-of list is
necessary despite the movie’s failure. It shows the potential of the medium to
inspire and awe. Movies like Hari may end up making no money, but they still
need to be made.
Sadly, there are more charlatans than dreamers. How
else do you explain the industry churning out 100 movies a year? Charlatans
find a gullible financier for their movie. The movie flops, and the financier
disappears. The charlatans simply move on to find a different gullible person
with money. This “do and die” filmmaking process does not last, and the
charlatans’ crimes are coming home to roost. Financiers ran this year. If news
reports are to be believed, we will see only half the number of movies this
year than last year. The industry needs to get rid of these charlatans.
Just as most Nepali movies today are “love stories,” most
of the 200 or so movies made annually in Hong Kong during the 1990s were gritty
action thrillers. By 2000, Hong Kong was making only 40 movies a year because
audiences got tired of watching the same story over and over again 200 times a
year. Nepali audiences are tired of watching the same story 100 times a year. If
Nepali filmmakers want the audience to pay 500 rupees to go watch their movies
in a multiplex, they need to raise their filmmaking standards.
Finally, there is a reason why the industry is called
the “movie business.” Filmmakers are in the business of making their customers
happy. If 99 movies flop every year, isn’t that the clue that you are not
meeting customer demand? If you produce three movies in a row with the same
story and characters, with the only change being songs filmed in London this
time instead of Mustang and Manang, the audience quickly wises up to your
tactic.
Nepali filmmakers have a variety of excuses for their
failure. The only question they should be asking while making a movie is: “Is
this entertaining?” Sadly, for 99 movies every year, the answer is a resounding
“No.”
Labels: aishwarya, kri, nepali movies
Sunday, March 15, 2020
The Director and the Troll
The following opinion piece was published on June 15, 2019. The direct link to an edited version of the article can be found here.
The Director and the Troll
The Milan Chams—Meme Nepal
saga has shown that Milan Chams is the opposite of Voltaire. Chams disagrees to
disagree. This saga has shown that in addition to being a mediocre filmmaker,
Mr Chams also has no sense of humor. He should avoid making any comedies in the
future.
Richard Dawkins coined the term
“meme” in his book The Selfish Gene to
explain how information spreads through a society. Dawkins’ idea of a meme was
something that may happen unknowingly or subconsciously, and it is often difficult
to trace its origin. Dawkins’ original idea is a cultural phenomenon that
arises organically without anyone taking credit.
Sometime during the 1990s,
when the Internet exploded, the “Internet meme” started gaining popularity. An
Internet meme differs significantly from Dawkins’ idea. An Internet meme is,
often, easy to trace due to digital footprints. Internet meme creators are also
more than happy to take credit for their creations.
Internet usage has surged in
Nepal as computers and Internet subscriptions have become more affordable and
readily available. As more and more Nepalis get access to the Internet, the
spread of meme culture will only increase. This culture thrives in commenting
on social, political, philosophical, cultural and other changes through images
and videos. Pranesh Gautam, with Meme Nepal, is a member of that culture.
This saga shows that Chams
fails to realize the movie industry that he works in and the meme culture that
Gautam works in have two things in common.
First, both use the freedom
of expression to thrive. It allows Gautam to troll his audience through
mediocre memes. It allows Gautam to call a movie bad. Whether a movie is
actually bad is besides the point. Your movie may win an Oscar, but if I don’t
like it, I still have the freedom to shout from the mountain tops that your
movie is bad, bad, bad. Chams uses the same freedom of expression to troll his
audience with mediocre movies. Both Gautam and Chams have the freedom to do
that. And, as consumers of both these cultures, people like me watch their
products and cringe.
Second, Gautam and Chams both
rely on audience interaction to make their products popular. Successful and
repeated interaction is what makes both movies and memes popular. Both require
word-of-mouth to become popular. If enough people do not watch a movie and tell
their friends how good the movie is, thus enticing others to go watch the
movie, the movie fails. Similarly, enough people have to see a meme and forward
it to their friends who they think will LOL at the meme.
Chams has accused Gautam of
working towards destroying the Nepali movie industry. It is sad to see that not
many in the Nepali movie industry have come out against Chams’ statement. Chams
is a mere member of the industry; he is not THE industry. Gautam providing a
poor review of Chams’ movie does not constitute a grand scheme to destroy the
Nepali film industry. That is utter nonsense from Chams.
The Chams—Meme Nepal saga
also speaks volumes about the kind of society we live in. It shows that people
in power seem to be very thin-skinned and fail to take even a slight criticism
in stride. One little criticism from one powerless guy, and Chams used the full
force of his celebrity power and his connections to put that guy behind bars.
It has happened so easily and government agencies have been more than happy to
oblige the filmmaker. Nepal Police has shown, yet again, how powerful people
are able to get accomodating services from the police at will. The Court has
shown its eagerness to please an individual filmmaker and impose unjust
punishment on someone who simply said bad things about a stupid movie. What
does this tell us? That democratic liberties rank below a filmmaker’s hurt
sentiments?
Let us be honest here.
Gautam’s video is bad, in the sense that it failed to be “forwardable” to
friends and has very few LOL moments. It failed to be memeable. In the grand
scheme of things, Gautam’s video posisbly had no effect on Chams’ movie’s box
office collections. That movie did not fail because some guy called Pranesh
Gautam made a ridiculous video about the movie using even more ridiculous
memes.
Milan Chams fails to
recognize that millions of memes are created every year and they die poor
deaths. Only a handful make it big and become popular. Does that remind Chams
of something? It should. That is also the story of the Nepali film industry. Only
a handful of movies every year become hits. The movie that Chams made did not
have a good word of mouth. He simply made a movie that sucked. That is a fact.
Total viewership and total box office collections are facts.
Meme Nepal had nothing to do
with Milan Chams making a movie nobody wants to watch. It is time for Chams to
recognize that he has set a very bad precedent by campaigning against freedom
of expression. He has more to lose from this saga than the guy who makes memes
in the Internet.
Chams recently gave an
interview to a reporter from The Kathmandu Post saying he wanted to teach
Gautam “a lesson.” And, Chams has failed on that, too. He may have put the guy
behind bars, but the lesson that Nepali film audiences like me has now learned
is that Milan Chams is a bully who cannot handle the truth. I have read many
reviews of his new movie Bir Bikram 2. They all say his new movie is, in fact,
bad. It has loud acting, is riddled with cliches, and has misogynistic
storyline and characters.
If Chams has any decency left
in his being, he needs to apologize to the public for the scene he has created,
withdraw his case, and set Pranesh Gautam free.
Then, they both can get back
to becoming better at whatever they were doing. Being a better filmmaker. Being
a better comedian.
Labels: Bir Bikram 2, Freedom of Expression, Meme Nepal, Milan Chams, Pranesh Gautam
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