{mosimage}Last week there was a gala ceremony at Dubai named IIFA Awards - Intrernational Indian Film Academy Awards function. Even though this is the seventh year of IIFA awards, this is the first time South Indian movies have been added to the section, that too in the non competitive section. Which means the South Indian movies weren't taken into consideration for competition category but mere exhibition category. On the awards function Mamooty, the malayalam superstar, in his speech came strongly on those awards. He had said that it should have been right named as "International Hindi Film Awards" as Indian movies are beyond the Bollywood with exceptionally good movies being made it South.
Even though he was right in pointing out that Indian movies means the conglomerate of regional film industry also along with Bollywood, I just want to look this differently. Admitted Malayalam & Bengal film industries WERE once among the "intellectual" film industry, their stands are poor now. The state of other prominent film industries like Tamil and Telugu are still more gruesome. The regional film industry is still resting on its laurels, living in the world of past and refusing to acknowledge the advancements of Hindi film industry.
{mosimage}The state of Tamil industry is absolutely pathetic. In the pretext of drawing youngsters into theatres, it has become a soft porn film industry. On the other hand, in the name of heroism, the crude fares dished out by the heroes who are in the dreams of becoming next Chief Minister, craving for mass appeal will be better if left unsaid and unacknowledged. In the introduction scene if the hero gets down from the car, it will take five minutes for him to get down with every his finger and parts shown in close up. If any director wants to make a "normal" hero movie he can do with only new comers, because any hero in his second film itself wants to establish as "HERO" retorting to mindless heroisms antics.
All what tamil directors know is only "Love", all forms of love unseen love, unsaid love, young age love. Else a virtuous hero who has a heroine drooling over him, but his sister will become pregnant before her marriage by villian's son, not by rape (what a diverse upbringing between a brother and sister by the same parents), five fights, five "kutthu" songs of which one must be in the voice of Udit Narayan. Thats why we have some of our best directors like Maniratnam opting to make movies in Hindi rather than Tamil. There is a major exodus of talented technicians like Ravi K Chandran, Jeeva, PC Sri Ram, AR Rahman, Sabu Cyril and Srikar Prasad to Hindi movies.
{mosimage}Malayalam is still worser. Once "intellectual" industry is now in shambles riding solely on the shoulders of "M" superstars. Other than them there are no major stars barring Dilip to an extent. The cinema halls in kerala find playing Tamil & Hindi cinemas as safer bet rather than their own malayalam movies. It is a fashion for the youngsters to say that they like Tamil songs (already "kacchada" songs) against malayalam music once rooted in melody and style. Talented singers like KJ Yesudas and Chitra had already reduced their singing due to lack of quality music directors. All the malayalam heroines are in Chennai and Hyderabad doing Tamil & Telugu movies where the money is more. This applies even to young malayalam heroes like Prithviraj & Sunil who prefer to do only Tamil movies. Atleast Telugu and Kannada film industries are unapologetic that they are basically entertainment industries, so they don't crave for awards and "intellectual" competitions.
The state of Hindi industry is very good when compared to few years ago. The diversity of their stories is amazing. Unlike Tamil film industry, they have a hard bound script and a narration session before commencing the shooting. Can Tamil film industry make a "Page 3" or "Parineeta", "Black" or even a "Murder"? Although Hindi movies' soul tend to get lost in the gloss, their subjects needs to be appreciated. Even SRK & Aamir Khan play a normal guy next door in their movies without specially "choreographed" introduction scenes. I don't see Tamil and Malayalam movies except few rare cases.
The bottomline is before Mamooty went livid on the stage of IIFA, had he given the current status of Tamil and Malayalam films a thought for a couple of minutes, he wouldn't have done so. It is better to be unacknowledged rather than exposed and being ridiculed for crude fares dished out by South Indian film industry. Also the North Indian magazines' reaction of this gesture by not dignifying them or even refusing to publish them needs to be commended.
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