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Bare-backed heroines rule Bollywood |
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Thursday, March 25, 2004 |
 The hiatus at the movies seems to have affected the film industry’s libido. Suddenly everyone is coming out with films about men and women in their underwears, and even less.
In Anurag Basu’s Murder we see the controversial Mallika Sherawat sun-bathing semi-nude with her co-star Ashmit Patel. Three decades ago actress Rehana Sultan had created a furore by posing with her naked legs sprawled into an inverted ‘V’ for B.R Ishaara’s Chetna.
Does Murder and its bare-backed heroine hope to revive the era of the wanton seductress? And how far would this provocative image take the film at the box office?
Another film, another stab. Karan Razdan who has so far had no luck as a filmmaker is all set to unleash more barebacked women and bare-chested women in his suggestively entitled film Hawas (lust).
Hawas (the title was earlier used by Sawan Kumar in a 1974 film where yesteryears’ vamp Bindu played a nymphomaniac!) and Murder (the film was initially entitled far more suggestively as Triangle) scheduled for the last week of March and the first week of April fling forward a new-age thesis about nudity.
The frame-by-frame ripoff of Tom Shadyac’s Dragonfly bombed. Basu has now borrowed Adrian Lyne’s steamy film on adultery Unfaithful as the source-reference for his second feature film.
Murder is the story of a bored wife who strays into a lustful liaison with a sinister stranger. Razdan, also from television (remember the successful detective serial Tehkikaat on National Television with the late Vijay Anand in the lead?) made his first feature film Roshni featuring Milind Soman, Bikram Saluja and newcomer Roshni last year. The film got into serious financial and was shelved for good.
At a loose end, Razdan hit upon the magic formula - an in-your-face sexiness wrapped in music songs and other ingredients. Whereas Roshni found no takers Hawas found instant buyers all over the country. Razdan has now moved on to another steamy triangle called Girlfriend about a lesbian relationship.
Deepak Shivdasani whose conventional love triangle Yeh Raaste Hain Pyar Ke bit the dust two years ago is back in the reckoning with the tale of a tart named Julie. Again , the bare-backed actress (Neha Dhupia) has the audience panting for more. Like his colleagues in the aphrodisiacal race Shivdasani insists Julie isn’t a sleazy film. "It’s a sensitive depiction of a prostitute’s life. I wouldn’t want my film to be treated as semi-porn."
But the film market which is in the doldrums would insist on projecting films on provocative themes such adultery and prostitution as food for the libido. Aruna Raje’s Tum got itself into a tight budge by refuting its raunchy image before release. The film’s publicist who was pulled up by leading lady Manisha Koirala for focussing on the love-making scenes now has the last laugh. "The fact is the few who came to see the film didn’t do so to watch the performances or the direction but for the skin show."
The general belief in the film trade is, either a film has to have big stars or big naked bodies to get an audience. Hence this season at the movies is bracketed by Hawas and Murder on one end and the Shah Rukh Khan opus Main Hoon Na on the other end.
There’re just no half-measures for the film trade this summer.
Source: Sify.com |
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