Like who? The few exceptions who have been open to discussion and debate would comprise Shyam Benegal for sure, Ramesh Sippy (ever since he couldn’t quite top Sholay), Rajkumar Hirani (the lord preserve him), Farhan Akhtar (I think), Hansal Mehta (ever since he turned to reality-culled cinema with Shahid), Ashutosh Gowariker (I hope) and…naah no one else.
That asserted, what do most film reviewers dream about in the multiplex of the mind? I’d like to believe that we dream about reacting to films with emotion, honesty and with a certain individualism. We chase, often in vain, the ideal of illumination, persuasion, crystal clear thinking and writing.
The film industry is not to be indulged, any more than the filmmaker is to be told how he or she should make movies. The one would be dishonest, the other presumptuous. The public, the reader of film reviews is to be guided, certainly, but not in a simplistic manner. Criticism certainly isn’t a branch of the Consumers’ Guidance Society.
Those star ratings – on a scale of one to five stars above a review–are another story altogether. How to ‘starrify’ a movie is a pain in the neck, and worse. Like it or detest it, that dumbed-down chore, that ‘quickie’ indicator is mandatory. Those who venture forth to read the entire review below those galactic icons, in fact, deserve a certificate of bravery for their fortitude and patience.
The point is that it’s not for the critic of any persuasion to do the reader’s thinking. It is far more important for the critic to do his or her own thinking to share with the viewer. This may seem like a slight difference but all aspects considered, it is tremendous.
To offer a bit of plot summary, speedy judgments — this actor was bad, that one was good — and an arbitrary recommendation for or against the film — this kind of criticism thinks for the reader, and is perfectly worthless.
Consolably, there is another kind of criticism in which the writer develops thought processes, as it were, behind glass so transparently that the reader can see how the critical mind engages the film, and arrives at conclusions.
This tantamounts to thinking aloud in public, which the reader can agree or disagree with, in part or in toto. It invites a dialogue. It is not a fatherly pointing index finger, neither an insider’s dope, nor a brother and sister act on the lines of, “We’re all alike and if I loved or hated it, so will you.”