If Atanu Ghosh's Chhobi becomes Houseful

The title says it's a film about a film. Houseful? It too concerns reels within reels. Tolly Lights, yes, was also about producers, directors, actors, exhibitors, gossip columnists... About
men and women who live off cinema. Tollywood, in short, is the protagonist of films showing in theatres near you.

Tollygunge, once home to Utttam-Suchitra, may be surviving because of megaserials but the very name evokes celluloid memories. It still inspires the young to fight celluloid battles. The dreams and struggles, emotional crises and financial conflicts, of those inside the industry and those outside, is firing directors like Atanu Ghosh, Bappaditya Bandyopadhyay, Arjun Chakraborty and Rituparno Ghosh. Take a look.

Atanu's protagonist Angshuman returns from studying cinema in Italy to make his first feature. He fights obstacles to make a film with an actor who's lost the will to act, and an actress who's disillusioned with silly stereotypes and jatras that's her bread-earner. But the message at the end of conflicts and crime? There's a tomorrow, for Tollygunge too!

Nikhil, the hero of Houseful so sensitively played by Prosenjit, is a director who wins neither awards nor moolah. "Why not remake Tamil hits?" well wishers suggest the shortcut to Tinseltown success. But when Nikhil sets out to make a love story, somehow the reality of a terror-infested world takes over and his lovers acquire sinister shades.

The autobiographical overtones in these films are not accidental. Though Rituparno himself is screaming from a title, "every character is fictional," he has regularly sourced characters from studios and bylanes of Tollygunge. The Last Lear showcased a director's obsessive desire to have a certain actor play his protagonist. Khela was about a director who kidnaps a child to act in his film against the parents' objection. Bariwali projected a director who plays on the emotions of a forlorn landlady. Mithun in Titli, Debasree in Asukh, Sharmila Tagore in Shubho Muhurat... they're all stakeholders in Tollywood.

Tolly Lights, that launched Arjun Chakraborty as a director, also turned the arclight on the underbelly of showbiz where greed for glory drives mothers away from kids; where the casting couch is a bigger villain than Gabbar; where scripts fail and audiences don't show up.

Please note, Tollywood alone isn't smitten by itself. Short Kut: The Con is On had a struggling actor and a wannabe director. Luck By Chance had two Bollywood aspirants, one makes it, another falls by the wayside. Om Shanti Om had you've said it! the multicoloured megascreen world that's giving Hollywood a run for its money.

So, what's on? Why're directors suddenly holding a mirror to themselves? Is this a sign of soul churning about creative mediocrity? If so, how're audiences responding to the trend? Let's turn on the sound track.

"Houseful is a very personal film," says Bappaditya. "How long shall we point fingers at copyright violations but discourage original attempts for fear of box-office failure?" he asks. Then he quotes Bunuel and Fellini to prove there's no better circus than cinema. "The cross-section of individuals who come to the film industry is unique. This provides for a range of interpersonal relationships between men and women, men and men, women and women..." Why not tap these for real drama and surreal dreams?

"Filmmaking takes a backseat and human relationship becomes the real concern of Tolly Lights," Arjun says of his film, sourced from Suchitra Bhattacharya's Rangeen Prithibi. The novel had commented on today's heightened desire to make it in glam world without thinking of the baggage that accompanies it. "But whenever I wanted to show the characters' inner world, I showed it as film-within-film." And audiences had no problem making out the real from the reel.

"That's one reason why directors no longer shy from showing films within films," says Atanu. "Audiences know enough cinema today to differentiate between actors and characters. This helps us to pack in message with entertainment." His film can, then, talk about the disillusionment of a seasoned actor like Soumitra Chatterjee when he's stereotyped as a father. Or of a leading lady whose Swarna Kamal gathers dust as she does item numbers.

The real winner, though, is the audience. No page 3 can offer such entertainment.