Lights, camera, stupidity!

To write about the plagued movie industry is a daunting task. On one hand, the common format is to make blatant copies of Tamil movies and on the other, there is a vociferous protest against the import and showing of Indian (West Bengal) movies in local halls.

In fact, both are major problems afflicting the celluloid industry. Let's take them one by one:

The first is the unending travesty of presenting so called 'shushtho cholochitro' or 'decent movies' which almost never have original plots and in some cases are actually a blend of several films made in some other country. Regrettably, it's not even the finest blend either, as we find scrawled on many spirit bottles; more of a clumsy mixture emanating from a drug addled brain.

Shockingly, a concerted drive from the government to control this almost inexorable practice of stealing plots is absent.

There has not been a single case where a film was blocked and refused screening permission due to copying. What is outrageous is that, just after Eid, a socially acknowledged filmmaker wrote an article in a Bengali paper's entertainment section, praising a copy film, dismissing the stealing of a plot as an accepted culture, and stating almost directly that this was not a problem.

Sorry, but once such legitimizing of unethical practices is printed in mainstream media, movie makers will make it their right to simply pick up from other films with impunity.

Today we are accepting stealing of the premise, tomorrow even dialogues may be picked up word for word. At least they still cannot copy the songs due to the copyright issue.

A recent Eid release called Shikari, starring local actor Shakib Khan, has had sparkling reviews in many papers, while the basic fact that it was a copy was deliberately ignored.

How newspapers gave positive reviews for this movie is certainly mystifying, when the entire plot is filled with glaring flaws, inconsistencies, and ridiculous twists.

Just to mention one, in public, with the media present, Shakib Khan, playing the role of a known assassin, raises a pistol to kill someone though no one around him notices a killer in their midst.

Maybe he is wearing a cloak to make himself invisible!

In another shoddily made aquatic sequence, done with low quality computer graphics, he swims under water, holding a gun to carry out an assassination. No, he is not wearing a scuba diving suit with oxygen masks.

Photos of people thronging the movie halls have been publicised by papers with the caption: masses are returning to see healthy films!

Truth is, due to lack of enough affordable entertainment, most middle and lower middle class people go to the cinema during Eid because they want some fun at the lowest possible cost. The quality of the movie has nothing to do with this.

Another paper ran a headline saying: Shikari did not disappoint. Some hall owners have reportedly said: if such compact, decent films are made, people will come back to movies.

It seems that definition of decency now includes stealing a plot, glamourising crime, and having too many loose ends in the premise that defy rudimentary logic.

Against such an abysmal backdrop of our own films, there is now a discontent arising from the culture of releasing Indian films, especially ones made in West Bengal.

The common cry of the local actors is that if we allow Indian films to be shown here, our own industry will be destroyed.

My question is: what is our industry? Most productions are copies, and ironically, from Tamil films, based in India.

So, if a film industry championing sub-standard copies is threatened, shouldn't we be happy? Then there is a call that if Kolkata productions are shown here, our ones need to be allowed the same privilege across the border.

I agree one hundred per cent!

Indian soap operas on TV have got our middle class in a state of trance, while unfortunately our TV channels are not shown across the border.

When the Indian PM visited about a year ago, there was a promise that a just system, to be implemented shortly, would allow balanced exchange of TV entertainment.

This hasn't happened. To be forthright, while we are getting the flood from the other side, our productions here for the small screen, many of which still have originality, cannot be seen on the other side, since the process is either blocked or complicated with too many abstruse regulations.

Coming back to cinema, will our films, which are mostly copies, find any audience in the halls in West Bengal?

Correct me if I am wrong, we are trying to save an industry thriving on the culture of pinching from others.

I apologise but cannot reconcile the strident call to save Bangladesh celluloid with the prevailing norm of recklessly using someone else's movie plot.

First, let's address the main anomaly – the tradition of plagiarizing. The appeal should be to come up with an original film premise.

Of course, we must not allow Indian movies and programmes unless they reciprocate. However, in case of big screen productions, the need is for creative homemade storylines.

To touch on another unnerving matter, why is it that in the current local filmdom, seven out of ten movies center around a hero who is an underworld Don hero, brandishing illegal weapons, becoming a vigilante justice giver?

The answer is simple, this idea of glamourising criminals is again stolen from others. For this Eid, three out of four movies had the Mafia ideology as their main theme, with the hero shown as a gun-toting goon.

We are led to believe that such films are 'decent' and will play a role in bringing back audience to the cinema halls. Heaven help me!

The rallies on the streets by actors, directors, and producers should be about making the celluloid industry in Bangladesh a creative one.

In a globalised world, keeping out others from competition is almost impossible and the art of stealing will inevitably be discovered.

Survival and development, along with global recognition, will come when movies become original and number of anachronisms is reduced, with celluloid artistes making an effort to add their own flair, instead of trying to emulate someone else.