'Salaam-e- Ishq' & 'Traffic Signal'
 

Salaam-e-Ishq

It seems Nikhil Advani has achieved a lot in his one film career as a director. He has started experimenting with narrative structures now.  Some say his film Salaam-e-Ishq is a copy of a Hollywood film called ‘Love Actually’. I have not seen it. So, one of the biases I may have had in its evaluation stands cancelled.

There are six love stories in this film. They start independent of each other and finally converge into a predictably interconnected whole. Does it serve any objective in terms of bringing forth some new facets about love? No. Then why was the film made?  What is its premise? Is it to prove some kind of convergence theory, like what we saw in Babel, the Oscar-nominated film? In fact there are a lot of similarities between the two films. Both are full of coincidences that take the multiple-track narrative forward.

Are you aghast that I am comparing S-E-I with Babel? I should not be doing it. Why? Because Babel is an Oscar-nominated film? Both the films are experiments in multiple track narrative structure. Life is complex. The new generation does not understand simplicity. You must tell a story in as complex a manner as you can. That is the key to establishing your credibility as a serious creative artiste. You are a genius only when your communication is perplexingly deep.
 

This is where Babel is different from S-E-I. It is apparently deep, open-ended, with unfathomable meanings and messages. S-E-I is shallow, juvenile, has a typical Indian ending, and meaningless. Both are designed to make things difficult for lay viewers. So, incomprehensibility of communication is a desirable virtue, and a definite proof of greatness.

The viewer is at fault if he does not know his Bible and Algebra and Kant and Hegel. If he possesses a lazy brain that gets tired of watching cinematic jugglery and gimmickry on the silver screen and gives fundoo films a thumbs-down, it is his loss. Agreed. Then why is it that these filmmakers have to line up big-time stars in their films as honey traps?

A conned viewer exclaims in disgust, ‘Saale audience ko chutia banaatein hain’. That is the truth. It is all trickery touted as talent.

When you have nothing to say, you start babbling. And there will always be some idiots around who will discover a whole lot of meaning in it.
 
 

Traffic Signal

This is yet another anecdotal film. It is a sort of cinemascopic view of stereotypical events and characters around a traffic signal. The characters are always talking, in a tone reminiscent of an IPTA play or an episode of ‘Nukkad’. This is typical Hindustani style neo-realism. If there are a hundred scenes and a few thousand shots in the film, there are five thousand judgmental statements about contemporary Indian reality. It is an unbearable and unrelenting information overload.

The film also has a mourning scene around the demise of a traffic signal. It stops short of issuing a ‘traffic signal bachao’ call. In fact, Khadi, a social activist in the film, almost demands the rehabilitation of those who have lost their jobs. We come across rare nuggets of ‘researched’ facts that portray roadside hawkers and beggars as conmen who are part of a well-organised racket. This is twisting certain realities and reinforcing the hearsay as a fact. Mumbai NGOs have not raised a stink over it so far. They have become wiser. It would only serve the film’s cause and not theirs.

 

And then you have the usual paedophiles, eunuchs, drivers, prostitutes and their clients, a confidence trickster who is also a junkie, Page 3 socialites, and their oversexed young consorts, a well-fed mausi, and a whole lot of libidinal jokes and covertly lurid references.

Now, when the monotony of it all gets too obvious and boring to the director, he reverts to his favourite ploy to create high-tension drama towards the fag end of the film. He brings in the story of a builder, a politician, a local Don, a Dubai-based Godfather, and an honest government officer. The Don’s men kill the honest officer at the traffic signal and the film’s protagonist Silsila decides to spill the beans as the Bhai has betrayed his trust. The film ends.

Traffic Signal has all those characteristically mediocre elements that have become the signature style of Madhur Bhandarkar films post Chandani Bar with one exception. It is a better lighted, composed, shot and colour corrected film than Satta, Page 3, and Corporate. Who should we give the credit for this improvement - to Madhur, or his Director of Photography, or to all those expensive digital intermediate (DI) processes?

RKS

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