My opinion of Madhur Bhandarkar's films before Fashion

Chandni Bar, Page 3, Corporate and Traffic Signal. These are some of the most talked movies of the last decades. And for a reason. They are all directed by Madhur Bhandarkar. In all his films, the director has been taking up relatively new, bold and un-comfortable issues in our society. There is no doubt that this guy had creativity and talent. And the courage to speak on such rare topics. And he must be appreciated for that.

However, I (and many others) thought that there was a same-ness to all his movies so far. That some of the things that he portrayed were blown out of proportion. And sometimes, they were too sadist. Those movies somehow made an impression in my mind that this fellow is trying to project a wrong story by showing too many characters doing far too many wrongs. For example - after Page 3, one got a feeling that almost everybody involved in journalism/bollywood had some or the other dark side to him/her. And in Traffic Signal, it was portrayed as if every homeless at the signal was harrassed and every signal was manipulated by the system, At times, I would call him guilty of trying to showcase too many issues - homesexuality, polygamy, pedophiles, drugs and so on.

However the effect that this had on youth was immense. A lot of people that I used to speak to, had comments like: "Dude, you have got to see the movie Traffic Signal, he has shown the REAL story of the poor!". Somehow, this guy made almost the entire youth believe his stories although they were mostly over-exaggerated. It was almost as if he used all the odd topics only to create cheap publicity and add spice to the story. So that it could sell more. And so did he succeed in doing. This was the main reason why I did not like any of his movies so far.

But in come Fashion, and all that has changed. More in the next write-up.

Cheers,
- Ashutosh