I ask for forgiveness beforehand for writing on movies at a time when the city plus the country is trying to digest the horrific attack at a café and at an Eid day prayer congregation.
But I feel that the tendency towards violence which we see in society today, and the brutality with which abominable acts are being committed -- sometimes against minors and under age workers -- have a link to the vicious culture of underground crime, glorified relentlessly in modern-day filmdom.
We may laugh it off, take Dhaliwood movies as utter nonsense with no semblance of rationality, and simply go to watch such productions for silly sensations, but there must be some serious thought beyond the lighthearted approach.
There are people who hold a dogged view that violence in movies never has influence; well, I beg to differ. Long before machetes were used in real life to carry out savage attacks on people, the weapon was being used with fervour in celluloid.
In modern day movies -- this means films made in the last eight to 10 years -- sharp weapons have featured regularly with hacking off limbs shown in grisly detail.
In fact, in teasers and posters, film protagonists are now shown to discard the gun in favour of a large blade-like instrument.
Someone working within the industry tells me: Machetes, swords, and similar blade-like weapons accentuate the bravado of the hero.
Well, the violence shown on the large screen may not have any impact on mature people (though how many mature persons go to the halls is a question), but the young, especially the ones in rural Bangladesh, often imbibe local movies, and the perverted ideologies they try to present.
Almost inevitably, in the end, the plots always see the bad guys losing, but the hero, in most cases, begins as an underground goon, remaining at the extreme end of the law, carrying illegal weapons, delivering theatrical dialogues laced with death, vengeance, and vendetta.
In short, our current-day movie formula is pretty much based around a lionised mafia culture. Almost all heroes are seen to work for a master criminal who operates a large crime syndicate.
Most films I have seen, including the three released this Eid: Badsha, Shikari, and Shomrat have some common scenes where gang-lords move in dark-coloured cars in convoys.
This projection of power of the underworld, carrying the air of impunity, is pervasive.
The hero of today is the mastaan or the goon. Of the three major films this Eid, Shakib Khan, a leading actor of the country, plays the role of a top terror in two of them. The other one, a joint production between Bangladesh and India, has Kolkata actor Jeet, playing a thug called Don Badsha.
Obviously, all these cinematic goons, played by leading actors, eventually show some redeeming side to their characters, but their transformation for the better comes after two hours of gun-toting action, extortion, super-charged bellicose dialogue, mocking the law, and bragging about the glory of being a terror.
Our current-day movie formula is pretty much based around a lionised mafia culture. Almost all heroes are seen to work for a master criminal who operates a large crime syndicate
I am shocked to see that in an Eid release called Badsha, the character of Jeet is obsessed as a child with the film role of Amitabh in Don and has only one aspiration: To be like him.
He eventually takes the name Don Badsha; of course, to add spice to the plot, the leading heroine falls head over heels for him -- sending another wrong message to people that women are mad for such men.
To recall a real episode: About a decade ago, when the celluloid gang culture was being popularised by Bollywood, I came across a young guy from Moghbazar area who, influenced by these films, entered the underworld, becoming a gun toting guard for one of the many sleazy hotels in the area, running prostitution rackets.
Lost in a fantasy world, he developed delusions of becoming a top boss. A love affair ensued with a young sex worker, and the dreams proliferated.
A year later, he was shot and left by the garbage bin; the girl went back to her work. Hardly a dreamy end!
Just for celluloid variation, Godfather-like movies are welcome once in a while. It’s disquieting when eight out of 10 movies released now have the mafia culture as the core premise.
As a writer, I do some humour-based reviews on these movies to entertain readers. However, serious concerns arise.
When the hero’s fiery leap towards vigilante justice receives a loud applause from a young audience or when the dream realisation of a young man to become Dhaka’s top terror is welcomed with an uncontrolled scream, I laugh, but also wonder.
After the Holey Artisan carnage, there has been plenty of deliberation on how the young has become predisposed towards barbaric acts.
Well, I feel that wherever we look, brutal acts from shooting at public spaces, to killing with sharp instruments have risen with one of the reasons being the unending romanticising of the mastaan culture.
Perhaps the censor board needs to be a bit careful.
Interestingly, aside from the blood and gore of the Eid movies, the plots were stolen and, shockingly, some so-called movie connoisseurs have reportedly said of the three releases: “If such decent movies are made, then the habit of going to the cinema halls will return.”
Definition of “decent” has undergone a metamorphosis, one must say.
