What's wrong with Bombay Velvet?
The marketing line should have been enough for any cinephile to get goosebumps. Atleast to me, it looked like Martin Scorcese and Robert-de-Niro are getting together for the first time. If this combination isn't enough , what more could a cinegoer want! Atleast, the day-1 would have been exploding at the Box-Office.
But No! Flop! Biggest flop of the year. This is what you get Mr. Kashyap. The problem with the indian audience is that the dumb people are all for Khans and Item songs and the intelligent ones are too obsessed with the content. They don't care about your 200 vintage cars, 25,000 kilos of costumes, antique trains, trams, fascinating sets, realism, live-recorded jazz music from Prague. They would have never noticed the extent to which you went into detailing. They never looked at the collars of the shirts your actors were wearing, Tommy guns from Germany! Who cares!
Mr. Kashyap,
In a country where Chetan Bhagat is the Best-Selling Author and Chennai Express and Kick are the biggest box-office hits, you can't expect them to appreciate a movie like that of yours! Even the intelligent ones here are no better than mediocre ones in other countries!
Mediocrity prevails here! I go to the book-stores, I leaf through the best-selling books, I get upset. I go for the movies, I am upset with the 95% of the movies which come out. I remember you talking about Paanch in one of your interviews, where you talked about how a producer talked to you about "Darkness" in the movie (To other people: He meant that the lights were not good!). And this is how, most of our people are!
The other thing Sir, is that your movies in general are dark. There is violence. Censorship is not the only thing you face . You face frustrated people who won't pay you to watch your content. Gangs of Wasseypur did well because you spent less. Fantom's Huterrr did well for the same reason. On one side when we say that the Indian audience is changing, you have to realize that not only a section of it is changing but the people who are changing are only giving chance to movies like Queen, Lunch-box & Piku. These movies have some sort of realism which people relate to, in terms of acting, dialogues and locations. The scripts are good. But the main thing is that these movies have emotional touch and soft comedy as key elements. So, people know these are good movies and at the same time, there is no violence or sex, so they can watch it with their families.
For Example: When I go to watch a movie like Piku, I can carry my whole family along with me and the children too. But when I go for Bombay Velvet I go alone or with someone outside the family. So, Piku earns 1200-1600 bucks from my family while Bombay Velvet just earns 200.
On top of that, the narrative in Bombay Velvet is very experimental. If you could have gone with Rosie Naronha or the Police Officer (played by Kay Kay Menon) narrating the story, as in Gangs of Wasseypur, the movie would have still done a better job. Mr. Kashyap, in India you can't be creative with 120 Crores on board. The creativity which the audience would appreciate and understand here would be only till your last low-budget movie.
I had expected a revolution in the industry with this movie. I guess it just got delayed. A great try!
बाप जी के चरण स्पर्श ।
