Delhi Belly: Avant-garde Cinema for the uninitiated

Of DK Boses, Disco Fighters, Constipated unbathed men and the rugged look of the 2011 urban Indian.

Sat Morning. For starters, I turned straight to the Mumbai Mirror Saturday edition to check on how the movie’s fared with the critics. Glad to read the first line which implied that for each decade comes a movie which redefines or rather defines the way Indian cinema is going to be for the next decade or so. In 2001, it was Dil Chahta Hai; flash forward 2011 its Delhi Belly. I was excited – was I to witness some path breaking cinema a mere hours later? It certainly did turn out to be path breaking, but not in a way I’d expect.

Lets cut to the chase. I have stayed a couple of years in Delhi. Actually that wouldn’t even matter for proving the flaw the movie comes up with right in one of its first few scenes – I mean who wears blankets in a Delhi summer (aggravated by the virtually non-existent ceiling fan at Imran Khan & co’s residence). So was the blanket present merely to canvass a fat man’s butt crack? Possibly? Precisely, is what I’d think. The movie stars a constipated fat boy trying his luck at doing a Jack Black – at his unbathed, unshaven, obese best. It also stars a pointless existence of Vir Das whose character surprises me the most as he- a 25/30 + guy- shaves his head off (characteristically pointlessly) once dumped by his girl friend for another loser. I mean I know a friend or two who’d do this (and rather have) when they were 18 or so. But who in their right frame of mind would do it at 25+ (add to that someone with a seemingly decent job – one good enough to make ends meet, to say the least).

The other loser has only one scene to his name in which the director, via this actor, tries to take a dig at people with unconventional jobs such as that of a cartoonist (as portrayed by Das) with the actor laughing off (with an apocryphal snort) largely at people with unconventional jobs. Why? Maybe just to prove that there are still some “narrow minded” people who look down upon such jobs in our society? Portray such people as loser and there you have it – a “connect” with the all-embracing young urban Indian. The director tries to titillate the audiences via this fat boy’s role of a photographer who’s lewd enough (and brashly so) of aiming his lens to capture images of a model’s breasts. Talking about the model – look out for yet another pointless mojo of “I love you (as I hate you)” or vice versa or whatever. Coming back to the fat, unshaven, unbathed boy – he even manages to squeeze a breast of a fat whore. Why? Mere titillation-creation efforts I’d say.

The movie tries to do what many a Bollywood film since the Om Shanti Om fame have tried to do i.e. MOCK. The movie has a character named Disco Fight via which yesteryear Bollywood disco stars are being mocked at. I mean I ain’t a big advocate of white pants and glares-in-the-night disco dances some of our famed Bollywood yesteryear stars are notoriously remembered for. But I respect that cinema as a part of the decade it belonged to. I as a movie goer don’t wish to be proved the same point again and again by one film after another about how our generation would consider those scenes/films downright ham.

DB is full of clichés too – the landlord-tenant rent issues followed up by the blackmail-the-landlord-to-save-rent moment as a case in point. Vijay Raaz’s get-up ends up as a complete pull off out of Aks (remember Manoj Bajpai’s plain black loose shirt, long hair look). Vir Das manages to do a rendition (expressions included) of Rahul Bose (Jhankar Beats fame – remember the weird boss-subordinate scenes of Rahul Bose’s from JB).

The director tries to pull a connect with the audiences by branding this movie as an “English” film – something which the movie boards at cinemas proudly display (and something which previous hindi films with predominantly English dialogs didn’t – remember Mr and Mrs Iyer.) Segmenting for the audiences is a fair deal, you’d say. I’d agree. But the point here being that the movie wanted itself to be marketed for “our generation” i.e. the generation of the English-speaking, outgoing, free-sex-accepting (read the oral sex scene of the protagonist and his fiancée) youth. The protagonist Imran Khan manages to keep a stubble throughout the movie as the director continues his endeavour for establishing a connect with our generation’s young man image of the rugged, unshaven, dishevelled look (which for the record I ain’t against; what I wouldn’t vouch for though is to pull a gimmick like that sheerly to build a “connect”).

Other countless technical (logic defying) flaws – Delhi (or for that matter any major) airport does not sport Rishi Kapoor 80s (or for that matter any) Bollywood songs on their terminal tele-displays, 25+ guys staying in absolute dirty conditions with cockroaches roaming around pizza slices and orange juice (which later are used as substitutes for toilet paper) and yet having clean, ironed, fashionable sets of clothes.

All in all this movie ends up being a complete disaster, subtly put. It surely does/will have its own fan following – an ilk of youth who think this is the way forward for Bollywood cinema. I respect the “to each his own” fundamental especially when it comes to the world of Art (cinema certainly included) and in that sense of things I’d say this type of cinema was nothing short of being regressive. Rewind a few decades back – Jaane bhi do yaaron!