Mamata's Bangla film diktat and the Devdas syndrome

India Today

21 hours ago

It was Assamese filmmaker Pramathesh Chandra Barua who turned Sarat Chandra's Devdas into a movie in 1935 and made the tragic hero a legend. The Bengali film in which Barua played the eponymous hero was an instant commercial hit, and spawned several Hindi versions over the decades but couldn't match the OG film's success. Devdas isn't just a film but has come to represent the journey of films in India. Devdas has also become synonymous with a person who wallows in self-pity.advertisementBarua's Devdas of 1935 witnessed success when the Bengali film industry was known worldwide. It is the same industry that has slid and needs corralling from the giant Hindi film industry, Bollywood.On August 13, the West Bengal government of Mamata Banerjee made it a must for theatres in the state to screen Bangla films with at least one screening in the prime time slot of 3 PM to 9 pm. Bangla films every day, 365 days of the year.
This sounds like a diktat, and a symptomatic treatment of deep-rooted issues. But some industry experts have lauded Bengal's move, calling it much-needed."Film business is best left to the law of demand and supply," says Avijit Ghosh, senior journalist and author of multiple books on Indian cinema."It is important to nurture local film industries, but this is not the right way," Ghosh tells India Today Digital. He says "Subsidising shooting, giving easy loans to producers, and tax-free status to films" are better ways to boost regional film industries.Utpal Borpujari, a filmmaker who has won the National Film Award twice, welcomes West Bengal's decision. He says even European nations have strong film policies to support local cinema to prevent them from being gobbled up by Hollywood.The idea is to give equal screening opportunity to regional films over the Hindi film industry.After the success of Devdas in Bengali in 1935, Barua directed the Hindi version of the film the following year with KL Saigal in the lead. That didn't match the original film's success.However, by 1939, the Bengali film industry, based in Calcutta (now Kolkata) was to hit a rough patch from which it would never return to its heydays.HOW SCREEN RESERVATION MIGHT HELP REGIONAL CINEMATalking about the Bengal government's move, Borpujari sites Maharashtra's example."Maharashtra already has something like this, and it has benefitted the Marathi film industry to a great extent, bringing in audiences to the theatres," Borpujari says.He says such steps are needed even for Assam, his native state, as it is a major struggle to get screening space in the face of Bollywood film releases which dominate all screen space due to bulk bookings.Even regional films doing well have to be pulled down from theatres because of Bollywood's dominance model.advertisement"It's a very good step to support local cinema. Assam needs something like this. Though Assam doesn't yet produce as many films as Bengal or Maharashtra per year, a workable model needs to be found," suggests Borpujari.Maharashtra's move to boost the Marathi film industry by reserving screen time has worked because of the state's film-making infrastructure, which ironically, has developed with the rise of Bollywood.Screen reservation in Bengal might be fine, but does the Bangla film industry produce enough movies to attract audiences.In June, 13 Bangla movies vied for theatre space with filmmakers questioning why they weren't getting enough shows, according to a report in The Times of India.The big question is if good-quality content is available as it has been a complaint that the industry was resorting to cheap remakes of South blockbusters. When the original films are available on OTT, will anyone go to the theatres to watch remakes? Will lack of good content turn theatres into ghost buildings?EXODUS OF TALENT AND BENGAL GOVT'S FILM DIRECTIVEAvijit Ghosh, whose many books include Cinema Bhojpuri, says, "Putting the onus on film distributors and theatres isn't a democratic way of encouraging local films".advertisement"In the past, different states have imposed similar diktats with indifferent results," he adds, hinting that the outcome might not really be positive for the Bangla film industry.In fact, Assam, during the peak of Ulfa-led insurgency, saw a ban on Hindi movies after threats from the outfit. Dozens of theatres shut down.Manipur too witnessed an undeclared ban on Hindi movie screenings for two decades. People defied the ban in 2023 to watch the Vicky-Kaushal starrer Uri, which was based on India's surgical strikes.What Ghosh suggests instead of a blanket diktat is that the Bengal government diagnose the deep-rooted problems before offering a treatment."The Bengal government should be looking deeper into the problems ailing the film industry, which was once famous globally," Ghosh tells India Today Digital.The Bengali film industry, now referred to as Tollywood, was India's foremost till around 1939, when World War II started.The threat of aerial bombing of Calcutta by Japanese forces during WW II got theatres in the city to shutter and industry stalwarts to relocate to Bombay (now Mumbai).The impact of this migration was clearly visible in the current state of the Bangla film industry.advertisementAfter the wartime exodus of talent to Bombay, Bengal's film industry struggled to reclaim its former dominance, but it retained cultural prestige through the rise of the parallel cinema movement in the 1970s and 1980s.Visionaries like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen, and Ritwik Ghatak kept Bangla cinema in the global conversation, while commercial hits from Uttam Kumar to Prosenjit Chatterjee drew mass audiences at home.However, over the last two decades, the industry has been plagued by an overreliance on formulaic remakes of South Indian blockbusters, leading to creative stagnation. Srijit Mukherji's arrival briefly offered a breath of fresh air, blending intelligent storytelling with box-office appeal. Yet, despite occasional good films, the industry has largely continued down the same repetitive path. It has been struggling to balance artistry with mass entertainment.TRINAMOOL TURNS ACTORS INTO POLITICIANSIf Bangla film industry is to be resurrected, it has to be supported with financing and infrastructure, and not knee-jerk solutions."These methods [resorted to by Bengal] are shortcuts, which seek to avoid the real issue for populist reasons," says Ghosh, the author of When Ardh Satya Met Himmatwala: The Many Lives of 1980s.The timing of the move by the Trinamool Congress-led state government makes one question the intentions.advertisementWest Bengal is headed for Assembly election in 2026, and Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool is taking on the BJP with 'Bhasha Andolan' or language agitation as a key plank.Trinamool Congress's greatest contribution to Bengals film industry is to turn stars into politicians.From Moon Moon Sen and Dipankar Dey to Soham Chakraborty, Dev, Nusrat Jahan, Mimi Chakraborty, Neel Bhattacharya and Saayoni Ghosh, the list is really long.People also blame Trinamool's nepotism and politics of vengeance against actors and filmmakers among the reasons for the slide in the industry, which was gathering some pace since 2010.This is exactly why the move of screen reservation is accused of being motivated by politics and wallowing in self-pity, just like Devdas.Devdas, the tragic hero, is a metaphor for loser mentality.The biggest tragedy with Devdas is that though many around him sympathise with him, no one seems resolute enough to make him kick the bottle.Like Devdas, the Bangla film industry too needs help and support, not sympathy. Bangla filmmakers are inheritors of legends like Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Rituparno Ghosh and Aparna Sen. The way ahead should be one of pride, not of self-pity.- EndsTune InMust Watch