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Never planned ‘Shanghai’ to be blockbuster: Banerjee

Tue, 2012-06-12 10:39 ‘
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Never planned 'Shanghai' to be blockbuster: Banerjee

Dibakar Banerjee’s “Shanghai” has broken even and the director says his aim was to create a profit-making venture and not a blockbuster.

“‘Shanghai’ was never made to be the blockbuster of the year. We never thought even this would happen. We spent Rs.12 crore in the making and Rs.8 crore in the marketing. From Monday, we have been making profits. This was our aim and we have done it,” he told reporters Tuesday at Juhu PVR here.

Released Friday, “Shanghai” had a slow start but picked up during the weekend. It opened with Rs.3.2 core earnings on the first day and the collection went up by 30 percent Saturday and 35 percent Sunday.

On Monday, the film’s performance at the box office has been strong.

The film is topical as it focuses on the corruption in the political system and performances by Prosenjit Chatterjee, Abhay Deol, Emraan Hashmi and Kalki Koechlin have made it an interesting watch.

Talking about appreciation he has received from people, Banerjee said: “I have got 200 texts from people in the industry, my college, school, neighbourhood and all. They loved the film and really got the film.

“The film has impacted people regardless of the fact whether they are actors or normal people like us. There are a lot of people who have not liked the film, which is good. If a film polarises people and if they are talking about it, then it can’t be ignored.”

Dibakar also thanked the media and said that 50 percent publicity of “Shanghai” was done through media.

“I want to thank the media. The media supported us and that’s why we have done so well. Other films should be jealous of us,” he added.
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I gain new found respec t for IBOS than chutiyaas at BOI

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Nirjhar i belive shanghai was more riskier than khaani VD and evn PST because movie had no “entertaining value ” for aam junta . This was more like social commenatry on state of india and people dont watch films which are TOO REAL hence why Dhobi ghaat didnt work and swades

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by the way IMO dibalkar did much better jhob than prakahs jha in portrraying POLITICIANS

notice the way say JAIR PRAGARITI after every sentence i can pictuer real life politicain talking that way

Prakash Jha lost me in Rajnity whe made katrina “humane aason sukjhe nahi abhi tak ” speechg in pre-climax

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Not a fane of “inttelect” wanna be blog but someone posted BALANCED review on film which i m sure u can all agree on (if u ignore his chmachagiri of abhishek ) I agree his take that DB bring’s INDIA contrast from KARN JOHAR india and NRI living in middle class and NIKE shirts

Ann Jo’s Shanghai piece

When one watches Mr. Dibakar Banerjee’s (DB) ‘Shanghai’, it is hard to ignore the feeling of ‘déjà vu.’ They keep cropping back – in context to the plot, though it is adapted from a book— at key intervals and scenes during the movie proceedings. But what the heck, this is DB – he can conjure magical rabbits out of the most hackneyed of hats, thanks to his pedigree; and that is the over-riding hope that is always hovering in one’s mind during the course of this movie. Of course, the glowing reviews are something – what with Mr. Raja Sen drooling that DB should be carried on one’s shoulders as though he is the messiah of intelligent Indian cinema & Mr. Kashyap tweeting and retweeting reviews from the ‘western’ press that loved RAAVAN, RA ONE, DOSTANA and Abshishek Bachchan’s performances— that kindle this hope and one is forced to carry this baggage to the movie hall – and it is there that one feels the weight of all the glowing reviews shedding as the unspooling forces you to drop the weight of each and every shining review one has gone through in the last 48-72 hours.

For the uninitiated – i.e., for patrons that haven’t read the Greek novel ‘Z’ by Vasilis Vasilikos it is based on or watched Mr. Costa-Gavras’ cinematic adaptation of the same (& that includes me), the movie unspools through the central plot of an assassination and connects itself to different callouts of bureaucracy, democracy, ‘ideas’ of progress, treachery, globalization, and corruption, to name a few. DB builds his cinematic building over many such ‘pillars’ and shows us a crumbling structure of India whose administration firmly believes in ‘copying’ the success of China or any other developed nation but not in creating its own path to success. [Mild Spoilers begin]. One such opponent of this type of progress is bumped off and the entire story revolves around his girl-friend’s and wife’s fight for justice in bringing to book the culprits behind this crime. [Mild Spoilers end].

DB actually follows the traditional path of revealing the main culprit only at the denouement; but he reveals minute things at key intervals in the movie which then satisfyingly snowball into the climactic revelation. The film leaves one with mixed feelings as it progresses and after it ends. It is like being disappointed with the meal as a whole but impressed with certain ingredients – and it is such selective stimuli that majorly add to a sense of disappointment. Now here is the dichotomy; DB has shot this movie with such a minimalistic approach that he deserves to be lauded with the maximum decibel available at your disposal. He has, not in any scene in the movie, compromised with what he wants to show and how he visually wants to show. Absolutely no compromise. At all. Even if he showcases an ‘item’ number, the number just underlines our obsession with anything ‘foreign.’ It is akin to presenting one with a ‘gift’ that in itself is a sign of mockery. At the risk of sounding repetitive I am stressing on this only because this is the sign of a very intelligent mind. The problem is that in such a politically-charged theme, doesn’t the genre itself call for dramatics of at least some degree – however minimal? DB doesn’t think it necessary to raise the dramatic pitch of scenes even when it is a highly charged one intrinsically. (Consider the scene where the character of Ms. Kalki Koechlin (KK) discovers that one of her own is involved in this heinous crime.) The film is replete with many such scenes and they fail to deliver the ‘punch’ that might be good at such times.

While DB does not do justice in terms of a gripping narrative and tonal pitching of scenes, he succeeds tremendously in holding a mirror to the political repercussions to the man on the street/hinterland due to power-politics played out in the air-conditioned corridors of authority. And in the process he spares no one and alludes to many groan-inducing happenings in the Indian political or non-political landscape – Ms. Mayawati shamelessly flouting a garland weighed down by currency notes; referencing Enron as Genron and as a symbol of crony capitalism; or the symbiotic relationship between the Chief Minister and her Cabinet Secretary mirroring Ms. Sonia Gandhi’s and Mr. Manmohan Singh’s political relationship in an opposite direction. There are a plethora of scenes that brilliantly bring out the duality of India – an India for the foreign delegates and an India where the foot-soldiers actually toil and struggle to make a dignified living. (If the Oxford English dictionary were to neologically include ‘Johar’ and ‘Banerjee’, they could rightfully be included as ‘opposites’.) This is the dusty, sweaty, and slipper-less India; this is the India where you get NIKE and ADIDAS shirts made not in USA but printed in the GKBs (gutter ke baju) alleys of India’s towns and cities; this is the India with paan-stained and dust-imprinted walls – not the Nerolac painted ones. Even when the character is a New York returned one like KK’s Shalini, the abode she lives in India is significantly middle/upper middle-class India; not a customized Flushing Meadows’ apartment. Check out the scenes where the Mr. Abhay Deol’s (AD) Indian Administrative Services ‘ (IAS) Officer character of Krishnan asks his assistants to prepare a room for initiating an enquiry commission; or the scenes symbolizing babudom and our master-slave mentality when the lady-assistant of AD runs and closes the door instead of just walking as a normal human being or the waiters standing like school-kids when they are serving food; or the scenes depicting life-style and external accoutrement of Mr. Emraan Hashmi’s (EH) character of Jogi – brilliant stuff. There is one masterful scene where AD’s government car is stuck in an area that is occupied by the politician and his cronies’ dancing around like monkeys caring two hoots for public decency or rule of law and order. One such character jumps on the car and abuses the driver – as if it is the mistake of the public that they still don’t understand that roads are meant for dancing and monkeying around and creating public nuisance! That the idea of a developed nation lies not in just air-conditioned buildings and swanky malls and multiplexes charging 400 rupees for a movie ticket and 40 rupees for a quarter of a cup of tea but in creating public awareness and instilling respect toward public responsibility and fear of law and order is outstandingly encapsulated in this scene. This is where DB shines – and shines blindingly at that.

Coming to the performances, EH, Mr. Anant Jog (AJ) and Mr. Farooque Sheikh (FS), truly stand out. FS is brilliant in his portrayal of a ministerial bureaucrat who is happy to go along with the system and content being a happy puppet of the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). EH – aided by his physical attributes of a bloated stomach and tobacco/pan-stained teeth— sheds all his cocky mannerisms accrued in his films with the Bhatts and is fantastically in-tune with the rusticity of his character. AJ as a hapless and depressed hidden-face of ‘India Shining’ is highly effective in a brief but very vital role. AD plays his part as someone caught between idealism and the collateral realities of the IAS position he holds quite nicely; but one wonders why his character was made a Tamilian. The only value-addition he does in portraying the role of an IAS officer with a Tamil background is having phone conversations in Tamil either with his wife or his mother. Honestly, as a symbolic character representing some hope for common-sense in India, he could have been from any part of India. KK is a weaker link in the film’s strong chain of performances – thanks of course to her relatively poor Hindi— but to be fair, her character is shown to be somewhat flawed. However, when compared in absolute terms to the other performances, she does stand out as a sore thumb. Mr. Prosenjit Chatterjee’s crusader-activist character appears more as a glamorous hero – as rightly pointed out by a character in the film— rather than a foot-soldier of social activism. Pitobash is energetically effective but is in danger of being typecast as a street-smart. Cinematography is top-notch while background score is minimally used.

This then is a movie that is brilliant in parts but the sum of these parts do not necessarily add up to an outstanding whole. Is DB one of the main shining lights of ‘meaningfully entertaining’ films in India? Positively yes. Is ‘Shanghai the film? Remorsefully – No.

-An Jo