Prakash Jha’s films have been earthy and engaging portrayals of problems in rural India. As a teen, I remember watching Mrityudand and being quite hooked – it was about the problem of moneylenders and land reforms in rural India. Both Gangajal and Apaharan gave brilliant insights into the scenario in Bihar. They transported the viewer to Bihar, and one could almost smell the earth of the locations. Also, the dialogues were such a delight – just as they would be spoken in Bihar, with that smattering of English – “Bilkul half-mind hai saala, sahib ko bhi nahin pehchaana”.
So, ever since I had first heard about Prakash Jha making Rajneeti - a film on politics; with that snapshot in the newspapers, of Katrina in a saree, waving out, a-la Sonia Gandhi – I was sold. Especially, since this would be Jha’s next after Apaharan – a movie that completely bowled me over. I just couldn’t wait to biting into a juicy portrayal of Indian politics, and being mesmerised and thrilled once again.
But as Rajneeti’s release date grew nearer, the marketing pitch of the film kept on increasing, i downgraded my expectations from the film a bit. Because, i believe that more often than not, a film’s quality is inversely proportional to the magnitude of its promotion.
So when i finally saw Rajneeti, i was completely let down. Instead of a nuanced script with sharp insights into the working of politics, what we get is a racy thriller with just too much killing, too many betrayal, and just..... too much of everything. The film was more like an Abbas-Mustan thriller rather than a Prakash Jha film. This is what happens when a filmmaker becomes successful and is finally established as commercially viable. Then come the big production houses ready to back you, provide you with a cast comprising of the top notch stars, big budgets, and essentially all the trappings required for a large scale commercial film. It is indeed hard for any human, to resist the lure of all this and remain grounded to your true style of film-making. So, with all the noise and attention, and the bigger budget, it becomes necessary to expand the target audience. In that process, scripts become racier, with too much plot and little sub-text and insight. The overall decibel level has to be raised and subtleties go out of the window, since it has to appeal to the average gross popcorn-eating viewer. The result is that that one gets a larger audience but the filmmaker’s core and loyal audience gets alienated. In fact, Mr. Jha clearly admits that he succumbed to this phenomenon in an interview with Anuradha Sengupta, post-Rajneeti – “how does it matter” he says, when asked whether he was happy over compromising his job satisfaction in favour of commercial success. The same phenomenon already happened with RGV – his films began resembling Abbas-Mustan potboilers with all the twists and turns – the best example being Sarkar Raj.
Now, I do believe that Mr.Jha has his head firmly on his shoulders, and the above explanation can only be partially attributed to the way Rajneeti turned out. The other reason being his own endeavour over the years to constantly adapt his grammar of film-making towards making it more commercial, and palatable to a larger audience. One can see that progression through his films. I think he achieved that perfect balance with Apaharan – the film was racy and still had a enough depth in content, with wonderful insights into the kidnapping scene in Bihar. But with Rajneeti, he clearly overstepped that line.
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