Fashion – Is Madhur Bhandarkar becoming stereotypical?

Posted on by meetramz

My wife and i burnt some midnight oil yesterday catching up on the latest “Fashion” in town. For a night show at the Inox in Chennai, it was houseful revealing that Madhur Bhandarkar has built up quite a strong brand loyalty among the multiplex goers. I have been impressed with his Page-3, Corporate as well as Traffic signal (i havent seen Chandni Bar yet) and was eagerly looking forward to Fashion – his latest biopic on cracking open the insides/travails/gliterrati of this industry. At the end of 3 hours (peperred with some bad nachos at the counter and some moderate popcorn), i could not relate to Madhur’s creation as much as the earlier ones. It is quite possible that this is a world little understood by the likes of myself with middle-class upbringing and whose ambitions/dreams still fall within the realms of having a normal, non-glamorous existence.

There is also a strong possibility that we have got used to madhur’s story-telling technique which seems to falling into a pattern – Giving an initial sneak preview of the industry, the protoganist with either dreams or idealistic views who quickly understands that all that glitters is not gold and who initially finds caring gay/straight friends (she does indulge in a romance with one of them which breaks as she catapults into stardom) and the gradual sucking of the protoganist into the muck (at least of one of whose adventures will shock us) and finally nirvana. To a large extent, all the 3 of his earlier movies seem to follow this pattern and Fashion seems to follow the trend. Meghna Mathur (potrayed by Priyanka Chopra), the starry eyed, spunky middle-class lass from Chandigarh whose journey into the Fashionable circles of mumbai is the protagonist and the movie diligently follows this journey. A standout performance by Kangana Ranaut as the hotshot model Shonali Gujral who gets sucked into the muck of the industry is the highlight of the movie. This resonates strongly with the recent discovery of a model who was found begging in the streets of Delhi.

Overall, all the ingredients were around but somehow the overall dish did not taste as well not because it was not well made but because we have got used to the taste. I can see a clear pattern emerging between characters of Meghna Mathur, Madhavi Sharma (Page 3), Silsila (Traffic Signal) and Nishigandha Dasgupta (Corporate). I am still a big fan of madhur who can be assured that i will definitely buy tickets for his next movie but i would like him to re-invent himself as he strives to be the most intelligent director that bollywood has seen for a long time.

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