Jallikattu: Losing Out On The Oscar, Again

When would we stop sending the wrong films to the Oscars, only to be rejected?

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Jallikattu: Losing Out On The Oscar, Again
When would we stop sending the wrong films to the Oscars, only to be rejected? It’s not as if we are being victimized as a  third-world country. The truth is, we don’t make films worthy of  international recognition, nothing  like Salvador Calvo’s Spanish Adu   or  Matías Piñeiro’s Argentinian Viola has come out  of India in a long long  time.

 Most  of the time Indian critics –and that includes yours truly—are  busy celebrating Indian  mediocrity on celluloid. There are  so  many recent  Indian(not just Bollywood) films  that  I’ve praised  on  release, only to  cringe when I returned to them.

Most  recent Hindi films lack durability.Jallikattu the Malayalam  film  that  we sent to the Oscars lacked not  just durability. It also lacked universality. As I had written when the  film  was announced as India’s entry to the  Oscars, “There is a  ferocious  fracas  at the heart of this unnerving film. It is  original  but  extremely violent.  And to be honest, after a  point  I found the gore to be a bore.I have  a feeling the  Oscars  jury would  feel the same way.”

So, here we are  , standing with  our heads bowed  as  losers once again. And the status  quo won’t change  until we send the correct  film to the Oscars. Geetu Mohandas’ Malayalam film Mothoon , for example, was a far more eligible  film with  a far better sense of  the universe. Let’s face it: we sent the wrong film again.

Better  luck next time.



Image source: IMDb