Jawed Sheikh and Ahsan Rahim on the set of Teefa in Trouble
Films don’t have to appear complicated, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have context, Jami explains. “First Blood, if you look at it, is a simple movie. A former solider clashes with a corrupt local sheriff and decimates the latter’s town.
“Fine,” he adds after a moment. “But underneath this premise, there is a structure and a meaning. The story talked about the Vietnam war. At its core, it was an anti-war film. The corporates that run our industry don’t understand the subtlety or subtext. Everything we see in Pakistan is Bollywood-ised.
“You have to remove your blinders. Filmmakers are full of themselves, proclaiming that their films made this much money. Even porn makes money.”
There is one exception for Jami. “Punjab Nahin Jaungi (PNJ) was fantastic,” he says — a rare compliment from a hard-to-please individual. PNJ, of course, is a rarity — it was a critical and commercial success; an achievement one in 10 films make each year.
“That is the percentage all over the world,” says Mandviwalla. “India makes 250 Hindi films in a year, out of which 225 do not work.”
Is that percentage healthy for a nascent industry that is dependent on good movies, but only gets them once or twice a year, I ask?
“It’s not about being healthy for the industry. Filmmaking is a very difficult job,” reiterates Mandviwalla. “There are very few people in the world who know their craft. The rest keep trying. Experimenting.
“Making a connection with the audience is not easy. It’s not about ‘just’ telling a story. It’s about telling a story which you, as an audience, are interested in hearing. In the end, I have to tell a story that has to get you involved.”
Mandviwalla is of the opinion that there is no straight formula for a film structure. “There are many times when a film defies every norm, and still they are a great success.
“I don’t think there is any science to this,” he says, defending Pakistani filmmakers. “We’ve simply not been making films.”
Explaining why our films don’t have storytelling finesse, Mandviwalla continues. “We don’t have academies or institutions teaching us, so everybody is learning by physically experimenting. You once had an infrastructure. Then we had a gap of 15-20 years. Today, we don’t even have a studio,” he says.
“Either you learn from institutions, academia or you learn from studios. Once upon a time, when there were studios, a collective pool of talent came there, whether it was the actor, or the cameraman, or the assistant cameraman. Today, you don’t see a place like this. Everyone is making films in their own homes. We need to achieve an infrastructure.
“An academic institute teaches you the basics. When you get into the studio, it teaches you the reality. These are the people who have been working and getting a result. Their experience is as important as the basics,” he says.
That is true. However, does it apply to an industry that wants to make by-the-book commercial films, but only succeed 10 percent of the time — or for that matter often find excuses to not work out kinks in the story before nosediving into production?
I don’t think so.
In the age of the internet, one simply has to google screenwriting, structure, character development and a wealth of knowledge pops up (and I’m not even talking about academic-level visual essays, such as Every Frame a Painting by Taylor Ramos and Tony Zhou).
Most of the filmmaking process is outlined in quick-to-grasp YouTube videos. Simply formulating one’s story on top of tried and tested fundamentals will help filmmakers streamline their narratives and reach a bigger audience.
It may not be perfect, but something is better than nothing.
It should be remembered that Pakistani cinema is still catering to a niche audience: one who specifically have to make up their minds to watch a domestically produced film.
Keep in mind, these are the very people who routinely watch Hollywood and Bollywood movies, and who subconsciously know what to expect from motion pictures — irrespective of how clichéd they are (Simba, for example, is as formulaic as they come).
The average cinema-goer doesn’t talk about, or even comprehend, particular technicalities of cinematography, edit or sound design. They may feel consistencies, but they may not be able to pinpoint exactly what went wrong. Their principal concern would be of how the story unfolded, and whether or not if they enjoyed the experience.
It’s the same instinct Khan and Mandviwalla talk about.
The key difference — and the point of this piece on the relevance of story and structure — is that it is not the audience’s job to buy into the filmmaker’s instincts. The audience is at the cinema for the experience. It’s the filmmaker’s job to figure out and deliver, despite drawbacks in the system. And the most obvious first step is to, simply, write a good, appealable, filmable screenplay.
Published in Dawn, ICON, March 10th, 2019