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He has to his credit two of the most successful
Mumbai films of the last decade - Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
(1998) and Devdas (2002). But his cinema
is not only about the jingle of money. It is more about the
tingle of excitement that a true showman can generate every
time he goes behind the movie camera.
Bhansali does indeed make unabashedly mainstream Hindi films
but he never lets the limitations of that form subsume his
individuality. If anything, he turns it into his principal
strength. That is what makes his work special. When the Cannes
Film Festival programmers singled out Devdas
for a special screening at the world's biggest celebration
of cinema in 2002, they were only acknowledging the FTII-trained
editor's ability to blend clinical craftsmanship with inspired
creativity, precise storytelling with visual flamboyance.
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Devdas may have fallen way, way short of the purist's
idea of how Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay's classic tragedy should
be adapted for the screen, but what, in the ultimate analysis,
set the film apart from anything else that might have been done
before with the same material was the individual imprimatur
that Bhansali stamped on it. It was a new-millennium Devdas
and it belonged to nobody but the man whose vision brought it
alive on the screen.
Devdas was flashy yet meticulous,
ambitious yet painstaking - every frame of Bhansali's film
carried the signature of a man driven simply by belief. It
is really his trust in his vision that allows the director
to take one film at a time and follow it through all the way
to its bitter end. In the eight years that have elapsed since
he made his first feature, Khamoshi - The Musical,
Bhansali has had only two other releases but he is rightfully
counted among the premier Bollywood filmmakers of the day
owing to the sheer quality of his output.
The dawn of the next year could actually witness
the rise of a new Bhansali. His new film, Black,
reportedly a minimalist, songless drama about different shades
of darkness, is poised to give his oeuvre a push in a completely
uncharted direction. Trust the man not to cash in on the all-singing,
all-dancing formula of his previous hit and attempt something
completely off the beaten track.
Bhansali's strength lies primarily in the manner
in which he uses colours and sounds to enhance the emotional
and sensory impact of a story. For him to try his hand at
something like Black is an act of courage, courage stemming,
once more, from faith. Most Mumbai filmmakers are great gamblers
who think nothing of moving with the ebbs and tides of the
market. Bhansali is a somewhat eccentric adventurer guided
only the rhythms of his own heart.
Bhansali's talent first caught the eyes of
moviegoers when he conceived and executed some of the songs
of Vidhu Vinod Chopra's 1942 - A Love Story,
a film that he co-scripted. An independent directorial career
was only a step away from there. His debut film, Khamoshi,
attracted rave reviews for the unusual theme of a deaf-mute
couple seeking to tune in to the world of normal sounds, but
its poor box-office showing threatened to derail Bhansali's
ambitions. He bounced back a couple of years later with a
far more conventional film, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam,
a love triangle set against the resplendent colours of the
Rann of Kutch.
Hum Dil… revealed Bhansali's
eye for detail as well as his formidable storytelling skills.
The riotously colourful film juxtaposed the immutability of
traditional values against the uncontrolled impulses of youth.
It was apparent that this was no me-too love troika: the film
had soul and spunk. It bore the inimitable Bhansali stamp
even as it made no bones about giving the masses what they
really wanted.
The rare coalescence of creative daring and
commercial acumen makes Sanjay Leela Bhansali a real force
on the contemporary Indian cinema scene. What is most heartening
is that his career has only just begun. With time on his side,
Bhansali can be expected to spring many a surprise as he goes
along defiantly in his little tugboat of hope in a sea of
mediocrity. The world is watching.
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