Rajnikant's film opened in Pondicherry in the Ram Cinema Hall, Anna Salai Rd. The last Hindi film which opened in Pondicherry in the same hall was 'KANK' and I was told, before that had come 'Fanah'. For consuming Bollywood stuff, we depend on trips to Chennai and Bangalore. During other times, a compromise follows with personal laptops acting as halls playing the un-original DVDs picked up from roadside sellers of the Sunday evening bazaar.
My Bengali colleague S. who also speaks Tamil cajoled me into coming to see the BOSS film - first day third show. I was interested but apprehensive, not sure how much I will understand it. After work, as we checked out of the ICICI ATM and hailed an auto-rickshaw, discussion with the driver immediately centered on 'Shivaji'.
He said the tickets are running 700 rupees. S. reassured me, he will handle the sellers, we will get the tickets in black cheaper. By the time we had reached the hall, the same driver was of the opinion that tickets are now 300 rupees. We finally got them for 120, only to find out they had no seat numbers printed on them. We were told to take our seats in the passageway. There were many like us seated alongside, grateful to catch the star on the very first day. The air-conditioner was thankfully working.
For a student of film and media studies, it was a lesson on fan culture, on audience reception theory. The film was every bit entertaining. It was both a Rajni as well as a Shankar film. I had last catched up on Shankar's Nayak and found a similarity of structure in the screenplay. Problem 1 is wholly or partly solved with Solution 1 to encounter a transformed problem requiring a different solution . A sequence of such problem-solution series follows...song-dance sequences fascinate as do Rajni's acts...the film proves once again that repetition is seductive
What causes this repetition? - the star says he has a responsibility towards his fans. S.V. Srinivas has through a series of articles taken the facade out of the belief that 'fans are passive - they are controlled, they do not control'. By throwing light on the activities of Fan Associations (FAs) both political and apolitical , Srinivas has partly reversed the case. Fans play perhaps the key role in the star's film turning out the way it does. Their role in the commercial success of the film too is pivotal as through their control of public spaces like halls, cinema toilets, wall graffiti...through their acts of hyperbole, exaggeration and excess they often govern the popular perception of a forthcoming or just released film. So at the end of the day, whose film is it?, is a tricky question...
My Bengali colleague S. who also speaks Tamil cajoled me into coming to see the BOSS film - first day third show. I was interested but apprehensive, not sure how much I will understand it. After work, as we checked out of the ICICI ATM and hailed an auto-rickshaw, discussion with the driver immediately centered on 'Shivaji'.
He said the tickets are running 700 rupees. S. reassured me, he will handle the sellers, we will get the tickets in black cheaper. By the time we had reached the hall, the same driver was of the opinion that tickets are now 300 rupees. We finally got them for 120, only to find out they had no seat numbers printed on them. We were told to take our seats in the passageway. There were many like us seated alongside, grateful to catch the star on the very first day. The air-conditioner was thankfully working.
For a student of film and media studies, it was a lesson on fan culture, on audience reception theory. The film was every bit entertaining. It was both a Rajni as well as a Shankar film. I had last catched up on Shankar's Nayak and found a similarity of structure in the screenplay. Problem 1 is wholly or partly solved with Solution 1 to encounter a transformed problem requiring a different solution . A sequence of such problem-solution series follows...song-dance sequences fascinate as do Rajni's acts...the film proves once again that repetition is seductive
What causes this repetition? - the star says he has a responsibility towards his fans. S.V. Srinivas has through a series of articles taken the facade out of the belief that 'fans are passive - they are controlled, they do not control'. By throwing light on the activities of Fan Associations (FAs) both political and apolitical , Srinivas has partly reversed the case. Fans play perhaps the key role in the star's film turning out the way it does. Their role in the commercial success of the film too is pivotal as through their control of public spaces like halls, cinema toilets, wall graffiti...through their acts of hyperbole, exaggeration and excess they often govern the popular perception of a forthcoming or just released film. So at the end of the day, whose film is it?, is a tricky question...
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