Crop and Flop: The Epidemic of Remakes — Part 2
As promised in my essay The Epidemic of Remakes: Part 1, I am back with a deep dive on the remakes trend. That’s the kind of nerd I am, and there is nothing we can do about it.
I left off with a question last time: Why does the Hindi film industry seem more hell-bent on remakes than ever before? There are a couple of reasons and, ironically, the same reasons contibute to the poor quality and the flopping of these remakes.
1. Filmmaking — A Business
It is, I suppose, obvious by now that the Hindi film industry looks at filmmaking as a business. In an Economic Times article titled In Search of a ‘Good’ Film, they interview a scriptwriter and ask them why they think this trend is so rampant in the Hindi industry:
Today, (it) is not ‘film-making.’ It is ‘project-making.’ A star is available. A studio or producer is ready to finance. A non-Hindi film which has worked (has) rights (that) are available. Now, let us make a Hindi film. This is how Hindi films are being made.
People who finance films want to make money even before the film is made and released. They do calculations in terms of how much they would earn in selling rights, promotions, advertising and tie-ups with brands. A film goes on the floor only when these people are sure that the film can recover money.
This is perhaps why the Hindi industry seems to remake only blockbusters. It’s quick money. The logic is, if it worked then (and there) it must work now (and here). So they “factory produce” films as fast as they possibly can.
How does this contribute to the film’s flopping?
No one has any time. The directors don’t sit with the story; the actors have no time to explore their characters; casting directors hire the same 3 or 4 actors to save time; the music is retained with weakly translated lyrics; there is no time for the important parts to fester, to be pruned and perfected.
This is why a great song like Seeti Maar was rehashed for a Hindi version. The song already had credibility and was well-loved. The financers assumed that adding this to their film Radhe with some lazy choreography, done by a beloved but average actor, would do wonders to an otherwise mediocre film. Alas, it didn’t.
2. Filmmaking — An Art
I loved this little snippet I read from the same Economic Times article:
Industry insiders point out that southern directors and actors are invested fully not only in their films but also in their cultures. This has earned them loyalty of their audiences. Take for instance, Actor Allu Arjun. He invested two years for the film ‘Pushpa: The Rise (Part I)’. He learnt the Telugu accent of Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh. Audiences immediately connected with him. In today’s Hindi films, few actors show this kind of commitment.
I felt a thrill when I read that the culture of “narration” still exists in South Indian industries. This is where the director and the actors sit together, and the director reads out the script. They draw their vision out for them; they have discussions about the characters; they show them how they see the movie in their head.
Remembering that filmmaking is an art is the line between a well-made film and a thoughtless remake.
Let’s consider the Hindi film Durgamati, a remake of the Telugu-language horror movie, Bhaagamathie. There is a pivotal scene in both films where the protagonist is possessed by the spirit of the palace.
In Bhaagamathie, each shot is chosen carefully. They use a lot of close-ups to increase the impact of the possession. The dialogues are few and crisp, and they echo just the right amount.
The same scene in Durgamati feels loose. There are many wide-angle shots that do not focus on the actress and, instead, take in the entire palace. There are many more dialogues, each much longer. Honestly, they also sound amateurish.
This may be because the Hindi filmmakers simply tried to replicate Bhaagamathie’s impact by imitating the “loudness” of the scene, without realising that there an art to that loudness too.
3. Writers and Writing
Okay, this one was a shocker. Hindi remakes look so much more glamorous than their counterparts that I assumed, foolishly, that the writers are paid better than in the originals.
The original films are often small-time productions, quieter movies that have only the story and dialogue to speak for them. And yet, writers are paid more in the South Indian industry.
According to the article, for a film with a 100 crore budget, Hindi writers are paid only 1–2%, while, in a South Indian film, they are paid upto 3–8%. One Malayalam film paid them 15% of the film’s profits. South Indian filmmakers value their writers.
4. Getting Your Hands Dirty
This brings me to the thing that irritates me about Hindi movies. They feel too refined. The clothes are too fancy, the people are too rich, the rooms are bigger and more brightly lit.
A lovely YouTube video called Why The Batman Is So Beautiful talks about the concept of “dirtying up the frame.” It means blurring things out in the background while focusing on the center to create an atmospheric experience. Usually, gore and dread are emotions that are captured best with this kind of artificially created atmosphere.
I would like to add to this. A “dirty” frame doesn’t just come from blurring things out. It can also come from lighting and the colour scheme used.
I feel Hindi remakes are washed out with monotone colors and fancy locations. Laxmii (although not a terrible remake) has a dance sequence in Dubai for no reason. The poor folk in Dhadak still feel more glamorous with bigger houses and cleaner clothes than the same characters in Sairat (Sairat is not a South Indian film, and again, Dhadak is not a bad remake. But I had to point it out.)
It appears that despite having an opportunity to tailor the story to their Hindi audience and appeal to their culture, the filmmakers place greater value on making the film look good. In the process, the immersive quality of the original movie is lost and the remake fails.
5. Over-The-Top
With the rise of OTT platforms, subtitle options in various languages, and dubbing, language barriers are scrambling for the exit door. People no longer need a movie to be in their native tongue to watch it and appreciate it. It’s exciting how the crumbling of language barriers is opening people’s minds to multiple cultures and ways of life.
While this is giving filmmakers a new, more inclusive platform, it also begs the question: Why wouldn’t a Hindi viewer just watch the original rather than watching a lackluster, quickly made Hindi version?
I see this in my own movie watching habits. Most recently, I came across two Hindi remakes on OTT platforms: Good Luck Jerry (a remake of the Tamil movie Kolamaavu Kokila) and HIT (a remake of the Telugu movie HIT). Both times, I put the original in my watchlist. Both originals are also available just as easily on OTT platforms, so why not?
If the stories are not going to be refreshed, revamped, restyled, what is the Hindi remake providing the audience that the original isn’t already?
Sources:
Naidu, Rajesh. 2022. “In Search Of A ‘Good’ Film: What Do Frequent Southern Remakes Convey About Hindi Cinema?” Economic Times, August 17, 2022.
Tomasso, Patrick. 2022. Why The Batman Is So Beautiful. Youtube, March 14, 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STynLl-2FqU&t=154s
I do not own any of the images used in this essay. Images have been picked from Gulf News and YouTube solely for commentary on and review of movies.
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