2020: Review

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What a year it has been. I guess it will go down in the annals of the history as the year which most of us would like to forget. But I would still believe that there were some green shoots that emerged out of this dreadlock and thereafter. These shoots I think if watered will bear fruits in times to come. The other day my son's friend came over home and gave him a knitted-woolen muffler. A fresh graduate of 2019 and unsure of what she wanted to do in life; the lockdown was a bummer for her. Not to get bogged down she started learning knitting in these last 7-8 months and now she makes knitted premium products and sells them. What got my attention was her eye for detail. Packaging for one which many in India do not consider as big was something the girl was willing to go the distance and the whole effort was indeed praiseworthy. I pray to god that she creates and sustains this over time. Stories as small as this and as big as Sonu Sood got our attention. And therefore it might be good to look back at 2020 on a positive note. 

Cinema too bore the brunt of the pandemic and I think the number of suicides' that included big names like SSR (Sushant Singh Rajput) to the smaller TV stars was tragic and pained us all. Reasons for such acts could be many but a life lost is a lost life. And there are no excuses. I start this piece with my respect and salutations to all the departed soul.

The Lockdown and thereafter brought the industry to a standstill globally and it was time to do introspection. And I wish the introspection has been done. New models of cinema making might emerge. Cinema hall and owners will have to rethink ways to deal with the post pandemic scenario. In all, there are some new narratives that might emerge. Perhaps, the one big thing that was the winner of this, OTT the shining star. The number of shows and films (who chose to bypass cinema halls) that released on OTT was mind numbing and there were some good and some pathetic; yet OTT ruled and how. 

The success of OTT was initially because of people finding lesser options to choose from amongst the conventional medium and later the OTT craze sustained because audience soon found good content on it. And the medium churned out content as if there was no tomorrow. Everyday some new web show premiered or some new movie premiered or some old movie entered OTT. The big three; Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hotstar soon saw competition from Sony Liv, Voot, MX Player, Zee5 to name a few. OTT like Alt Balaji and Ullu further cemented themselves in the soft porn category and had a religious dose of content and audience being churned. In the entirety of it I guess OTT is here to stay and will soon be mass and not niche as it was considered once. In addition the amount of mindless content that television generates it will soon find limited takers. IPL and KBC might remain an exception though. 

Coming back to the year gone by and the winner to me besides OTT per se the medium has been the brilliant web show Pataal lok. It remains to me the big winner from this year. The show was brilliant in terms of the plot, the casting, the screenplay and the biggest reason for the success was the topicality of it all. The three big success from Pataal lok were Jaideep Ahlawat, directors Avinash Arun & Prosit Roy and of course writer Sudip Sharma. I am still wondering how did the team zero in on Ahlawat is anybody's guess but what a role he played. He was simply outstanding and with an amazing support cast hovering between Swastika to Abhishek to Neeraj and everything in between, Pataal lok remained the clear winner heads and shoulder above the rest. (read my review of Pataal lok from my earlier blog post). 

There were a host of other shows that premiered on OTT's and yet none could strike an etch as like Pataal lok. Films saw limited number of releases and all by-passed the cinema halls for a direct premier on OTT. And there were not many or probably none which could garner some kind of attention or eyeball. I hope the content creators will go back to the drawing boards and plan afresh. And this is why the third winner after OTT and  Pataal lok will be regional cinema. And they managed to produce some amazing content. I shall discuss about them in a separate blog but for me, as things stands; regional cinema was head and shoulder beyond mainstream Hindi cinema. I am saving the review on regional cinema for a separate post. Till then, go back to Pataal Lok. It's on Amazon Prime. Go watch.         

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