Dibakar Banerjee's Saturday moment

Haven't yet watched Shanghai and not sure I ever will, unless it turns up on TV and I accidentally land up on a channel that happens to be showing it. This is mostly because of a friend who sends out trenchant film criticism via (three or four) smses and his remarks on Shanghai were both funny and unrepeatable on a public forum.

Instead, let me point to a post and an interview with Banerjee.

The post (via Supriya):

Development projects, have a very political purpose, not only to hand over prime real estate land to private parties, but to remove every possible centre of dissent and political activity that is always incipient in the slums and working class neighbourhoods. The film, by portraying only the hypocrisies and the futilities of a middle and upper class characters, whose so-called good intentions and attempts for justice are constantly thwarted by ‘the system’, betray the one place where inspiration is found: the protest in the people’s movement, when the hungry go on hunger strike.
Thus, all of those who once stood before bulldozers, would not send anyone to go watch the film. A sentiment repeated by all of them – from Annabhau Sathe Nagar to Sion Koliwada.

‘They showed in the film, that the public is not agitating, that they’re only a few angry people who’re fighting for rights and dying,’ Says Santosh Thorat of Annabhau Sathe Nagar, who has been fighting for the right to a home, and against Slum Rehabilitation scams, since his home was demolished in 2005, ‘And this film is about how the state deals with the few of them, so you better keep your mouth shut.’

‘People who don’t have any knowledge of what’s happening in the street and in the morchas, in the andolans, especially the youth, whose homes have never been demolished, they’d be very badly influenced by this film.’ Said Jameela Begum of Anna Bhau Sathe Nagar. Four young boys from Sion Koliwada who experienced demolitions and violence, would add how a young woman leader from their slum is in jail for protesting against demolition, but their awareness was born by the realities of what they face. The lack of the realities of what they faced in the past week – one boy who was beaten up by the police after trying to protect his father from the police, simply replied, ‘the film was boring.’

And from the interview in the DNA:

Another criticism was that the daily trials and vulnerabilities of the working class and casual labourers weren’t really represented.

Anant Jogue’s character, who mows down Dr Ahemadi, is representing the working class. So is his wife, and the character of Bhaggu (played by Pitobash). I didn’t see the need to have more than one or two characters to represent that strata of society. The film, in the end, has been made for intellectual pleasure; it’s a story. It’s not to push the agenda of any particular set of people, but to ask some pertinent questions instead.

Oh nice. So Banerjee "didn’t see the need to have more than one or two characters to represent that strata of society" but of the few who do represent one of that strata of society one of them happens to have killed what appears to be 'the good guy'.

Plus, this idea that intellectual pleasure cannot exist in stories about people who are not the middle class is so incredibly hilarious. But the get-out clause that is the It's just a story plea doesn't cut much ice, I'm afraid. Especially not from someone who wants to provide intellectual pleasure.

And Banerjee seems to think that by making this a "story of middle-class people, caught up in an alien slum environment, and struggling to come to terms with various things" [from early in the interview], he isn't pushing any agendas.

How sweet.