A mosaic of experiences

Shoma A. Chatterji

In debutant director Arjun Mukherjee’s 3 Storeys, three stories are held together by a common character, an elderly Christian woman (played by Renuka Shahane). The other stories spill over with connections to this lady. Each story follows the lives and struggles of the characters inhabiting different storeys in a Mumbai chawl. Each story ends with a delicious twist, throwing light on human frailties. It also lays bare the circumstances, which often go against human wishes and desires. But it is only the old lady’s story that manages to sustain interest.

Several short films pooled together can deal with different plots, themes, characters and storylines and offer the audience a choice of several stories at the price of a single cinema ticket! Taking this into consideration, sometimes, producers back a larger film containing several short films, each independent of the other, directed by the same director such as Life in a Metro, directed by Anurag Basu or, Yun Hota to Kya Hota (2006) directed by Naseeruddin Shah or Darna Mana Hai (2003) directed by Prawaal Raman and produced by Mani Ratnam. There are also short films within a large film where each episode is directed by a different director such as Dus Kahaniyaan or Mumbai Cutting or Bombay Talkies.

There is infinite scope for experimentation in toying around with form, and using unique styles in storytelling. A very good example of a feature film with three different stories interlocked but not linked is Mani Ratnam’s Yuva. Kolkata and its three young men from different parts of the country zeroing in on Kolkata. Just as short stories define a distinct genre in literature, so do short films.  Enlarge this to several short films in one and you get the third genre within the scenario. It demands a different discipline and is economical, especially in an environment of an increasingly digitalised world. Ad film experts like the late Rituparno Ghosh find it easier to adapt to the discipline than those who make only full-length features.

Mumbai Cutting (2010) comprises 11 short films directed by 11 directors with Mumbai as the common thread. The films were directed by  Anurag Kashyap, Sudhir Mishra, Rahul Dholakia, Kundan Shah, Revathy, Jahnu Barua, Rituparno Ghosh, Shashanka Ghosh, Ruchi Narain, Ayush Raina and Manish Jha. For some reason, the film turned out to be a commercial disaster. This film was screened at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The late Kundan Shah’s film was on a man trying to catch a local train and not being able to catch it. Jahnu Barua’s film Unknown Friend refers to Mumbai, the city “which is a very vibrant city, very positive, thriving but you never quite know the city though you consider it your friend.” They were each asked to make the film in 10 minutes and some of them shot their film in real time.

Bombay Talkies (2013), a collection of  four short films directed by four young directors as a tribute to Indian cinema, is the best so far but did not get any takers.

The four short films were directed by Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Karan Johar. However, the commercial prospects of this genre are not very bright as records show. Darna Zaroori Hai, Salaam-e-Ishq, Honeymoon Travels, Just Married and Dus Kahaniyaan are other example of which Salaam-e-Ishq was the most disastrous. No one can forget Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s trilogy in a single film Musafir (1957) which featured stellar stars like Dilip Kumar, Usha Kiran, Kishore Kumar, Suchitra Sen, Shekhar and many others with superb music by Salil Choudhury in which Dilip Kumar lent his own voice to his song and this marked the directorial debut of editor Hrishikesh Mukherjee.