Picture yourself walking out of a theater, having watched a recent film that you may or may not have liked at all, or have liked in parts. You are on your way back home, sitting in a cab, and letting your thoughts brew. What is it about the film that affected you the most? What did you find to be a redundant part of the narrative? As you get lost in these thoughts, you absentmindedly take out your smartphone from your pocket, and tap on the icon of the social media app that your thumb lands on first. You are unexpectedly welcomed with a review of the film you just watched, that you were still trying to process your opinion about. You are slightly annoyed by the review that is shoved in your face, because you aren’t yet prepared for a new perspective; you have barely formed your own. But you know you cannot be annoyed for long. You signed up for this willingly. You brush aside your displeasure as your curiosity gets the better of you, and start reading the review that might possibly rob you of the chance to form your own unbiased opinion about a piece of art.
This might sound like a familiar situation to you if you are someone who follows online discourse on cinema on a regular basis, assuming of course that you are a lover of the art form that involves motion pictures. For internet-savvy cinephiles (for the lack of a better term) in the present times, it is almost impossible to not participate in debates and discussions on cinema. Why would one want to avoid participating, you may ask. There could be many reasons, and the one I mentioned above is just one of them. But for the cinephile, it is as much of a necessity as eating and sleeping. One may not feel hungry or sleepy all the time, but food and sleep are basic to survival. And so is cinema.
The new-age cinephile can do a rant on social media about what they disliked in the new release they just watched, or immediately award 5 stars to a film on Letterboxd right after they watched it. The rest of the community gets notified as well – a community that comprises birds of the same feather. It’s a global village, knowing no boundaries of gender, age or profession – a wonderful place to be, in fact. But the question that always lingers on is, how much of cinema do we actively feel seeping into our daily lives? This is where the conversation around it becomes important – the kind of conversation that acknowledges this art form to be much more beyond entertainment and a mode of weekend relation.
A film does not need to have a message to spark a conversation. It can create a world of its own, do its own thing that we don’t necessarily relate with our own lives, but it always carries a planned vision of those who made it. A cinephile likes to backtrace the events on screen to read that intended vision. Here is the point where perspectives, opinions and politics come in. Our thought process veers in a direction where we agree or disagree with the makers, and there need not be a resolution to this process. The important thing is that it should exist. Debates, disagreements and dissent should happen for any society to move forward, and cinema provides an excellent medium for the same. Think of your family members who barely watch any films but would flock to the nearest theater when there’s a film confirming their political biases. So there’s a filmmaker using their ability to create art as a tool to drive their own point across, because they know that there are people willing to accept it with open arms. Now imagine if the same audience is equally enthusiastic about a film with polar opposite ideologies, and feels encouraged to have an informed opinion.
The best use of cinema is made when there is a conscious inclination towards seeing it from as many different angles as possible, without invalidating one’s own judgment. But cinema does not exist to serve society. Like all art, it free-flows through time and space, picking up bits and pieces of history, human life and socio-political atmosphere to infuse life in itself. It just happens that it gets created in the hands of human beings who have their own history, life and politics to share, and use the best possible audio-visual medium to amplify their voices. Why shouldn’t we the viewers, who have voices as well, talk about it?
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