The awards have come and the box office is still piling up the collections. True to the 200 million dollar-plus production, Avatar is chasing the collections of the titanic Titanic, which incidentally had similar production costs and the same creator, James Cameron. Pundits argue that high-pricing of the 3-D version is what has boosted the earnings. Another point of contention is that if inflationary parameters are applied to the earnings, Avatar looms far behind the topper, Gone with the Wind. But the reality is that the gross earnings have crossed $ 1.8 billion and climbing. This could well be the highest gross earnings for any movie.
When technology had not half-matched creativity, Arthur Clarke’s 2001 Space Odyssey rocked us softly while wonder filled our minds like moon mists. Since then, the extensions beyond the earth domain have been a feature of many movies. The modern- day technology makes the movie screen display the imaginable as being close to that which is possible. Computer graphics and associated visual technologies show what is humanly impossible and humanly-wished, as possible. If seeing is believing, our naivety gets the better of the modern movies. So much for the awe and wonder of modern cinema!
The storyline of Avatar is dhal/chawal or the rice/sambar for our own movie-moghuls like Chopras, Ghais, Reddys and Chettiars. Scheming, powerful, materialistic, insensitive, exploiting group of baddies want control of an area inhabited by the natives. The natives, of course are the innocent, god-fearing, kind-to-nature beings. The hero’s attempt to win over the natives is seen with suspicion by the natives but he is given a chance to understand their ways. And who has to do this orientation? It has to be a girl from the tribes and she has to be the daughter of the native chief. And, surely they fall in love; the bad men try to destroy the natives… Good triumphs over evil finally.
There are differences, of course. The period is circa. 2154 and the venue is another planet called Pandora. The natives are lean and supple bodied, 10’ tall, almost naked and blue in complexion. The glass eyes and the tail do impress. The bad men fight with modern weapons while the natives swoop around perched on huge birds. The glides and the swoops are indeed breathtaking with the Imax experience making it realistic. In terms of histrionics, Zoe Saldana as the native girl and Sam Worthington as the crippled marine do a neat job.
James Cameron has won the Golden Globes for best picture and best director and probably waiting for more celebrations in March when the Oscars will line up. Psychologists are already clearing their throats to explain this success and also the uncomfortable after-effects.
The intensity of colours in brilliant luminescence inked into the botanical growth engulfs the viewer with no help for hallucinating drugs. In a sense, one could wish this could be the reality. This belief is easily associated and as easily discarded by the Indian movie- goer who lives through dream song sequences at timed intervals. The transportation to the unreal world is at his discretion. He may chose to enjoy the scenes and ogle at the damsels or he may break away for a tobacco fix. Avatar does not offer that option but the presentation is as dreamy and professionally superb. The movie is a blockbuster. Period.
There is a downside to this phenomenal success of Avatar. Kevin Maher in The Times takes up the issue from the well-being point of view as reports indicate that many of the film’s fans have suffered and are suffering from a bout of depression after watching the movie. Fan sites are getting clogged with despondent fan mails. Some fan reports express that the movie is ‘more realistic than real life’. Quoting psychologists, he observes that the technology has become so sophisticated that movie experience appears more vivid than reality.
Psychiatric treatments employ virtual reality for treating some disorders. If virtual reality can affect behaviour in such clinical conditions, surely such cinema can also affect the viewer’s psyche.
 Maher quotes from the book, The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life makes it Hard to be Happy by Michael Foley: “In the modern world an event has not happened unless it has been photographed or filmed”. Foley has quoted that the movie provides a “…new stimulus every second that it makes real life sluggish, slow and impossibly dead…” Probably we can apply the theory to the video game craze also but in a tangential manner. Foley says that a cultural conditioning makes people think that this is the kind of movies they should be watching. He opines that Avatar type of movies affect the viewers adversely.
On the other hand, can we dismiss all this is just an overreaction to a phenomenon that will definitely pass by in these times? Or is it the normal black side of all the indulgences of present times where enjoyment is seen in exaggerated extensions of visual media?
Probably a look at the Indian front-bencher will calm us. We have been through this many a time from Aradhana to Sholay to many south-side super hits. Any harm seen? Probably we propped a few political personalities? Made some chief ministers? Can Avatar change anything? Maybe. Yet the show will go on and there is no business like show business. While the Yankee magazines are wondering about the meaning of the title itself, the Indian movie buff heads for his next fix of screen magic.
My friend of filmi-wisdom, Venkatesan, says, “What saar, we have seen all this in Vittalacharya films itself”.
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