Making a Suckumentary

Serbjeet Singh's documentary about "The Land Time Forgot" is playing on DD. The only reason I am watching it is because the cricket match has been interrupted due to rain on this channel and might restart any time. Typical of so called documentaries made by Indians, this piece of comedy is full of lofty words in sound bytes describing what we can already see. "This is a lovely spot, you know". "Yeah, the landscape is so exciting" - These are spoken lines for heavens' sake!

He is somewhere in the Himalayas, which a lot of people have a fascination for. But somehow the Himalayas also inspire a lot of untalented, clueless fools into thinking they can go there with a video camera and somehow capture the essence of the great, grand, magnificent, imposing mountains. If the mountains are so commanding, why does the film maker even put himself in the way of me experiencing it? Every time this idiot opens his mouth, he reduces my appreciation of the mountains.

Beyond a point, mountains are mountains. What is the bloody film about? If I see someone there trying to get medical help because his nose has to be drilled open from not having blown it for two years, there's a story I want to see. If one of the yaks goes mad and gores everybody in a village, there's a story I'd really want to see. But who really wants to see this "general" informational crap? Can't I get the same information from the internet if I was that curious?

"This is fantastic, look at the beauty" he announces to another clown hanging out with him. If I couldn't see the beauty of what he got on camera, why is this fool making the film? And if I can see it, why is he talking about it?

If Indian fictional cinema drags for most part, Indian documentaries totally suck. In fact, they have spawned a whole new genre called the Suckumentary and should be sold as comedy. Why would I be interested in being frequently told whether this fool is at eleven thousand feet or thirteen thousand feet, when it is obvious to me that he is pretty high up. Didn't I see his jeep climb and climb? So is he likely to end up being below sea level after all that groaning uphill? Come on! Do we really need to hear his describe "turquoise waters" when we can see it. Or is he afraid that we might be snoring?

One thing our so called documentary film makers need to realize is that without a strong story, a real awakening of the audience to something new, without a new point of view, without any point of view, without an argument, without a reflection on the "human condition" in any theatre of mankind, there is no bloody film! Why do these immature clowns really even think of wasting time, money and resources on simply bringing us video footage and putting them together in the name of making "documentaries"? It is strange that India has had more wildlife than Western countries for thousands of years and yet we haven't produced the kind of quality commonly visible in National Geographic or Discovery.

Then there is the emotional narration, expecting to contaminate us with the deep feelings the film maker has for the subject. For example Valmik Thapar's pathetic heavy breathing announcement - "Just minutes ago, the lord of the jungle, the biggest cat of all, the Bengal Tiger himself was here"! No tiger on screen, just a lead up to a bloody footprint. I wonder if a lump of dung would have been more convincing. It better be the tiger's for Thapar sounded like he was ready to contribute. Where is the bloody tiger now? He never shows up. It takes hard work and the fool hasn't put in the work. That's all there is to it. Our filmmakers, well actually, shotmakers, are trigger happy fools in paradise with a camera. They just shoot and shoot, and often continue to shoot with their mouths and then finally from behind and then get shot right there when it matters.

Simply carrying a camera on a trip does not produce a film. Simply narrating what the people on the trip are going through does not cut it either. Describing gods and goddesses and folklore of those areas still doesn't constitute a story of any sort. This is simply time consuming, boring SHIT. Oh, I was just informed by the voiceover that two statues of gods didn't acknowledge the presence of this film maker by as much as a flicker! Thank you very much. Actually I thought one of them winked at me!

Documentary film makers in India do not have to answer to anyone for being well below par. They can pretend their way to a few screenings, a few interviews, and some celebrity status. It just isn't serious business, and quite deservingly so. If Michael Moore can make "Fahrenheit 911" and have it make $100million in the US box office alone, it is because it was relevant, powerful, never dragged, and took a bold stand in an argument against the president of the country. It takes someone who wants to tell a story to make a good documentary. Indian documentary film makers seem to think they just need a subject! They themselves would make quite an interesting study on how they hope to define themselves without a clue about what they are doing.