It’s no news that multiple lenses to look at cinema have been added in recent years. Film watching experiences continue to evolve, and dissecting the consumer preferences of this long and fast evolving art form still boils down the results to what pundits simply put as understanding the audience’s psyche. Post the COVID-19 pandemic, the known-unknown consensus of cinema being a significant destination for solace, like any art form, feels all the more real. Hence, content that appeases an average viewer, and vis-a-vis the collective target audience, should work in mainstream cinema. The formula hasn’t changed, but deepened, thanks to pandemic blues, social seclusion, and the advent of streaming platforms.
The need for a hero
This open book formula when viewed with the broader changes in consumer behaviour that we are already aware of — like, the notion of the ever-decreasing attention span — also points out why some content worked better in the last three years. For instance, commercial entertainers continue to add up to cinema’s reputation for aiding escapism. This might again be why big star commercial entertainers like Master, Pushpa, RRR, KGF: Chapter 2, Soorarai Pottru, Bheemla Nayak, Vikram and Sooryavanshi have fared well despite having serious storylines anchoring the film. Would it really be a surprise if watching a slow arthouse film or a long, depressing series seem more like a ‘task’ now more than ever? The growing impatience has become more discernible, specifically in the post-pandemic OTT world, when one begins to visualise a 10-second fast-forward button while watching an unengaging film in a theatre.
Quite interestingly, looking back at all the above-mentioned commercial hero vehicles, a compelling similarity is also the fact that all of them appeal to the basic psychological incline towards watching ‘the rise of a hero’. It is the Rajinikanth formula that continues to be perfected. Witnessing people fail in their powerless lives can get a tad too palpable during adverse times, and to avoid de-sensitising hopelessness and to dodge existential thoughts, a dose of hope becomes too necessary. Hope is what these films deliver.
To keep the fight
If sitting through an emotionally overwhelming movie is one thing, television shows that require considerate time to care for a character becomes another helpless undertaking. The same can’t be said for last year’s Kate Winslet-starrer Mare of Easttown, which is anything but just a sob story. It followed a heartbroken police detective Marianne Sheehan, who puts a fight to muster courage and keep going. If the trauma of losing a child and ending a long-term relationship isn’t enough, Mare is also forced to fight for custody of her grandchild while also simultaneously heading a murder investigation for which she is being scrutinised by the townspeople and media.
Watching Mare emerge out of these storms did tell us that we may not always get a rope to pull us out of a corner; it’s a voice that urges us to look back that gives hope and that we need to find that voice within us. Having a character arc like this in a murder-mystery series also ensures that there’s a meaty suspense story to keep us hooked. The same applies to the recently released Sai Pallavi-starrer Gargi, a feature film with an extremely distressing premise that deals with child sexual abuse. Thanks to Sai Pallavi and the writing, the film left us thinking about a lot more than just despair.
In some shows like How To Get Away From Murder, the redemption of the protagonist is astonishing, and on some levels, even quite unconvincing. The show’s protagonist Annalise Keating (Viola Davis), a defence attorney and a law professor, is in truth a superhero of sorts who keeps going through enormous amounts of trauma and keeps getting back up to the extent that it makes you question your own strength.
From the individual to the masses
Does this mean that anything that moves away from these theories doesn’t work? Cinema is cinema. Any code will be broken. If commercial entertainers with an inspiring redemption should work all the time, the less-than-anticipated hype for a film like 83, even post its digital streaming, shouldn’t have been the case.
When it comes to the decreasing attention span and impatience in watching slow movies, even an impatient viewer might not disapprove of a film’s slow-paced treatment if the same is justified and one can see that in the reception that content like Nomadland and The Great Indian Kitchen get.
Sardar Udham worked despite its hyper-realistic depiction of a gruesome event and a tragic ending due to its patriotic themes and historical relevance apart from other cinematic reasons. Audiences watched Dil Bechara for the same reason why many avoided it. Serious films that deal with hard-hitting social messaging, like Karnan and Jai Bhim are spoken about more so for the conversations they created in society, regardless of whether they necessarily ended with tragedy or triumph. Who can say? A new-age Devdas if released in the thick of a lockdown, on a streaming platform, might still touch souls who find comfort in romanticising their pain and in watching a relatable character. Similarly, a film or series that insensitively depicts mental health will be called upon, but the onus on how to consume depressing content is with the audience.
If any of these aforementioned titles should be dismissed as exceptions, they still make a point that the lenses of consumer preferences do not point from the masses to an individual viewer, but the opposite. When the experiences of individuals who make up the collective target group align, what works and what doesn’t work become all the more perceptible. At an age when online reviews and social media chatter seemed to have diluted the subjectivity aspect of cinema, an all-encompassing calamity like the pandemic has reaffirmed the belief that even amidst an overwhelming climate of uncertainty, cinema retains some control.
THE GIST
Post the COVID-19 pandemic, the known-unknown consensus of cinema being a significant destination for solace, like any art form, feels all the more real. The success of commercial entertainers like RRR and Pushpa continue to add up to cinema’s reputation for aiding escapism.
However, there were also stories like the Mare of Easttown. Watching Mare emerge out of life’s tribulations tells us that we may not always get a rope to pull us out of a corner; it’s a voice that urges us to look back that gives hope and that we need to find that voice within us.
The lenses of consumer preferences do not point from the masses to an individual viewer, but the opposite. When the experiences of individuals who make up the collective target group align, what works and what doesn’t work become all the more perceptible.
Published - August 04, 2022 10:43 pm IST
