What biopic tells us about Bollywood dance and politics

Yet another Bollywood hagiography, a point of inflection in the relationship between politics and popular cinema, or advanced propaganda?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is unlike any other film before – and not for the reasons invoked by his filmmakers. A biographical film about an incumbent Indian prime minister is unprecedented, especially a film that will be released a few days before a crucial election. The Omung Kumar film was announced in late January and was hastily completed just in time for the Lok Sabha election that will begin on April 11th. With Vivek Anand Oberoi as Modi, the film will be released on April 5 in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu.

Audiovisual material does not fail to feed Modi worship. During televised broadcasts of his speeches, he is the face and voice of his government's policy. He is the principal performer in the videos of the official channels of his party Bharatiya Janata and the thousands of unofficial tributes of the fans who parade on the Internet.

The film Modi is therefore the next logical step to strengthen the character of the man wants to be prime minister a second time. The biopic trailer dispelled any lingering doubts about the film's propaganda agenda. He revealed that the representation would be as flattering – and flattened – as an official portrait: Modi, a formidable man, an even bigger administrator, and the greatest Indian prime minister to have walked the ground.

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The production of Legend Global Studios has no obvious connection to Modi's Bharatiya Janata party. This makes the film Modi different from the release of January 25 Thackeray with Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the role of the founder of Shiv Sena, Bal Thackeray, produced by the deputy of Shiv Sena, Sanjay Raut, and supported by Uddhav Thackeray , the current party chairman. Unsurprisingly, the hagiography of Abhijit Panse bleached Bal Thackeray's controversial legacy, downplayed his role in inciting violence and dismissed Shiv Sena's role in the 1992 community riots. in 1993 in Mumbai.

Part of the film about Telugu Party founder Desam and former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, NT Rama Rao, was published in January and February. Rao is a fascinating personality who reshaped Telugu cinema and politics, but the films produced by his son, Nandamuri Balakrishna, were designed to provoke devotion rather than debate.

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Since the death of Thackeray and Rao, Narendra Modi is closer to the realm of movies shot by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, the imprisoned leader of the film. Dera Sacha Sauda worship. The series of aesthetic atrocities, beginning with MSG: Messenger of God in 2015, were produced and tightly controlled by Gurmeet Singh and designed to showcase His Greatness. Long promotional videos that preached to converts and hoped to attract new followers, the three films eventually provide essential clues about Gurmeet Singh's megalomania. An insight into his lively dress style was an added bonus.

PM Narendra Modi is a brief update published by that of 2017 . Modi Ka Gaon with a lookalike as a fictional character called Nagendra Modi. Modi Ka Gaon was produced by BJP member CA Suresh Jha, and was hoping for an exit on December 8, just before Gujarat. The elections of the Assembly of 9 and 14 December. But the film had problems with the Central Certification Office, was renamed Modi Kaka Ka Gaon and was finally released on December 29th. The Council of Censorship was reluctant to include a reference to the terrorist strike of Uri from September 18, 2016, during which 17 members of the Indian army were killed.

A year later, the painting had lost all motivation. Aditya Dhar's Uri: The Surgical Attack reproduced the Army's Counter-Attack against Camp Terrorists in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir on September 29, 2016, in retaliation of the death of Uri. Dhar's blockbuster, released in January, featured characters resembling Modi and national security advisor Ajit Doval. The well done film takes advantage of the wave of ultranationalism unleashed by the BJP during the preparation of the general election that brought the last countdown to 243.75 rupees.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is also in the mold of the nationalist. . Modi declares in the trailer that his greatest love is for his country. He is being shown planting the flag in Kashmir and threatening Pakistan with grave consequences for his support for terrorism. The dialogue intersects public statements and section speeches of Modi and other leaders of the BJP

. The tango between politics and cinema is hardly new. The Congress Party courted and sponsored film personalities when it was in power and introduced actors as candidates. While the BJP occupied a prominent place in the 1980s, the talents of the cinema began to flock to the new game in town.

In Tamil Nadu, three of the biggest politicians of the state – MG Ramachandran, J Jayalalithaa and M Karunanidhi – emerged from the film industry. . NT Rama Rao first channeled his magnetism into the movies. Actors and filmmakers from almost every state have added electoral propaganda and governance to their repertoire, proving that cinema and politics are excellent bedfellows.

BJP supporters in the Hindi film industry did not just amplify the party line in the race that followed. and after the election of Modi in 2014. The director Vivek Agnihotri and actors Paresh Rawal and Anupam Kher are among Bollywood personalities whose support for Modi's India is reflected in the choice of their projects. Rawal, BJP MP, is working on his own biopic on Modi. played Manmohan Singh in The Accidental Prime Minister a blockbuster film on the party of Congress who posed as an insider account of Delhi politics. The official BJP official on Twitter clearly endorsed the film as "a fascinating event" narrative of how a family bought the country for 10 long years.

As for Vivek Agnihotri, on April 12, the day after the first phase of the general election, will see the publication of his T Tashkent Files which claim to reveal the suspicious way in which the Prime Minister of Congress, Lal Bahadur Shastri, died in the Soviet Union in 1964.

The Tashkent Files fit perfectly into the genre of the film about conspiracy theory, which calls into question the scope of the state and suggests that ordinary and honest individuals are sacrificed for twisted government purposes. The pro-BJP lobby has twisted this kind of anti-establishment to throw mud at party and government critics. This lobby is also trying to rewrite the post-independence history to badert that much of the way we understand our country up to now has been a big lie sold to the Indians by Congress.

Are we going through our own moment, Leni Reifenstahl? The German filmmaker lent her brilliant talents to the promotion of Nazism in Germany by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Documentaries such as Olympia and Triumph of the Will used the seduction tools of the seventh art: moving background music, juxtaposing plans to maximize emotions, deploying the camera exaggerating the stature of the subjects – peddling Nazi thought.

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No filmmaker with the persuasive ability of Riefenstahl has yet appeared in Hindi cinema. (Madhur Bhandarkar tried, with his 2017 Indu Sarkar screed to speak of urgency, but was undermined by his own incompetence.)

Meanwhile, the attempt to push the ruling party after the truths and the anointing of Modi as savior of India is manifested in bizarre places. The recently published comedy Total Dhamaal had a sentence praising the Prime Minister's misguided demonetization policy. Kangana Ranaut, who co-directed the patriotic drama of the time Manikarnika: Queen of Jhansi expressed admiration for Modi. If the Bollywood A-listers have personal doubts about the BJP's policies, they do not post them in public. When they were summoned, they presented their biggest smiles, as evidenced by several shots with Modi in January, which resulted in That Selfie. The photo of Modi with personalities such as Karan Johar, Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh, Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal and Ekta Kapoor certainly contributed to the belief that the Bollywood power elite was in the bag.

One of the real self-proclaimed Bollywood men was not present in the picture. An article on The Print published earlier this week claimed that Shah Rukh Khan was to be used to promote Urdu alongside Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif ,. The rank communalism that equated language with a particular religion was drowned in Internet humor, which wanted to know if Kaif, who had trouble speaking in Hindi, could actually communicate in Urdu.

The sophisticated message of the BJP has often defeated the opposition parties and the sweetness of Bollywood's power seems to be the last piece of the puzzle. The muscular feelings expressed in the title song of the 2016 action comedy Dishoom ("Mother India ko bura kaha, Dishoom toh, Jana Gana na khada hua, toh Dishoom") and the first lines of terrorism- theme Baby (2015) ("akalmandi … ghar mein ghuskar maarne mein hai") are no longer generic.