War of Words:over Eklavya’s Oscar entry

War of Words:over Eklavya’s Oscar entry

The announcement of Eklavya as India’s official entry for the Oscars as sparked off a war of words within the film industry.

Even as some people like Sudhir Mishra and Ronnie Screwvala stand by ‘Eklavya’ – directed by Vidhu Vinod Chopra – there are others like Sajid Khan , Farah Khan and Anupam Kher who openly expressed their disappointment at the film’s selection for Indian entry to the next Oscars.Sajid Khan called ‘Eklavya’ a film without a soul. Anupam Kher thought Chak De India deserved better. Farah Khan, too, thought that the film wasn’t deserving of the honour. According to Farah, another contestant Dharm deserved better. Even the director of ‘Dharm’, Bhavna Talwar, called ‘Eklavya’ a boring film.

Such reactions apparently angered Vidhu Vinod Chopra. Defending his film in a media interview, a furious Chopra questioned “the credentials, the intelligence and cinematic knowledge” of those people to think ‘Eklavya’ isn’t deserving enough. Not just this, Chopra called Bhavna’s movie ‘Dharm’ “a load of shit”.

Chopra also cites excerpts from the reviews that ‘Eklavya’ got in LA Times and NY Times. The former, Chopra says, described ‘Eklavya’ as a lost film of David Lean.

Chopra’s tirade has invoked an open letter from Sajid Khan (director of Heyy Babyy ), who has used his sarcastic humour judiciously to “congratulate” Chopra and make subtle jibes at him.

In the letter, Sajid praises Chopra’s ability to produce hit films like Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai , but rues the lack of successful films directed by Chopra.

“I am yet to see a blockbuster 'directed' by you which has touched hearts of millions across the globe and brought in 'moolah' as well,” Sajid says in his letter.

Even as Sajid sarcastically acknowledges Chopra’s ‘knowledge of international cinema’, he proves in the letter that he himself is not an ignoramus either.

Sajid also takes a nuanced jab at Chopra’s style of filmmaking by saying: “capturing good looking frames may not just be the right definition of making interesting cinema”.

We couldn’t agree more with Sajid.