6 habits which Punjabi film industry should discontinue: Punjabi Mania presents before you six repeated habits which the Punjabi film industry should do away with now.

It is almost 2019. The cinema and other forms of entertainment in India are scaling to novel heights. While Punjabi music is usually found trending across the nation, the same cannot be said about our movies. It is true that the Punjabi film industry has taken giant leaps in the last half-a-decade or so but it is also true that we still are repeating the same mistakes again and again.

The intention of this piece is not to compare Punjabi films at the highest level for that won’t be fair for several reasons. It is also worth mentioning that we are by no means wanting to break someone’s spirit or mock any film/actor/director/writer/producer etc., but this is just an effort to highlight a few points which are found in most contemporary Punjabi movies or are performed in a pig-headed manner in the industry under the category of “trend”.

6 habits which Punjabi film industry should discontinue

1) Fixation with marriages – In which is a staggering number, out of the 48 Punjabi movies which released in 2018, more than two-third of them were related to marriages or made around a married couple. The tedious trend had it in it to force one to think twice before watching a Punjabi movie by the end of the year.

The most distressing part lies in the fact that some of the genuinely good movies, which were based on a different subject altogether, also saw a marriage happening in their respective climaxes. In which is dull and mundane for the audiences to watch, it raises a significant question regarding do we have able writers who can write on subjects other than marriages?

Not stating that there is anything wrong in the concept of marriage, but listening to ‘Paani vaar banne diye maaye…’ on the silver screen every second week is a soul-destroying task.

2) Uncalled for songs – Agreed that most of the Punjabi actors are first singers and then actors, but that doesn’t give them or the director/producer the license to include gratuitous songs in a movie. Apart from adding to the length of the movie, these unnecessary and sometimes useless songs do no good to the movie.

Moreover, these singer-turned-actors release enough single tracks in a year to listen to. Hence, no point in persisting with something which doesn’t serve much purpose as far as the movie is concerned.

In which is a rare case in Punjabi films, but if the songs are a “genuine” demand of the script, one can agree with their presence. Otherwise, it is high time for the makers to realize that adding purposeless songs have it in them to degrade the quality of even authentically good movie.

3) Convoluted endings – Coming straight from the Priyadarshan School of Climaxes, Punjabi movies have yielded a lot of success from adding considerable amount of confusion towards their culmination. While it has been a tried and tested formula, it is another facet of film-making in Punjab which needs to be stopped now.

While the herd mentality of writers and directors has made them write and direct movies in this manner, it has somewhere started to look mundane now. One really feels sad about those directors who make a desperate attempt to emulate similar climaxes but fail at it miserably, losing their original idea in the process.

4) Run-of-the-mill female characters – It is high time that Punjabi writers stop writing middling and uninspired characters for women. A major part of our movies comprise of lead actresses who have nothing much to contribute than just play the forceful love interest of the lead actor or perhaps just appear in a couple of songs or the saddest of them all, accompany the cast during promotions.

Not that we don’t have talented actresses in our industry, there are plenty of them. But their true craft won’t appear on the celluloid until and unless some wise writer writes a character which is wholly and solely written for them and not written to just fit in the part of an actress.

5) Repeated cast – Another reason why some of the movies don’t click is the presence of the same faces in almost each one of them. When it comes to the supporting cast, the makers tend to stick with the fail-safe faces which makes proceedings look recurrent.

Agreed that some of them are genuinely talented people but isn’t it becoming the too much of too much? Doesn’t it convey about the dearth of new faces in our industry? Isn’t it saddening for a plethora of theatre artists in the state?

6) Uploading clips of movies on social media – Almost all A-list actors have been guilty of this at some point this year. It is these actors who lay constant emphasis on why the audiences shouldn’t promote piracy or watch their movies only in cinema halls.

On the other hand, the same bunch of renowned celebrities end up uploading clips of their movies (sent by audiences from the cinema halls) on their respective social media handles in the name of promotions (even after the movie has released, just imagine). Perhaps, these people should realize that if the trailer, songs, promotional activities and most importantly the movie doesn’t have the mettle to work well, filling their social media profiles with numerous clips of people enjoying the movie won’t help its case.

Furthermore, it spoils the fun of some of their genuine fans who look forward to watch the movie on the imminent weekdays. Sadly for them, some of the key scenes/sequences are under their noses (on social media) on the weekend itself.

On this New Year, here is hoping for some, if not all, of these much-followed habits of celebrities in the Punjabi film industry to change this year.

About Dixit Bhargav

<p>Engineer. Sports Management student. Cricket enthusiast. Ardent follower of the Punjabi cinema.</p>