Award announcements typically drag with them criticisms or controversies, but this time, it comes not entirely from the competitors. It comes as an expression of shock over the selection of Baahubali as the national award winner for best film.
Actor-producer Prakash Bare made three Facebook posts in one hour, two of these were congratulatory messages for directors Dr Biju and V.K. Prakash for winning national awards. The third comes with an emoticon ‘feeling disgusted’, a critical post on Baahubali winning the award, reflecting the sentiment of quite a few film lovers and critics as is obvious from the comments he’s received.
The post says: Baahubali is the best Indian film! Not the best among popular films.. not the best animation.. not just the best art direction.. It is the very best the country made in the whole of 2015! When you have Mr Sippy heading the national jury, what else to expect! Sad is the plight of this country.. Welcome to the anti-intellectual era! (sic)
“You can see from most of the comments — pretty much everybody, even a kid knows it (Baahubali) is like an animation film. It’s basically overacting and spectacles and unrealistic things, for the amusement of kids and that kind of entertainment. How can that be a country’s best film?” Prakash Bare asks. “ When you pick the jury, you are already picking the films. If Sholay’s director Sippy is the best jury head you can get in the country, he will only pick this kind of a film.”
“Degradation has been steady, this year it is one notch below,” Prakash adds. “It is really going anti-intelligentsia. Anything using your head is becoming a taboo. What’s funny is that Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which won the most popular film award, is any day a much better film.” Then there is the post of director Sanal Kumar Sasidharan who won the state award for best film for his film Ozhivu Divasathe Kali. He posts: I am really happy and proud that my film has not even sustained a mention from this award jury. The 63rd National Film Awards reflects the thought process of this regime... Its melodramatic approaches, its moral values, its cultural outlooks. Nation is fast going back to the Amar Chithrakatha values and sensibilities.. And the awards goes to... (sic)
Sanal says it is an interesting selection, but then he sort of expected his film to not win. “They won’t even mention films like ours, which so strongly talks about politics and suggests the present situation in the country. If they mention the film in national awards, it will get noticed. They don’t wish that. But then my film not getting an award is secondary. When they give an award to a film like Baahubali, the jury is insulting itself, it clearly shows their standard. Even my children asked, isn’t it a graphical film.”
