There’s a story Baradwaj Rangan has oft repeated, of how he came to writing. Of how from within the well-moneyed comforts of the software industry in the U.S., he insisted on watching every Tamil and Hindi film release available, religiously wrote reviews about them and emailed it to a small circle of friends, one of whom turned out to be his future editor, Sushila Ravindranath. The story goes that she warned him of the little opulence writing held, and yet he chose to leave the U.S., to make a living from the word in India. The story that’s unfolded henceforth, of building his body of work one film review after the other, one interview after the other, comes together in Dispatches from the Wall Corner — A Journey Through Indian Cinema (Tranquebar) —an anthology of the best of his writings in the last decade, which was recently released at Vivanta by Taj Connemara.
The book sections itself in six parts — actor profiles, writings on Hindi and Tamil cinema, interviews with directors, articles on music and finally, film reviews — a wide oeuvre of proficiency that Sushila says she discovered only once Baradwaj moved to India. In conversation with him at the launch, she says, “He was like an encyclopaedia that could write on anything! And all of it in sentences that would describe exactly what we were all dying to say but didn’t know how to.” As proof, she picks out short passages from the book — from a profile on actor Sarika that opens with descriptions of her as a “magnet for my vision” but goes on to uncover unfamiliar sides to her personality, to an interview with the iconic K. Balachander, one of Baradwaj’s all-time favourite directors, which was originally just a casual chat that unwittingly grew into a full-fledged account of the workings of his mind.
Over the decade and more that Baradwaj has been writing though, the role of critics and reviewers has changed too. “I’m rather wary of the word critic,” says Baradwaj, “for it blends into ‘criticise’ and that’s not it at all. I see it more as analysis, and I prefer ‘analyst’ to ‘critic’ too. The point isn’t to tell you whether to watch a film or not, which five-star reviewers can do for you online in just hours after a film’s release; it’s about understanding and analysing the cinematic appeal of a film.” In an increasingly digital world, the very need of a film critic in a newspaper has been questioned as well. To this, Baradwaj points to the community of readers that has sprung up around his blog, which features longer versions of his stories, many of whom are ardent film lovers who get intricate discussions going about his opinions in the comments section. “With Facebook and Twitter around, everybody’s an instant critic, but we’re all like the blind men and the elephant, trying to describe what we see through our different lenses that dim us to other’s perspectives. Where the review was once the final word on a film, online, it becomes the starting point to open conversations.”
The key to staying relevant today, Baradwaj finds is going a step beyond the ‘Do you like it? Yes. No. Maybe’ nature of reviews, to the deeper question of probing why he responds the way he does. The result has been acceptance and respect for a wide spectrum in his writing, ranging from the classic acts in both films and music, to the newer generation of experimental creators. “With music, for instance, it isn’t about the instruments used that’s as important to me as the overall effect of it.
That makes it possible to be an Illayaraaja and M. S. Viswanathan fan and still get what those like Santhosh Narayanan and M. Ghibran do.” Among questions about how it was ever possible to reconcile these two generations, to those about his best-loved films, directors, and actors, Baradwaj fielded a variety of audience queries. “With the professional hat of a critic constantly on, is it ever possible to just simply enjoy a film?” someone questioned. “Of course it is!” says Baradwaj. “The analysis is part of the enjoyment; it doesn’t preclude it. After 10 disappointing films, when you find one good one, it's a huge, huge high. And you keep looking for that high.”
