Being a critic (Till the end of this article, I call myself as a critic, irrespective of whether you cry or laugh) is a very easy and tough task at the same time.
Why is it easy?
"In that particular scene where the camel is wounded in the desert, it is dressed with a white color cloth. But it would have been better if the director had chosen a red color cloth". The above comment may seem to have a factual analysis, but what the critic has done there is a dreaming of enhancement of a scene which is a result of the director's imagination. The director has imagined a desert, placed a camel there, created a scene in which it would be wounded and then made a character clean the wound and dress it. It requires a lot of imagination, analysis, convincing, and a lot of back breaking effort to capture his idea in a camera. Whereas for the critic, all is ready made for him to comment on. He doesnt need to understand the director's toil He may have a particular agenda behind it, which sometimes is understood by the audience directly or which may remain in the dark(if the audience doesnt have the level of sensibility/ if the director fails to portray it properly). A film is basically a communication that goes on between the story teller(director) and the audience. Any film maker, while making his film would add whatever the ingredients he can add, hoping that the audience will appreciate the taste besides digesting it. He visualises something in his mind, before presenting it and it will depend on his skill as a technician, whether he delivers what he wants to deliver or not. But the critic is in the dark about what the director wanted to convey. He simply sees the final outcome and comments on it. And the creator cannot argue that commenting on his creation is quite easy and imagining and executing is difficult. When he chose to release a product into public, he should be ready to face the verdict the public passes, whatever it may be. He cannot complain that people doesnt have the level of sensibility he has and that it is their problem if they dont like it. Its rubbish.
Huh....a lot of analysis? But the above lines doesnt mean that the critic is wrong.
Why it is a tough job?
Because watching a movie and having an opinion on is not all that is required to be a critic. I thought that films like TRANSFORMERS, XXX, GHOST RIDER etc are good movies, only till I watched great movies like CITIZEN KANE, GODFATHER, TERMINATOR, JAWS,AVATAR, GONE WITH THE WIND, INCEPTION, KILL BILL, LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL, SPIDER MAN 2, MEMENTO, VERTIGO, GOODFELLAS and a lot too more in number to be described here. We develop a taste, when we try different tastes. A normal cinegoer just likes or dislikes a film, based on his level of sensibility, his taste, his mindset, his mood at the time of viewing, his opinions on different things, and also the content of the film. But everytime he likes or dislikes something he may not know why he liked it, and doesnt care either. The critic knows the reason. Because he knows what a good cinema is, and how well it is possible to carve out a good film(being very generic here). Also, review is different from criticism. A review analyses the film to judge whether the film is worth your money or not. Its point of view is from the consumer's. Whereas a criticism would like to comment on the artistic elements and is more interesting.
On what basis do I rate movies?
I rate a movie based on what it is, but not on what it could be. What it has promised and what it has delivered? is the question on which I give my reviews. The poster, the trailor and the publicity of the movie should made it clear, what the film is supposed to be. Then based on their aspirations, we decide whether it has reached them or not. We cannot compare "Shivaji" with "Shiva" and say that "Shivaji" is unrealistic. "Shivaji" is made, based on the star charishma of Rajinikanth and it met what it has promised. We love to watch "Rajini" as a larger than life hero, and the makers of the film portrayed him in the same light. So, now it would be a blunder if I say that the hollywood has made a zero gravity fight in Inception believable and that Rajini is still flyng with ropes. Here the promises and performances matter. But if Shivaji is publicised to be a realistic portrayal of Indian economic crimes and the solutions, we have to pan it down saying that the solutions are unrealistic and that it is a piece of crap.
Hope you understood my point.
