`Dirty`
Vidya Makes A Definitive Statement
Watch
`The Dirty Picture`. It’s a cleansing experience.
Vidya Balan has arrived, as a star. She was always a good actress, but with her `dirty` role in `The Dirty Picture`, she has made a definitive statement not only about her acting skills, but also about how one person can carry the whole film on her shoulders. Yes, here we are talking about a female lead and not Amitabh Bachchan, who, in his heydays, made co-stars look like a juggernaut grafted into the script just to keep the superstar entertained.
`The Dirty Picture`, to my mind is one of the cleanest films made in recent times. Of course, you need a different thought process to appreciate just how clean it really is. It exposes the double standards that prevail in our society and threatens to break open the darker side of people. One of the dialogues in the film – and there are many such gems – hits you hard: Jab sharafat ke kapde utarte hai to sabse jyada maza sharifon ko hi ata hai. In an instant, it cleanses you of your dirty thoughts and makes you see the film in a totally different light from thereon at least.
Utmost credit must be given to the dialogue writer Rajat Aroraa for coming up with many gems in the film. If Amitabh Bachchan over the years lent credence to many memorable dialogues with his heavy baritone, Vidya Balan has immortalized each one of them with her subtle delivery and an expression of `delightful sarcasm` few actors or actresses before have ever dished out.
Actresses over the years have indulged in sensual scenes. Many of them even carried out those scenes with grace, but Vidya went miles ahead to meet the genuine needs of the character, and invited not ugly glances, but awe and respect for being honest to the core about the character she was essaying on screen.
Often, a good script is said to get the best out of an actor, but to my mind, in this film, the actress got the best out of the script. Vidya Balan elevated a good script to a space of immense substance. Vidya, through her thoroughly soaked-in-the-character performance, elevated every element in the film to a space of cinematic immortality, despite the film running the risk of looking crass, sleazy and vulgar in several of its frames. Yes, it must also be acknowledged that such a film is unlikely to have passed through the censor board in its current form even 10 years ago. Physicality and sexuality in urban society have undergone a perception shift in post-liberalisation India.
Vidya, it seemed, was not just playing a character, she imbued the late Silk Smitha, from whose life the film is inspired, with dignity and respect. She almost seemed to be on a mission to do that. The mission was not to make Silk simply turn in her grave, stand up and take notice, but to provide the world with `the other perspective` about such `other people`.
For a lot of actors, a great performance is also a time for reinvention, as bettering your best is nightmarish stuff. But for Vidya, this one is a `breakthrough performance` and not a `peak performance`. She has raised the bar like few can ever do. The only reason she could do it was, she risked extinction. If even for a few seconds she had come across as vulgar in any part of the film, she would have been relegated to the archives of `the unglorious`. In the film, she did not walk on the edge, she walked the edge itself, and in the process gained an edge her competitors could probably have never foreseen.
Vidya Balan, after much struggle (Do you know that she was sacked from 12 Malayalam films? To know more about her inspiring story, please read the Brunch issue of The Hindustan Times, dated December 18, 2011), has arrived on the big stage of Bollywood. I don’t know whether she will essay another such bold role. But one thing’s for sure, she will always be hailed as `the pioneer and demi-God of bold roles with substance` in Hindi films. Watch `The Dirty Picture`, if you haven’t already. It isn’t really dirty, you see! It is just frank, on-the-face and says it just as it sees it.
As we rapidly move towards the close of 2011, the top three questions being asked are:
1. Will Anna Hazare get the Lokpal Bill he wants?
2. When will Sachin Tendulkar score his 100th international hundred and
3. Did you watch `The Dirty Picture`?
Well Done, Vidya!
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