Fashion ka Tashion

#WARNING: This post is a rant. Feel free to ignore!

I always thought Madhur Bhandarkar to be a wannabe movie director trying too hard to be different. Then I saw Fashion. I now think he is also a narcissistic individual replete with vanity. This is how he defines himself and his movie Fashion right in the movie itself -

Did you hear that? Yes, he does research to make a realistic movie. I have never seen a more self-indulgent, self-referring and self-absorbed 15 seconds by a director. This 15 seconds destroyed any chance I had to complete this movie in my second attempt and with the leeway that a Bollywood flick gets by default. Agreed, that such self-references and signature-style movie making is common among some directors. Inglourious Basterds comes to mind among the recent ones. But even when Tarantino indulges himself by referring to his previous movies or explicitly naming his movie styles, he does not so much as exploit the medium to satisfy his attention seeking disorder. If you remember the last dialogue of the movie, he almost edged towards conceit but again, not tasteless and rather intelligent and humorous. Other directors too, like Subhash Ghai and Shekhar Kapur in Bandit Queen, who couldn't resist appearing on the screen themselves chose to make only cameo appearances. And as if this wasn't enough, Madhur Bhandarkar hits another self-eulogy:

Poor Mr. Bhandarkar - he's so much concerned with the social issues and the dedication to the movie art that he can't look beyond realistic cinema, with the quotation hand gestures. The trivialities of world shown in the glamorous mainstream cinema is for lesser mortals like Yash Chopra.

Well, right now, this vulgar and in-your-face display of conceit makes me feel he is Mayawati of Bollywood.