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Having a field day

Winning formula From “Chakde India”

The word “inspiration” has been quite sullied by filmmakers when they have to justify a blatant rip-off. But there is no escaping the fact that movies always manage to inspire their audiences, for good or for bad. Perhaps it’s the p ower of images that succeeds where those oft-repeated proverbs fail.

But if there is one movie genre that really stretches the word to its outer boundaries, then it’s the prototypical sports movie. Perhaps it’s the sheer physicality of the subject that invariably causes a charge to surge through your body as adrenaline rushes through your veins. With the latest entrant in the genre, “Chak De India”, making its way into cinema halls very soon, we revisit cinema’s fascination with sports.

Hitting you right in the gut – now that’s something that the sports movie has always managed to do. Comedies, thrillers or even biopics – the variants of a sports movie are many. Sometimes, they just form a background to an entertaining story, like “Bend it like Beckham”. Sometimes they use the compelling screenplay to tell out a true story – which could either be a gut wrenching “Remember the Titans” or “Miracle”, or a wildly comic “Cool Runnings” or “Shaolin Soccer”. Despite being small budget movies, they continue to have cult followings on DVD and repeated TV showings. The archetypal example of a sports movie is the iconic Rocky series starring Sylvester Stallone, which keeps getting discovered by new generations (lets pretend Rocky IV and V never happened).

For a country which is a constant embarrassment at international sporting events, it’s not surprising that Indian sports movies are extremely few. The concept took off with that classic of the early 1990s, “Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander”. The movie marked a sea change from the revenge-based melodramas that flourished in that era, and finally audiences could connect with a Riverdale-type small town and everyday characters obsessed with cross country cycle racing. If you grew up in the 1990s, then I’m sure you belong to the category that watched the Aamir Khan breakthrough film an embarrassing number of times (17, at last count).

It’s Aamir again who can lay claim to a film which is counted among the greatest ever made – “Lagaan”, the movie that so nearly tasted Oscar glory. Combining the nation’s two biggest passions – movies and cricket – “Lagaan” had all the trappings of a mainstream movie (singing, dancing, melodrama and romance), and yet succeeded in literally bowling over critics and surprising audiences, who revelled at theatres with plenty of back-slapping, air-punching, and shouting expletives at the ‘bad guys’, all the while rooting for Bhuvan’s misfit cricket team. Staying with cricket, Nagesh Kukunoor’s “Iqbal” is like chicken soup for the stressed out soul, a masterpiece of cinema which gets only better with every repeat viewing.

It’s strange, really. In most movies, people don’t want to see clichés; they don’t want to see cheesy, predictable scenes. But the rule is bent almost every time in this genre. Audiences actually expect to see all those elements that they have unconsciously accepted to be a part of the quintessential sports movie.

The formula is simple enough. You have the lovable underdog, an aspiring nobody, who must go through tremendous hurdles to bring about a miraculous victory. He will come across a trainer or coach (may or may not be likeable), with a murky past of his own, who himself would have to beat heavy odds for his pet project to be successful. And yes, the villain – a charismatic, arrogant but extremely talented sportsman, who immediately rubs the audiences the wrong way. Add a dash of politics into the whole scenario, and you’ve got a sumptuous movie meal indeed.

Lagaan

No sports movie is complete without the mandatory training montage, and the inspiring-speech-before-the-big-event sequence – the most important part of any sports movie; that which will inevitably cause goose bumps to erupt on your flesh. This is when the leads are shown preparing for the oncoming challenge – lifting dumbbells, punching the sandbag, or the more unconventional “Chale Chalo” song in “Lagaan”. What could be a better illustration than that unforgettable scene in Rocky, where Stallone is shown racing up the steps of the Philadelphia museum, to the accompaniment of Bill Conti’s stirring soundtrack, “Gonna Fly Now”. Never fails to pump you up.

Yeah, sports movies might end up being cheesy, campy, and unrealistic; the characters might be painted in black and white, scenes might be Disney-fied to unbelievable extents, and sequences might be unashamedly emotional. All fair arguments. But really, who cares? This is what we watch movies for.

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