The three phase story begins with the teenage kid exploring the sexual pleasures for the first time through some hidden experiences. It reaches the youth when the need becomes even stronger looking at the smiling girls leading to an amateur affair. And then features the years of mature freedom resulting in another intense relationship heading towards an emotional finale.
That’s the basic premise of the latest release HUNTERRR & its core subject certainly makes us recall a cult Hindi classic film that also dealt with an emotional biographical account of an adorable loving soul and the three beautiful ladies in the various phases of his lonely life craving for togetherness. But at the same time the thought also forces us to realise the huge difference between the contrasting visions of the two eras wherein perhaps Love has been replaced by Sex and ‘Emotional Trustworthy Affairs’ have been replaced by ‘Careless One Night Stands” quite evidently.
The film one recalls instantly while watching HUNTERRR is the showman Raj Kapoor’s MERA NAAM JOKER (1970) that remained completely focused on heartfelt emotions, trust & love including a worth praising, insightful depiction of the age of adolescence, that till date is considered as a benchmark achievement in our Indian cinema without any doubt.
Interestingly, revolving around the life of a sex maniac and his timely (sexual) encounters with three particular women (out of many), HUNTERRR exactly follows the same path as MERA NAAM JOKER but on a visibly much lower level relating its every single sequence with just Sex & Lust alone instead of Love.
Following a similar vision, it also begins with good 30 minutes devoted to the kids and their first sexual experiences that are enjoyable to watch. But the vision maestro Raj Kapoor displayed in his epic timeless creation, unarguably remains miles ahead having a deep psychological impact on the viewers of all age groups even today (after more than four decades). Moreover just like MERA NAAM JOKER, the most appreciable part of HUNTERRR too remains its opening section only dealing with adolescents.
However, the two films are not being discussed here in comparative terms at all in any manner. But they are being quoted in a single line together just to portray the similarities in concept and the vast differences in the vision within the two eras wherein probably we are fast losing the ability of feeling (valuing) selfless love to the timely acts of sex and mere bodily pleasures.
In other words, even after four decades, our cinema is still selling the same story of a man and three beautiful girls in his life, but now we need SEX in place of LOVE or titles like HUNTER in place of LOVER to make & sell our films in the market unfortunately.
(First published at Hindustan Times portal at the following link on 21st March 2015 – with few changes)
Tags :
MERA NAAM JOKER (1970) & HUNTERRR (2015) From LOVE To SEX, Articles on cinema by Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com, Raj Kapoor's vision on adolescence, A person and three women, Films based on love and sex in Hindi Cinema,
