Is the ‘PM Narendra Modi’ biopic funded by the opposition?
It's not every day you have a biopic being made, based on the life of your prime minister.
And that's true for any country. But in India, there will be two in just the last six months — first, The Accidental Prime Minister based on Sanjaya Baru’s book of the same name, about our ex-PM Manmohan Singh — and now, PM Narendra Modi, based on the life of our current prime minister, starring Vivek Anand Oberoi.
The former was critiqued to no end for its cartoonish portrayal of Dr Singh, written off immediately as an opposition-funded reverse propaganda film to malign Dr Singh’s image.
With the first look — actually, nine looks — of Vivek Oberoi as Narendra Modi, apparently in various stages of his life, released recently, the same question is being asked again — is this an opposition-funded reverse propaganda film to malign Modiji’s image?
It sure looks like it!
And it all started with the casting of Vivek Anand Oberoi.
Of the nine looks released, which shows Vivek from a young RSS worker to a seasoned politician, four seem to be stills from Vivek’s older films — with zero resemblance to the man he is trying to portray.
In one, he is dressed as a mystifying saadhu baba — a popular totem in many Hindi films, but never the main character.
In another, he is dressed as a Sikh man — we don’t quite know why.
Two particular looks of the released nine seem to have a ghostly (nope, it’s not a mistake, I meant ghostly, not ghastly) resemblance to Narendra Modi. But, even there, instead of looking the man, it looks caricaturish, cartoonish — and worst still, potentially damaging so close to the election.
5th April 2019 ???? #PMNarendraModi pic.twitter.com/fnGSuLxHZu
— Vivek Anand Oberoi (@vivekoberoi) March 19, 2019
PM Narendra Modi was slated for an April 12, 2019 release — and phase 1 of the Lok Sabha 2019 elections starts from April 11. And now, in something that can be termed an 'unprecedented move', the release date has been brought forward — from April 12 to April 5.
Still, the question of damaging the image of a viable candidate remains.
And that is why it is imperative we speak about the Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer Thackeray. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that it was (pretty much) a Shiv Sena film. Aside from the politics of it — which one may or may not agree with — the film was a clean one, with special care taken to ensure Nawaz looked enormously like Bala Saheb.
If anything, this amateurish portrayal of Narendra Modi — with sub-standard and low-budget make-up — will only help the opposition’s case.
All they need to do is wait for the film to release and it will turn into a national joke in no time.