Posted on April 7, 2017
This is in response to this request by Rohit Sathish Nair:
Rangan sir, can you keep a blank space in the blog open for at least some of us solely for ranting against this year’s National Awards?
Rant away!
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Rahini David
April 7, 2017
How obliging!
🙂
Should it not be “Rants about 2017 National Awards” ? Or are you going to fill up your own rant soon?
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harish ram
April 7, 2017
Besides the best actor award is there anything controversial in this year awards?
PS: Great initiative BR. Do try to keep the forum alive in unique ways
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
April 7, 2017
Pillaiyar suzhi with Rustom. 😀
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satishkvasan
April 7, 2017
National awards for “Nationalist” roles! Has happened before.. From Pukar to Rustom
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
April 7, 2017
harish ram: True, this time it’s truly elevating, as opposed to last year. But I have a strong feeling that Akshay Kumar, Tirru and Mohanlal – all Priyadarshan’s favourites – were somewhat favoured by the jury. Anyways, I’m happy that a Tamil film (deserving or not) has on the Best Cinematography Award after a long time.
Btw, Aishwarya Rai nearly won this year’s award:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/malayalam/national-film-awards-it-was-surabhi-vs-aishwarya-rai-in-the-final-round-this-year/articleshow/58065304.cms
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BR Discoverer (formerly the "original" venkatesh)
April 7, 2017
Joker – really ? Is that all Tamil Cinema had last year ?
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Anisha
April 7, 2017
Since this is a rant, can I question best lyrics going to Dharmadurai’s Entha Pakkam?
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Garvit Virendera Sharma
April 7, 2017
If I ever wanted someone to shoot my brains out this would be the most acceptable moment.
The National Award for best actor has not been awarded for acting but the character which is plain obvious to each and every cine lover. Frustrating is that if you mention how asphyxiated you feel after this announcement people’s response ” Of he has been doing fabulous films of late like Airlift,Special 26,Baby and thus he deserves this “. All of them concede Rustom was not worth even a mention. And this is the gravest inquiry I have.
How did this dirt of a movie manage to be nominated in any way?
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Garvit Virendera Sharma
April 7, 2017
This country now is suffering from a disease called “Patriotic Correctness”. And there is no person of note capable of vaccinating the junta out of it.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
April 7, 2017
Oh, Danny is the ‘Best critic’! 🙂
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Vignesh Kanagaraja
April 7, 2017
Honest Raj, I honestly thought I was the only one to feel this. It cannot just be a coincidence that Akshay Kumar got the national award for Rustom and Mohanlal gets special jury mention (or was it an award) for Pulimurugan, Janatha Garage when Priyadarshan is the chairman of Jury. I do not mean to say that Mass Movies cannot have superlative performances – but here the coincidence is too much to be considered a coincidence.
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Srikanth Govindan
April 7, 2017
I love Akshay but’RUSTOM’
…! The jury had gone crazy…
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Arvind S Srinivasan
April 7, 2017
I thought the National awards hit a new low last year. But this year has outdone it. Its nothing but travesty when you think Akshay Kumar’s got the best actor for Rustom. Getting it for Airlift would have made sense, but Rustom. Common….Well this has got to be the worst pic after SAK got it for Hum Tum.
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Dracarys
April 7, 2017
Looks like Priyadarshan just closed his goat eyes while selecting the winners!
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pjarugula
April 7, 2017
I think this is mostly Priyadarshan’s doing. Akshay for Rustom, Mohanlal for every movie he did last year except Oppam (Priyadarshan directed) and Manamantha. Joker winning and Akshay is remaking Joker (might be bit of a stretch). I do think Joker is quite deserving though. Shatamanam Bhavati winning is probably the biggest misstep of them all. Again, it has that Priyadarshan link as it is probably the most major role Prakash Raj has had in the last 2 years. Shivaay winning best special effects over Fan is also amusing.
The few awards that I thought were fair was the production design for 24, Zaira Wasim for Dangal, all Neerja awards, Pink, Pellichoopulu and again Joker. The rest I did not get a chance to check out yet. Overall, this was an embarrassingly bad year for the only somewhat trustworthy awards being given out in India.
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pjarugula
April 7, 2017
Wow Honest Raj. That link saying Aishwarya Rai nearly won had me just laugh out loud. I don’t even know what to say anymore.
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Mary Kutty
April 7, 2017
Oh well…with a certain party with a certain ideology at the center and Priyadarshan in the jury, not surprised that people like Akshay Kumar and Mohanlal (both favorites of the supporters of the party) have won. Lal has had a storied career with a plethora of great performances. It is almost an insult that he received a special mention for something like Janata Garage and Puli Murugan. Utter dreck. If they had to give the Best Actor award to someone from Bollywood, why not Aamir? He gave a career best performance in Dangal.
I just read that Aishwarya was in the final round for best actress and I’m just stunned. How is that even possible?!?! She was the definition of histrionic in that awful movie Sarbjit.
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Krish
April 8, 2017
The only reason they gave it to Akshay for Rustom is because they possibly couldn’t have given him for the ThumbsUp Ad!!
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sachita
April 8, 2017
i am sorry didnt saif ali khan win for khnh or some movie like that? after that, do people still follow the best actor award. Watch out for regional movies and other non-political categories for awards eg. best critic might be worth following 🙂
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Anu Warrier
April 8, 2017
The national awards are a joke. Even if they wanted to give it to ‘Bollywood’, why not find another worthy role? Last year was filled with some great performances.
Mohanlal for Pulimurugan? That’s almost an insult to that great actor.
I do like Akshay, and I’m glad for him, but….
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Apu
April 8, 2017
http://m.huffingtonpost.in/2017/04/07/in-the-year-of-udta-punjab-aligarh-and-dangal-how-did-akshay_a_22029940/
Exactly my thoughts.
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Anisha
April 8, 2017
Aamir seemed like the obvious choice. I thought he just boycotts the Filmfares and Zees. Well, at least Aishwarya didn’t win for Sarabjit – YIKES!
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Safwat Ahsan
April 8, 2017
Did anyone watch the trailer/teaser of the movie “Minnaminungu”, the pick for the best actress. Over dramatic isn’t the apt word I guess.
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Anisha
April 8, 2017
Just one more thing, I would’ve really liked Radhika Apte getting a special mention for Phobia. It was a challenging role where you couldn’t predict what she’d do next, and she just pulled it off so well.
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Jyoti S Kumar
April 8, 2017
Apu – the post has analysed a lot of good hindi movies. But my problem is that. It speaks only of hindi movies. What about the south, Marathi, Bengali etc…. Atleast if he or she is not too familiar with other regional industries, a single line of acknowledgement would have redeemed this lack.
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Jyoti S Kumar
April 8, 2017
What if, in future, only the movies that won their respective state awards are considered for national awards?
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Aman
April 8, 2017
Priyadarsan is the chairman of RSS owned Janam TV, hence he is the chairman of jury. And he justifies his pick by saying Ramesh Sippy awarded it to Bachchan, Prakash Jha awarded it to Jy Devgn. And he laments the existence of Aligarh, Kapoor and Sons etc as why so many gay movies in bollywood, they are not social issues. And another stupid logic is Dangal is real story, so didn’t give it to Aamir. So Rustom and Airlift isn’t real stories? Shivaay won for vfx, again it has more to do with Jy Devgn’s right appeasment. Akshay Kumar’s turn to a patriot to sell his films or cement post his decision to give up Indian citizenship for Canadian one also has been appreciated. Manoj Joshi who won the best supporting actor has a profile picture of I support Modi in his twitter account( meta!). Also Thiru winning it for a film directed by Priyadarshan associate, Mohanlal winning it for various films etc are already mentioned above. All in all this was the most transparent awards in a long time.
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Aman
April 8, 2017
P.S: Ironically the film that calls out casteism in the films of the likes of Priyan/Mohanlal won the award for the best original screenplay.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
April 8, 2017
Jyoti S Kumar: What if, in future, only the movies that won their respective state awards are considered for national awards?
Things could go even worse:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/tamil/movies/news/Kerala-HC-issues-notice-to-Bharathiraja/articleshow/38976508.cms
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Madan
April 8, 2017
“i am sorry didnt saif ali khan win for khnh or some movie like that? after that, do people still follow the best actor award.” – For Hum Tum. Yeah, it’s been a joke for a long time.
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Mary Kutty
April 8, 2017
Saif didn’t deserve to win for Hum Tum. That was ludicrous. He got it only because Sharmila Tagore was in the jury. Anyway, I do think he is a good actor and Omkara is an award-worthy performance.
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harish ram
April 9, 2017
Read Priyadharsan interview on this matter. His big defence in the AK controversy is why no one questioned when AB won last year with Sippy on the jury and Ajay Devgn winning with Jha on the jury. Stranger times.
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GODZ
April 9, 2017
I dont know why we are taking the national awards so serious..It deserves the same attention we are giving to state awards..We know what state awards are all about..So do national awards..Yes Sometimes you feel happy when your regional actor get the National or international Spotlight that he/she receives while winning these Awards..Thats about it…Just Just one Example..The Great Great Great Kishore Da did not ever ever received a National award..Does not it say something about these awards…? I am not saying all the people who received the awards did not deserve their awards..What i say is national awards has its own Standards and Greatness is definitely not one among them…So why bother..Oh boy…i am ranting here..haha
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Hareesh Ks
April 9, 2017
I think Giving best screenplay to Maheshinte prathikaram is the odd cog in the pattern of priyadarshan awarding to all his favourites and associates. The screenplay had a direct reference to the prevalence of upper caste roles in Mohanlals repertoire of great films through the ages. May be priyadarshan did that too sort of confuse the malayali leftist who would have screamed Nepotism anyway for ignoring vinayakan /Fahadh and favouring Mohanlal
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Rohit Sathish Nair
April 10, 2017
Rangan Sir: All I expected was a witty retort!!!
Sorry for the late reply
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Rohit Sathish Nair
April 10, 2017
That said, I wouldn’t say that the awards were totally rigged. Some of the films (Best film ‘Kaasav’ and Best Film on Env. Issues ‘Loktak Lairembee’, to name a few) were screened at IFFK among other festivals too, and that should say they have a certain quality. That said, would really like inputs from the Marathi and Telugu filmwatchers here, who scored big this time.
Separate plug for Malayalam – Bravo, Bravo, Bravo for Maheshinte Prathikaaram! Really happy to see it being recognised, and more heartening to know that even the odd blithest of blithe screenplays can be reccognised over message-heavy or drama-packed scripts. Kudos to Surabhi alias Paattumma too. More power to actors of Mollywood!
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Rohit Sathish Nair
April 10, 2017
Now to the rant part.
Don’t know which one is more shocking: Akshay Kumar’s win, Mohanlal’s Jury mention for 3 hardly remarkable performances (one of which should easily go down as one of his worst), the fact that Pulimurugan was RECALLED by the central jury even though it was skipped by the regional jury, or the bizarre justifications he gave for his choices in later interviews.
What looked worse was how AK fans defended the decision, each of them giving a different version of “Congrats Akshay Kumar sir! Screw the Khans!” and whatnot. All these guys seem to have the notion that the National Awards is strictly for Bollywood. Even Suriya fans, were calling that shot in 24 where he freezes time during the rains the ‘Best Shot of the Year’. That’s not cinematography, son, that’s the VFX guy who did his job there.
I wasn’t sure initially about this being a BJP-leaning show and Priyadarshan being a Sangh stooge, but looking at some of his earlier films has made me think again. i guess some of his films in a more serious vein, have had a certain anti-socialist or anti-communist undercurrent (which he is free to add). I think it struck the right chord in say, Midhunam, but I don’t say if it added to say, Aryan or Advaitham. Even Vellanakalude Nadu had some of it, although it seemed to be more of a melodrama than a satire.
Many especially in Kerala (including me) were also a bit surprised by Vinayakan’s being snubbed for Kammatipaadam. (He lost to Manoj Joshi in the Supporting Actor category). Others in fact expected this snubbing because according to them, a pro-Dalit film would have never been considered worthy by this jury.
And instead they think Pulimurugan showed excellence in some department or the other. Mr. Priyan, if you’re happy about the fact that your 56-year old good friend can still do stunts very well, do an action franchise where even we won’t feel cheated. No one’s really gonna be bothered if you copied stuff, because here, it’s more legit than it is in anything else.
Instead you don’t congratulate him for work which looks so insignificant when compared to his best work. You don’t give him a Jury mention just because he’s fit. Also, felicitating stunt directors is a right thing to do too, but with all the other blunders, you have undermined the value of this valid decision too. We really thought you were a better conman!
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Tusshar
April 10, 2017
Priyadarshan was a right wing bigot way before it was cool, the guy used to run upper caste trivandrum based clique to keep away other film makers and actors they didn’t like until others took over in the industry. He was irrelevant more most part of this decade and is making a come back thanks to the change of regimen and the powers that came to him. Now there is no pretension of being a neutral and is a full fledged RSS card owner and is getting instant rewards. National awards at least had false credibility before this even though the likes of Bachchan winning over Thilakan might have put the seeds of doubt way back. Heck, as they as every award tells more about the jury than the winners.
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vengayam
April 10, 2017
when MGR could win it for Rickshakaran, why rant?
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brangan
April 10, 2017
Rohit Sathish Nair: Even Suriya fans, were calling that shot in 24 where he freezes time during the rains the ‘Best Shot of the Year’. That’s not cinematography, son, that’s the VFX guy who did his job there.
I’m not surprised. Cinema is the one medium where everyone knows everything. I regularly get to converse with people who’ll keep yakking about screenplay and editing without knowing the most basic difference between the two aspects 🙂
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MANK
April 10, 2017
Rustom + pulimuragan = national award for Akshay & Lalettan is Priyan’s best slapstick comedy since aram + aram = kinnaram 🙂
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Sumesh Nellikka
April 10, 2017
Too bad Mohanlal couldn’t win the award for ‘Oppam’. I didn’t realise he played a blind character until I googled about the film after watching it, gracious of the jury not to award for the chairman’s film.
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Aa
April 10, 2017
Thank God Paresh Rawal didn’t have a film!!!
Otherwise, they’d have to create an altogether new category!!!
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snehal
April 10, 2017
BR, this blog group should have it’s own awards. You could put a small jury together consisting of regular commentators, it will be loads of fun.
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praneshp
April 11, 2017
“Cinema is the one medium where everyone knows everything.”
Heh, you must not know too many cricket fans.
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Rohit Sathish Nair
April 14, 2017
Rangan sir:
What’s worse off is how editing is perceived and judged by people. Any 2+-hr film in their opinion isn’t a well-edited film. They even get so worked up when a 3+-hr film wins an award for Best Editing. But again, they aren’t to be blamed because the best sort of editing that they frequently see is that of the invisible kind. On the other kind, we either get editing decisions that make no sense, or a particular flashy cut done a lot of times consecutively. (Case in point: Oru Muthassi Gadha in Malayalam, where a match cut is used at least 3-4 times in succession, within the first 20 minutes of the film).
How films are edited is already a hard thing for films to be compared, so what is unbelievable is that folks think it’s done with stopwatches.
On a side note, is it possible if you could watch the films that won the Regional Best Film awards and hopefully share your thoughts on them?
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Hareesh Ks
April 15, 2017
Another of Priyadarshans soft propaganda came in Kalapani ,where he tried to whitewash none other than Sarvarkar as the brave patriot . As a gullible child everything mohanlal kept saying about india seemed right to me at that time. But now I have come to realize the truth in the words of Mrs Hutton. I
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Madan Mohan
April 15, 2017
“where he tried to whitewash none other than Sarvarkar as the brave patriot ” – He doesn’t really have to try. Mumbai renamed good ol’ Cadell Road (which is how long time Mumbaiites still refer to it) as Veer Savarkar Marg. Yeah baby!
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
April 15, 2017
Won’t be too surprised if our school textbooks in 2050 mention that Savarkar is the father of our nation.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
June 15, 2017
Ah, didn’t expect this to happen too soon!
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/in-new-rajasthan-textbooks-veer-savarkar-overshadows-gandhi-and-nehru/story-NGzReSVik2uLKCRQDAsQ5I.html
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