:: IFFK 2008 ::

We live in an age in which the culture of cinema has been substantially impoverished by the hegemonic banality of Hollywood. It continues to be the case. The best films are reduced to the ghettos of film festivals, while tasteless dubbed versions of ordinary American films are everywhere to be found.

The review format, in its current form, with the vulgar system of star ratings has only worsened its current plight. Cinema today is in danger of being annihilated as an art form, and its future existence may solely be in the form of a consumer good.

Hence, the importance of criticism. We have a battle at hand.

All of us who have spent hours and hours in the company of the great masters, who have loved this mechanical art with the passion of an only love – we have an obligation to rescue it.

In 1967, Jean Renoir wrote about Andre Bazin, "For that king of our time, the cinema, has likewise its poet. That king on whose brow he has placed a crown of glory is all the greater for having been stripped by him of the falsely glittering robes that hampered its progress. It is, thanks to him, a royal personage rendered healthy, cleansed of its parasites, fined down – a king of quality – that our grandchildren will come to delight upon."

The critic today is faced with a monumental challenge. The critic must wake film criticism from its slumber, and reinvigorate it with ideas. Every thriving art form has a healthy, impassioned sphere of criticism.

Cinema has lost its way – we have exchanged eclectic cuisine with junk food. We, as critics, must speak of the health hazards of this junk. We must call a spade a spade – we have to restore cinema to the idealistic vision of its greatest innovators, return it to madness and passion. Through criticism, we shall reclaim our endangered art.

It was Fellini who said that "a different language is a different vision of life." It is what we need to save our king, the cinema, who still sits on the throne, but is beset with grave illness.

Vaibhav Vats studied English Literature at Ramjas College, Delhi University. Cinema forms a parallel narrative to his twenty-two years. He now studies at the Asian College of Journalism in Chennai.