Cellphone as cinema’s top villain!

Recalling a line that did not make it to the final cut of his film Logout drops on ZEE5 April 18 director Amit Golani tells me ldquoIt was about comparing social media to the advent of carsmdashand how they once replaced horse carriagesldquoIt would have led to some confusionpandemonium right But that doesnrsquot mean cars are bad Itrsquos just that society had to subsequently devise traffic rules streets cops selfcontrol before they became safe or better sense prevailed Same for social mediardquoLogout is about a socialmedia influencer caught in the digital trap of a fan whorsquos got access to his phone Firstly I find some of these terms including fan a misnomerI mean just because someone has several million followers online doesnrsquot alone make them a leader of any sort let alone that they can influence thoughts opinions purchasing decisions etcWe could follow for fully frivolous reasons I know digitalinfluencer marketers think otherwise Let them burn cash for all we careDirector Amit GolaniBut having watched Logout backtoback with couple of episodes of the new season of Charlie Brookerrsquos Black Mirror after Philip Barantinirsquos Adolescence I wanted to check with Golani if he feels the cellphone or social media is the new onscreen villain of our timesEvery generation throws up a universal cinema villainmdashthink of the zamindar and moneylender in Hindi films of 1950s rsquo60s rich capitalistsethji or the lsquosystemrsquo in the rsquo70s or Pakistan for that matter late rsquo90s onwardsMinor irony with Golani who quit his dayjob in 2009 to pursue filmmaking is he was originally part of a YouTube collective TVFmdashitself a popular product of social media with lsquoviralrsquo for its middle nameI did a cameo once on a TVF sketch directed by Golani parodying TV anchor Arnab Goswami with Biswapati Sarkar writer of Logout in the part Jitendra Kumar as Arvind Kejriwal among othersGolani remembers they uploaded that video stepped out for lunch In a couple of hours that they returned they were shockedmdashldquowoh aisa phatardquomdashlooking at the lsquolikesrsquo getting clicked away at the speed of lightThis was around 2013 early years of YouTubeThat ballgame he says has dramatically changed over a decade sincemdashgiven stakes running into billions with wars over brands and lsquoinfluencersrsquo at the centre of this reality showWhich explains the protagonist of Logout competing with his ex over who will hit 10 million followers firstBabil Khan 26 plays this protagonist with the social media handle pratman When theyrsquod shortlisted 10 actors for this lead part Golani says they didnrsquot know Babil as in the great Irrfanrsquos son had auditioned for the roleFor about 90 per cent of the screentime in Logout the camera is fixed on Babil alone in a room Itrsquos a tough frickinrsquo role And to be fair he lifts up the screenplay through and through Also we should be allowed a certain bias towards young BabilI first met him briefly as a lirsquol boy over breakfast with Naseeruddin Shah and Irrfanmdashboth were shooting for separate films in Lucknow Irrfan introduced Babil as his shy quiet son that he was getting homeschooled thenI donrsquot know if like his father Babil formally learnt acting But therersquos an inherently untrained naturalness to his performances that perhaps schools canrsquot teach Itrsquos obviously unfair to compare him to his late dad stillYou watch anxieties of a youngling so attached to comments of people he will never know making up a follower count that defines his very life income includedThe opening slate of Logout reads ldquoItrsquos a prison designed for your mind and it has over 7 billion prisoners There is a reason itrsquos called a Cell PhonerdquoBut the larger motive behind the movie written during the pandemic as Golani points out was to mirror our engagement with technology in the presentmdashas against ldquoBlack Mirror that peeks into the near future so does Vikramaditya Motwanersquos CTRL for that matterrdquoFor inspiration Golani cites Rob Reinerrsquos Misery 1990 based on a William Goldman script that in turn was adapted from a Stephen King novel of the same nameWherein a romance novelist is held captive by an obsessive fan at her dim and distant home TIL Itrsquos the only film based on a King novel to win an Oscar for the female lead Kathy BatesExcept the detention in Logout is digital The fanrsquos just got hold of her favourite contentcreatorrsquos phone which is enoughGolani tells me hersquos himself lost his phone for a couple of hours and freaked out over the kind of access the finder may have and what they may do with itWith less to lose you could also deem it an excuse for social detox Naah the greater worry as Golani says is ldquohow you donrsquot need to be a tech junkie anymore to pull off the sort of stunt in Logout You could evidently be the girlnextdoorrdquoTrue Irsquove had an anonymous online stalker making all sorts of claimsmdashhaving reported them to Bombayrsquos cybercrime cell and Delhi Police personnel knowing it could be any rando It doesnrsquot stop stillThis point hits home in Logoutmdashalthough embellished far more than enough for an OTT crimethrillerMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paperatOptionskeyd0ddb8ef8f1a62a8cdd22fac27fc5ea7formatiframeheight90width728params