The bust man

Filmmaker Kaizad Gustad said a while ago that he wouldn8217;t like to look back. That quality must be standing him in good stead in the one...

Filmmaker Kaizad Gustad said a while ago that he wouldn8217;t like to look back. That quality must be standing him in good stead in the one week since the release of his second feature film Boom.

Even for a director who says he doesn8217;t write his scripts for a perceived market, Boom seems to have exploded in Gustad8217;s face. Critics have panned it8212;calling it vacuous, a long journey to nowhere, perverse and gasping of any script. The film was publicized as a glitzy drama where the fashion world meets the underworld. But Boom seems to have wandered into a sexual Never Never Land in its journey.

A very vocal Gustad stood up in defence of the film he wrote for over a year. It was never meant for the conventional audience; it was always a hit or miss film; the character assassination by the press had influenced the audience. The director also got entwined in other controversies8212;over Katrina Kaif8217;s whom he says he christened after Mohammed Kaif8217;s famous knock nationality.

For the New York Film School graduate, it8217;s an all too different scene from his provocative debut Bombay Boys in 1998. Back then, Gustad, now in his mid thirties, sported dreadlocks, had two short films and a travelogue Of No Fixed Address behind him. Bombay Boys was celebrated as a brave attempt to find an Indian English film niche and its black bizarre found an audience. Gustad8217;s rasta hair and his romance with the then Miss World Diana Hayden kept him in the picture. But when Boom was announced, the spotlight shone bright on him. Gustad and his producer Ayesha Shroff managed a casting coup8212;Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman, Bo Derek and the rest in a shimmery shindig. In Boom8217;s case though, gloss turned to dross even during post-production. The film was waylaid by Bachchan and its set designers going to court over their unpaid dues. Then Kaif expressed regret over her bare-skinned debut. Gustad responded by saying he possessed knowledge of her true identity, but would let it go because it was 8216;personal8217;.

To add to Boom8217;s woes, pirated VCDs of the film were recovered days before its release. But none of this prepared for the film itself. To the press, it would seem that Gustad dug Boom8217;s grave. Since its announcement, the filmmaker promised a black comedy sundae with all the lashings, yet delivered a turkey. Suddenly, he was the brash bad guy with only sex on his mind. Gustad countered that Boom is about 8216;the politics of sex,8217; but that perhaps it was too bold and risque. Small wonder then, that his next project Mumbai Central also the name of his new production house is a 24-hour span on a local train, but with no sex. Other projects he has announced include Chocolate Vanilla8212;a love story between a Bangladeshi girl and a Cockney lad.

As for Boom, the director is still crying foul over the way it has been dissected. And yet, what Gustad said somewhere best sums up the debacle8212;that you can have the biggest stars and budgets, but it doesn8217;t matter. You only make a good film or a bad one.