Bold posters: Do you dare?
Increasingly bold posters are being used to promote Bollywood films.
NEW DELHI:
Chiselled abdomens, cleavage, the body contour — Bollywood film-makers are zooming in on women’s curves to create titillating posters, aimed at crucial first week collections.
The first look of Vikram Bhatt’s production Hate Story creates a mystery about the woman in the picture but sends out the right message about the film’s content — bold and daring. It has a mystery girl with her bare, tattooed back visible and a gun placed strategically at the back of her jeans. “Hate Story is a brave film. Of course, everyone wants eyeballs for the film, but one can’t have a sizzling poster and then have nothing inside the film,” Bhatt told IANS.
Film historian SMM Ausaja, who has a book Bollywood In Posters to his credit, has an interesting observation. “All film-makers are desperately trying to cover their costs in their first week. To cover that, they uncover women in posters,” said Ausaja. “I feel the film industry has come to a stage where even if a film has 10 per cent sensual content, film-makers try to cash in on it with such gimmicks.”
Until the Hate Story poster was launched last week, the first look of Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt’s Jism 2 and Blood Money were talk of the town. Jism 2, a movie which promises to be more sensual than its prequel Jism, has Indo-Canadian porn star Sunny Leone, lying naked with a wet white sheet covering her. The shot is bold, yet subtly seductive — enough to generate curiosity.
The poster of Blood Money, on the other hand, is more direct and in-the-face, with Amrita Puri dressed in a bikini, striking a suggestive pose with a bare-chested Kunal Khemu, both lying in a pool of money.
Additionally, in recent times, Bollywood has seen an array of films with suggestive posters: The Dirty Picture, Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster, Dum Maaro Dum, Dev D, Kurbaan, Julie, Paap among others. IANS
Published in The Express Tribune, February 27th, 2012.
Chiselled abdomens, cleavage, the body contour — Bollywood film-makers are zooming in on women’s curves to create titillating posters, aimed at crucial first week collections.
The first look of Vikram Bhatt’s production Hate Story creates a mystery about the woman in the picture but sends out the right message about the film’s content — bold and daring. It has a mystery girl with her bare, tattooed back visible and a gun placed strategically at the back of her jeans. “Hate Story is a brave film. Of course, everyone wants eyeballs for the film, but one can’t have a sizzling poster and then have nothing inside the film,” Bhatt told IANS.
Film historian SMM Ausaja, who has a book Bollywood In Posters to his credit, has an interesting observation. “All film-makers are desperately trying to cover their costs in their first week. To cover that, they uncover women in posters,” said Ausaja. “I feel the film industry has come to a stage where even if a film has 10 per cent sensual content, film-makers try to cash in on it with such gimmicks.”
Until the Hate Story poster was launched last week, the first look of Mahesh and Mukesh Bhatt’s Jism 2 and Blood Money were talk of the town. Jism 2, a movie which promises to be more sensual than its prequel Jism, has Indo-Canadian porn star Sunny Leone, lying naked with a wet white sheet covering her. The shot is bold, yet subtly seductive — enough to generate curiosity.
The poster of Blood Money, on the other hand, is more direct and in-the-face, with Amrita Puri dressed in a bikini, striking a suggestive pose with a bare-chested Kunal Khemu, both lying in a pool of money.
Additionally, in recent times, Bollywood has seen an array of films with suggestive posters: The Dirty Picture, Sahib Biwi Aur Gangster, Dum Maaro Dum, Dev D, Kurbaan, Julie, Paap among others. IANS
Published in The Express Tribune, February 27th, 2012.