RGV Calls 'Obsession' a Wake-Up Call for Star-Obsessed Film Industry

RGV calls 'Obsession' a reality check for an industry chasing stars, remakes and bloated spectacles

Mumbai, June 12

RGV on Friday morning took to X, formerly called Twitter, talked about the true power of cinema and said it lies in the psychological precision and emotional rawness rather than massive budgets.

He wrote: "OBSESSION is how we SHOOT and CUT and not WHAT. OBSESSION made on a budget lesser than maybe the cost of a film stars entourage , will hopefully dismantle our complacency."

RGV shared that Obsession, which was made on a budget of 75000 dollars, proves that filmmakers should focus on making "better films, not bigger films."

He added: "Forgetting the reported 750 k dollar budget , a film shot entirely in just 2 rooms, interior of a car and a small store with 5 new actors couldn't have costed more than 70 lakh rupees (Forgetting fee of various) . On that cost , it grossed over $238 million dollars that is Rs 2,279 crores ..It reportedly will do more than 100 cr in india (sic)."

RGV said that filmmaker Curry Barker's direction seems "deceptively simplistic, but it is highly weaponized."

"He shoots in confined spaces not to avoid scale but to trap the audience in the characters' perspectives. Editing is not mere assembly but a rhythmic psychological assault... rapid cuts punctuated by sharp sound design (door slams, sudden laughs, heartbeats, voice tone alterations) alternate with agonizingly long holds , most memorably the interval shot lingering on Nikki's face(My most favourite shot)."

The filmmaker said that these "never-before-experienced techniques" has built an unbearable tension by denying escape, "forcing us viewers to feel the horror rather than observe it from afar."

The filmmaker said that "Obsession" "externalizes internal rot making the personal public and the psychological visceral. Its gore and emotional messiness turns pulp into something disturbingly resonant about loneliness and desire."

Talking about the "important lessons" learnt from the Hollywood film for any and all related to "films In our times of franchise fatigue and VFX bloat is that it proves that only rigorous directorial vision to arrest the viewer, cutting edge editing as a storytelling tool, and sound design for emotional punctuation and expressions of actors making one feel can generate much more impact than CGI ARMIES, MASSIVE SETS ,EXOTIC LOCATIONS and 500 CRORE budgets."

Revealing what Barker taught with his latest release is "that we film makers should OBSESS over how we shoot and cut, and not just WHAT we shoot?"

"After the example of Obsession Producers and directors should treat low budgets as liberation, not limitation and focus their resources on performances, path breaking editing, and creative sound design , not to forget visionary makers The ROI here will seem obscene and vulgar to the producers who wasted 100's of crores and shot their films for years."

Calling the film a "wake up call" in teaching, he said cinema's power lies in psychological precision and emotional rawness, and not industrial excess.

"For our industry OBSESSED with risk aversion chasing stars, making remakes and bloated spectacles, this film is a SLAP ON THE FACE."

The filmmaker added: "The greatest thing Curry Barker did more than making a BLOCKBUSTER , is that he taught us that our OBSESSION should be about making BETTER FILMS and not BIGGER FILMS."

Obsession follows Bear, played by Michael Johnston, a music store employee who buys a supernatural toy that grants his wish for his friend Nikki, essayed by Inde Navarrette, to fall in love with him, resulting in horrifying consequences.

— IANS