In defence of Dilwale's 'Gerua': There's nothing artificial about this SRK, Kajol song

Every once in a while, an event or occurrence causes a random phrase to pop up into the collective consciousness of the nation social media; it becomes a thing to latch on to, perhaps make memes on, and all in all, have a hearty laugh about (because of how constructive such an activity can be, you see.) Recently, one such phrase got pulled out of cold storage and began to spread like wildfire – ‘Windows XP Wallpaper’. The reason? The video of ‘Gerua’, from Rohit Shetty’s Dilwale. It seemed that Shetty had taken one of the most iconic screen couples of all time and let them display their searing intensity, fluttering clothes in tow, in front of… a green screen. And then the green was keyed out to replace them with rather artificial looking backgrounds (which were, one must admit, quite reminiscent of stock wallpapers). Needless to say, the song drew flak across the board.  But, rather unusually when talking about a Rohit Shetty film, the plot thickened. A making video of ‘Gerua’, posted by the makers of the film, reveals that every picturesque backdrop seen in the video is, in fact, an actual location. The entire song has been shot in Iceland. Right from the crashed plane the pair stands on to the rainbows the duo serenade before, almost everything that looks fake in the video is real. (Unlike, say, the 18th century Maratha world recreated at Dadasheb Phalke Chitranagari in Goregaon, for Bajirao Mastani. Many of the backgrounds are chroma-keyed, and it shows.) In ‘Gerua’, it is the lighting on shoot and the post-production work done on it that give it the distinctly artificial look that sent everyone into a tizzy. Usually, lighting is done keeping the exposure of the entire frame in mind. The characters and the background are lit in proportion to each other, so that it looks seamless and as natural as possible. If the characters are lit more than required in comparison to the background, they stand out quite visibly, often making the entire frame look out of balance as far as the lighting is concerned. That’s the look we’re used to, and it’s the kind of lighting that either makes the entire frame look beautiful, or at the very least, aids the scene without hurting the eye. That’s why ‘Gerua’ looks odd. The making video, which looks gorgeous in itself despite obviously being shot on a lower-end camera than the song video, is testament to how stunning the locations actually are. They’ve never been seen on Indian cinema screens before. Clearly, the look that they finally obtained was the look that they were aiming for all along. The point, it seems, was to give it an otherworldly feel, possibly to signify the nature of the love story that between the characters played by SRK and Kajol in the film. (Remember, the trailer has already told us that their romance has a tumultuous graph, with a decade and a half of estrangement.) Of course, if the majority of the audience didn’t like the look, then that is a problem for the filmmakers. Yet, watching the making video can be highly illuminating for those who’d genuinely want to know why ‘Gerua’ looks the way it does. The locations weren’t easy to shoot at. The terrain was harsh, the weather even more so. Yet, watching the cast and crew give it their all for the purpose of the song, at all those dazzling spots, might just make you watch the song again with a certain measure of respect. But mostly, it’ll make you want to jet off on the next plane to Iceland.