How many art films can you spot in The Viral Fever's spoof?

In case you haven’t seen it, The Viral Fever has come out with an achingly funny take-down of the ‘art- house film industry’. The video, featuring cameos from Ronit Roy, Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap, is an unabashed love letter to the intellectual films in general and the Anand Gandhi School of Cinema in particular. And wouldn’t you know it? The video’s gone viral.

Ironically, by the end of it, you realise that it includes a bit of a plug for Kashyap’s upcoming releases, Ugly and Bombay Velvet. It remains to be seen whether Bombay Velvet will be spoof worthy, but until then, here’s a list of some of the ’touchstones of cinema’ that are mocked by The Viral Fever gents in their new video. Did you spot some that we missed? Tell us in the comments.

1. Ship of Theseus:

Anand Gandhi’s Ship of Theseus is spoofed in the form of a faux documentary called Spaceship of Pretentious. It’s the making of a film that borrows heavily from the 2012 Anand Gandhi film, using characters like the blind photographer and the starving monk. While Gandhi’s film steeped itself in philosophy, Spaceship of Pretentious opts for sarcasm, slow-motion shots of pop-corn and toilet water as a nod to the slow pacing of the film.

2. Smoke without Warning:

The video has several shots of people smoking for no apparent reason, which is quite obviously a jab at the Indian government’s demand that a warning be issued each time a character smokes on big screen. Kashyap actually said he wouldn’t release Ugly because he felt that the warning would take away from the climax of his film (he has since backtracked and the film will be released, with the warning in place).

In one scene, a producer comes to Kashyap, asking Kashyap to help promote his arty film. Kashyap asks if the film has any gratuitous violence, or random shots of people smoking and doing drugs. The shots that we see from the arty film include many cigarettes and sprays of blood and seem vaguely reminiscent of a number of Kashyap films, from No Smoking to Ugly.

3. Yudh:

This might be stretching it a bit, but the TVF video makes fun of the pretentiousness of placing clowns in art-house films. Firstpost’s very own Rajyasree Sen makes a convincing case against arbitrarily placing clowns in films. Anurag Kashyap is the creative director of Yudh. Need I say more?

4. Q and Rii Sen:

The TVF video spoofs the first couple of Bengali counter-culture cinema Quashiq Mukherjee and Rituparna Sen by making the director of this faux documentary a gent named Z (who wears coloured glasses, like Q) who casts his girlfriend as the lead in his film. The couple’s revulsion for actual names and mainstream sell-out cinema makes for a fascinating spoof in the form of ‘Z’ and ‘Patricia Shukla’.

5. That Girl in Yellow Boots:

Speaking of her past roles, Patricia (who has the Communist symbol of hammer and sickle tattooed on her forearm) says, “I play the role of this blind, mute, deaf, poet, photographer who likes to wear yellow boots”. That Girl in Yellow Boots, again directed by Anurag Kashyap, was released and forgotten in 2011. (Do we see a pattern here?) It had lots of sex, violence, incest and was basically a bad cocktail made with inspiration from Gaspar Noe, Quentin Tarantino and Park Chan Wook.

6. The Lunchbox:

The same blind, deaf, mute, poet, photographer communicates with her alcoholic father over her lunchbox. Let it not be said that The Viral Fever are sparing anyone because let’s face it, The Lunchbox was too lovely to be spoofed.

7. Udaan:

Vikramaditya Motwane made his directorial debut with Udaan, a poignant coming of age film that deserved every bit of the critical acclaim that it received. It’s also responsible for typecasting Ronit Roy as the Drunken Father. Kudos to Roy for being up for making fun of himself the way he does in this video. Motwane, it turns out, is a pretty good actor himself. He shows up in one scene, narrating a script that sounds a helluva lot like Lootera and it’s hilarious.

8. The Method Actor

Remember all those stories we hear about actors who immerse themselves into the characters they play? The Viral Fever sketch takes inspiration from Neeraj Kabi’s portrayal of the monk in Ship of Theseus, peppers it with other references (why do you suppose they’ve got a poster of Christian Bale’s The Machinist in the background while the faux Kabi talks?) and pushes the idea of method acting to its absurd limit.

9. A Remix by Mikey McCleary:

An indie film is incomplete without the music of Mikey McCleary, like this beautiful rendition of Khoya Khoya Chand from the film Shaitaan. Artfully done remixes of old Bengali songs are great, except when you see them in every other Bolly indie film.