MUMBAI: It’s victory time for the Censor Board Of Film Certification (CBFC). Though the producers UTV of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Heroine have gone to the honorable High Court to protest against the new policy of a statutory-warning ticker whenever a smoking sequence is shown, the CBFC on Friday, passed Heroine with an ‘A’ certificate, and with a statutory warning for every scene showing Kareena Kapoor smoking.
And since Kareena is shown smoking for approximately 30 percent of the film it means audiences will get to see the statutory warning for about one-third of the playing-time.
Explaining the decision a source from the CBFC said, “Yes we’ve instructed the makers of heroine to put statutory warnings wherever the heroine is shown smoking. We’re following the rule. In Raaz 3 as well, a character who smokes would be seen doing so with a statutory warning. Even in Hollywood films whenever any characters smokes on screen we ask for the statutory warning to be flashed at the bottom of the screen.”
Cigarette smoking is not all that has proven injurious to the health of Madhur Bhandarkar’s much-anticipated film. Even scenes showing a brand of cigarette have been censored.
Says the CBFC source, “A box of the same brand of cigarette has been shown in ten different places in Heroine. This amounted to endorsing a cigarette brand. We’ve asked the brand name to be blurred out in all the ten places where it is shown.”
Interestingly the much-talked about love scenes in Heroine have been left intact.
The decision to carry a statutory warning with every smoking scene has not gone down too well with the makers of Heroine. Someone from the core team said, “Way back in 1968 Nargis was shown smoking for a majority of the running time in Raat Aur Din. Are we moving forward or backward in time?”
As for the film’s core team’s contention that the constant no-smoking warning would distract the audience a source from the CBFC said, “After a while the audience wouldn’t even notice it.”
