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“Lagaan” is an extremely entertaining film, which is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before, and yet it is totally familiar to you. Set in India in 1893, it combines sports with political intrigue, romance with evil plot, musical numbers with small comedy and big drama, and is in the tradition of entertainment films produced by the world’s largest film industry in Bombay, “Bollywood”.

I’ve only seen five or six Bollywood films, including one in 1999 in Hyderabad, India, where I climbed to the highest balcony and shivered in the Arctic air-conditioning while watching a film that lasted well over three hours and had something for everyone. The most charming aspect of most Bollywood films is their joyful willingness to start singing and dancing at the slightest pretext; the film I watched was about a romance between a rich boy and a poor girl whose poverty didn’t stop them from producing backup dancers whenever they needed them.

“Lagaan” is considered the most ambitious, expensive and successful Bollywood film ever made and has been a box-office hit worldwide. If “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” was able to get out of the martial arts ghetto and make $150 million, then why not make it a Bollywood movie for non-Indians? The film has managed to surpass its genre; it was nominated for an Oscar this year for Best Foreign Film and has achieved amazing screen averages in North American theaters.

All this rules out the possibility that most readers of this magazine have never seen a Bollywood film and don’t want to start now. It will be their loss. This film is unlike anything they’ve seen before, with its stunning landscapes, architecture and locations, its exuberant colors, its sudden and joyful musical numbers amidst dramatic scenes and its melodramatic play (gnashing teeth, sinking tears, trembling lips, bouncing breasts, clenching fists). At the same time, it reminds us of the movies we all grew up with, with clearly defined villains and heroes, a romantic triangle and even a comic character who saves the day. “Lagaan” is a well-made epic, extremely entertaining, which has the spice of a foreign culture.

The story takes place at the height of the Raj, England’s occupying government in India. In a remote province, the local British commander is Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne), a creep who bites his lip and has a penchant for racism, insults the local maharaja to his face and doesn’t think about beating up a Hindu upstart. Even his colleagues find him excessive. He administers the “lagaan”, the annual tax that peasants have to pay to their maharajah and he to the British. It is a time of drought and famine, and the peasants cannot pay.

Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a leader of his people, confronts Russell and finds his weakness: the captain is obsessed with cricket and thinks it is a game that the Indians will never be able to master. Bhuvan says that it is an ancient Indian game and that Indians can excel at it. Russell offers a bet to Bhuvan: The British and a team from the village will play a cricket match. If the Indians win, there will be no Lagaan for three years. If the British win, Lagaan will be tripled. The villagers think Bhuvan is crazy because a triple tax would destroy them, but he emphasizes that they have nothing to lose because they cannot pay the current tax.

Of life in the maximum city: a simple sentence that could embody Anurag Basu’s “Life in the Metro”. The 2007 film is a multi-layered narrative that revolves around human relationships. Its style was simple, but not simplistic.

And it’s one of those films that serves as a kind of time machine when viewed through the lens of the present: a pre-scandal Shiney Ahuja, a young and promising Kangana Ranaut, and a Sharman Joshi with potential. The only thing that has remained the same in all these 13 years of Metro is perhaps the acting credibility of Kay Kay Menon and Konkona Sen Sharma, and of course the fact that Shilpa Shetty still looks the same. Sadly, we no longer have Irrfan Khan among us.

Anurag Basu has given us a few movies over the years; some bad, some decent and some good ones too. Metro was a good film that deftly dealt with the anthology form while giving us the experience of watching a full-length feature film. Perhaps the most admirable thing about the film is the way it connected the dots and explored the full potential of the talent in a limited time frame.

For the uninitiated: Life on the Underground consists of four main storylines. An older couple looking for some freshness and romance, an ambitious young man working for a manipulative boss, a young married couple who can’t stand each other, and a virgin who wants to meet the man of her dreams when the time comes. The way these stories overlap and intersect now forms the larger plot.

While all the performances are good, Irrfan and Konkona’s story stood out for me. Not only did their narration provide some much needed comic relief in the film, but their chemistry was undeniable.

It was a feast for the eyes to see two strong talents not only share the screen, but interact and infect each other with their energy. My favorite sequence in the film is when Konkona’s character is having trouble keeping it together and Irrfan’s Monty encourages her to cry. It’s cathartic and funny at the same time.

With the upcoming release of Ludo, it will be interesting to see how Anurag Basu tackles the anthology form again.

 

Dil Chahta Hai (DCH) is now considered a cult classic. Starring Saif Ali Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshaye Khanna and Preity Zinta, the film created a new thinking in Bollywood. Dil Chahta Hai, which revolves around the lives of three friends who go through many transitions and a kind of metamorphosis, became a blockbuster and created a lot of buzz.

Not only that, Farhan Akhtar, who wrote and directed the film, jumped into the limelight and became a director to be reckoned with. Now that the film is almost 15 years old, here are some lesser-known facts about him.

Farhan Akhtar, who made his directorial and screenwriting debut with Dil Chahta Hai, initially thought of casting Akshaye Khanna, Hrithik Roshan and Saif Ali Khan for the lead roles. While Akshaye was initially considered for the role of Aakash, Duggu was considered for the role of Siddharth aka Sid and Saif Ali Khan as Sameer.

However, according to an IMDB report, Hrithik turned down the role, which went to Abhishek Bachchan, who also did not appear in the film. Farhan then cast Aamir Khan, revised the script of the film and swapped the role of Akshaye Khanna for Aamir. Apparently, Farhan had to convince Akhtar Dimple Kapadia to play the role of divorcee Tara Jaiswal.

Farhan was apparently inspired by his diary, in which he recounted his trips to Las Vegas, his time in New York, and a story a friend told him. According to a report on En.wikipedia.org, the characters of Aakash (Aamir Khan) and Shalini (Preity Zinta) appear to be inspired by one of Farhan’s friends and the other roles by Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the report added.

The film was made with an estimated budget of Rs 140,00,000,000. According to a report on Specials.rediff.com, Farhan was quoted as saying that the Australian portion of the film was to be shot in New York, but since it would have been winter, they decided otherwise.

‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai made no sense, Shah Rukh’s character lacked backbone’: as Karan Johar reviewed his film
Starring Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukerji, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai has turned 22. Here’s how Karan Johar dissected his debut some time ago.

As Karan Johar’s debut film Kuch Kuch Hota Hai turns 22 today – the film starring Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Rani Mukerji was released on October 16, 1998 – there is an entire generation that considers it iconic. However, its director had criticized the film long ago, calling it the story of a “deeply confused character” played by SRK.

About Shah Rukh’s character, Karan had said in a 2019 interview, “Rahul doesn’t stand for much. He is a deeply confused character, he doesn’t know what he wants and he really didn’t do much in the film. What happened to him was because he was beset by other people – the ghost of his dead wife, his eight-year-old daughter, and Anjali herself. What made him endearing was his charm, his big heart and Shah Rukh’s personal charisma.”

He added that there was “no logic or backstory to the characters.” “You don’t know what Shah Rukh or anyone else is doing in the film. And the eight characters – one for each birthday – didn’t make sense either,” the director had said in an interview with Mid-Day.

At a 2018 event to celebrate Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’s 20th anniversary, Shah Rukh had described the film’s original story as “completely meaningless.” “Karan came and told me a completely nonsensical bullshit story, which is certainly not what you saw in the film at the end. In his own strange way, Karan, the man of many words, tried to impress me with his bullshit story. So yeah, I really didn’t understand the story when I signed on. And I’m glad I didn’t go along with the story and followed Karan’s conviction, otherwise the film wouldn’t have turned out the way it did,” he had said, comparing the first draft and the finished film.

Hum Aapke Hain Koun turns 25 in August: how a single-screen family film became an all-time classic
Hum Aapkke Hain Koun was inspired by Rajshri Productions’ earlier small-budget in-house production Nadiya e Paar (1982), a rural love story.

It’s been 25 years since one of the biggest hits and an all-time classic, Hum Aapke Hain Koun…! Back then, there were factors that ensured that movies had what was called replay value. In Sholay, it was the special effects and stereo sound and dialogue that made the film replayable. Deewaar, because of Amitabh Bachchan’s fiery performance as well as the dialogues. In Rajesh Khanna’s film Dushman, a single song, Vaada tera vaada, was enough to keep the audience enthralled.

There have been many such instances. In fact, this growing popularity of film dialogues prompted the music company Polydor India to start a new trend of releasing the dialogue tracks on cassettes, and in the case of Sholay, which had a weak music, the dialogue cassettes sold many times more than the music album.

Read also: Kabir Singh box office collection day 1: The film earns around Rs 20 crore

All this glory of repeat viewing was lost to piracy when movies were copied overnight on pirated video cassettes and released on the same day of the theatrical release. In addition, piracy shifted from videocassettes to cable networks, and new films were beamed directly into homes. The Rajshris, however, had the advantage of a distribution network throughout India as well as branches in far-flung locations.

Hum Aapkke Hain Koun…. was inspired by Rajshri Productions’ earlier small-budget home production Nadiya e Paar (1982), a rural love story. Though the film went largely unnoticed in the rest of the country, it was a big hit in some parts of UP, especially eastern UP and Bihar.

Piracy did not affect Hum Aapke Hain Koun…. The company made sure that every copy of the film was in the possession of a security guard assigned by the company and that the copy remained in his possession when the film was not being screened. Moreover, by this time, praise for the film had peaked and every movie lover wanted to see it in theaters.

The films of the 80’s and 90’s offered a varied selection. While Amitabh Bachchan’s films dominated until the mid-80s, the field was open to films with other stars as well. However, in the 90s, a new set of actors broke through with Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, Shah Rukh Kahn, etc. Anil Kapoor, Sunny Deol, Sanjay Dutt, Sunny Deol and Jackie Shroff continue to have their following.

Among all of them, it was in 1994 that Rajshris Hum Aapke Hain Koun… By Rajshris. It was like no other film that had been seen till then. The film was three and a half hours long and contained no less than 14 songs! And there was no solid script, so to speak, to sustain the length or the 14 songs. If the movie had a story to tell, it was in the last 40 minutes or so before it came to a happy ending that left the viewer pleased and satisfied. (Most of them wanted to see the movie again!).