Time indeed flies. Where did the year go? 2011 is so history now. For me, it means that I need to submit my end-year review sheet to my manager describing all the good efforts that I have put in over the last 12 months. And that sort of gave me this idea to have an end year review of Bollywood in 2011. (Although I do work in the financial sector, please do not expect a Quarterly results post from me). And so in traditional award season fashion, we roll out the prelude to the OKS Bollywood Movie Awards. So without any further ado, let’s roll out ..
The top 7 Bollywood movies of 2011.
7. Chillar Party
Kids centric movies in Bollywood have always been produced in sparse quantities, and the ones that do see the light of the day turn out to be kids centric, with morals manipulatively woven into the script. Chillar Party checks all the boxes of the kids movie formula, and yet somehow stands out as a rebel of the genre. It was a pleasant surprise to see a movie with no known star cast, completely centred around a bunch of kids, and having a story with a golden heart. Yes, it is not bereft of the obligatory good vs evil theme, and the evil here is conveniently a local politician.
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Prior to the year 2001, Indian cinema screen space was primarily occupied by the run-of-the-mill popcorn entertainers, mildly interrupted by the multiplex movie – an attempt to cater to the urban audiences who were fed on MTV, Star World and international sitcoms. The Bollywood blockbuster had turned into a potion of ingredients best known to the ones who incorporated the star sons and daughters, copied scripts from Hollywood blockbusters, diamond merchant producers and South Indian technicians into the perfect recipe. Most often than not, these recipes failed, with only those suceeding at the Box Office which genuinely appealed to both classes as well as masses. The top list from the entire decade of the ’90′s-produced’ blockbusters consisted of DDLJ, DTPH, K2H2, KNPH, HDDCS and other multi-worded titles, delving deep into the world of romance and romantic storylines spicened up with sub-plots of obstacles to romance such as a father who is never pleased with a love marriage. The time was nigh for the recycled storylines to be discarded and to embrace new ideas and challenging scales of storytelling.
The year 2001 marked the rising of a new sun in the horizon of Indian cinema. June 26 2001, things were about to change dramatically. LAGAAN was released and in every sense of the term, it was a game-changer.
In this post, I will be discussing about LAGAAN and how its influence can be seen in today’s Indian cinema. The magical glow of this cinematically brilliant masterpiece still shines bright even today, 10 years after its release, and here’s why.
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by Sujoy on April 12, 2011
in movies
One of the most controversial movies of its time, Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen is a disturbing tale, in general of the oppressed low caste, and of their women in particular, in the illiterate rural parts of India. The movie begins with a quote from the Manu Smriti which reads – The low caste, the drums and women should be beaten. A statement like that in the 21st century sends shockwaves, but such a thing still exists in India, and we do get to hear about it, lost between the headlines of corruption scandals and honour killings. The director emphasises this is a true story.
**Spoilers ahead**
Told through the narrative of the protagonist Phoolan Devi, the story maps her journey from being subjected to child marriage to becoming an easy victim of nymphomaniac Thakurs who oppress her, her family. The Thakurs accuse her of being a slut, and on those grounds she is thrown away from her village and away from her family. Phoolan joins a bandit gang, falls in love with one of the bandits Vikram Mallah, who kills the gang leader Gujjar, and becomes gang leader himself. But the Thakurs who fund and run the bandits, kill Vikram, and gangrape Phoolan and make her walk through the village naked. Phoolan then meets a friend of Vikram, Mann Singh, with whom she sets up yet another gang to take revenge upon the Thakurs.
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I am not going to do any sort of gimmicky GIF magic to state how awful this movie is. Neither am I going to create smart lined Facebook memes for this one. This review of Action Replayy is going to be a full on verbal bashing in the very old school way of ‘gaaligaloch’. So for the overtly sensitive and the easily offended – stay the fuck out of this. For the rest who are still reading, thank you and I hope that you can relate to my utter frustration and disappointment at Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s abomination aka ‘Action Replayy’. Point to be noted – funny spellings of movie titles which are numerologically manipulated by the likes of Sunita Melon and Bejaan Pantiwallah do not always ensure success. Actually, they never do. And I hope these numerologists change their names to the ones I just suggested.
To begin with – the Director.
Vipul Amrutlal Shah’s filmography boasts of a smart thriller (Aankhen), a dumbed down comedy which works (Waqt), and an NRI movie which I found was above average (Namastey London). And then London Dreams happened. This was where 40 something uncles put on facelift cream, wore earrings, and sang Hindi pop songs and Hanuman Chalisa touring Europe to packed stadiums. There was a lady who believed in her cheerleading career, and well – if you want to know what I felt about the movie, you can read this.
When I got hold of the first publicity pictures of Action Replayy, it got me super excited for reasons more than one. Firstly, it was set in a retro era of Bollywood which I love the most. I had consciously kept myself distant from the music trailers and any of the movie’s plot details.But I couldn’t escape people discussing about how this was adapted from a Gujrati play, which is a shameless rip off from Back To The Future. All of these factors left me bamboozled, and I really did not know what to expect. The dude in the director’s chair is no stranger to the whole Bolywood blockbuster routine. How wrong was I? Only if the movie was half as good as the posters.
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