The '00s decade was a mixed one for the Hindi film industry. We saw hits, misses, torrid dramas finding a footing in an unforgiving industry and many, many retirees. And a few comebacks. The hits ranged from good to wowee and the misses ranged from, well, blech! to did I really pay for this. And who can forget Lagaan, the third Indian movie to get an Oscar nod. So, all in all, the decade did do us some good, judging from the caliber some filmmakers laid out in their oeuvres, but still it didn't end on a majestic note. Tsk, tsk. But we'll get to that later.
We started on a high, no doubt about it. Lagaan, Aushutosh Gowariker's absurdly entertaining epic, which revolved around a bunch of enthusiastic young men in a famine-affected village in the heart of rural India challenging a British constituency to a cricket match. If they win, they can evade the tax imposed on them. And if they don't, they'll pay treble the tax. A story that could've made a scream of a gag, you know. But Aamir Khan was at reins so I took it seriously. I had to. And, boy, did it come through! It brought the audiences at the cinema - me included - on their feet cheering, and I can't last remember a Hindi movie doing that. But we lost to Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land, a stunner of a war movie that wasn't about war. Lagaan was whiffed out and I couldn't argue, not after I saw Tanovic's vanquisher. Don't believe me? Check it out at your leisure.
Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai glorified the urban India that had evolved covertly sometime in the late '90s, and had people talking and enthusing over it. An acutely observed drama that examined the friendship between three men, it benefited from a magnificently-written quip script by Akhtar, who was a major revelation, maybe the most significant of the decade. Dil Chahta Hai was a landmark film, possibly more important than Lagaan, and was certainly one that opened doors to free speech.
Anurag Kashyap, the rugged brainiac behind the surfacing feisty trend in the industry, proved his mettle as he had promised with his first real movie job - writing the script for Satya. His second feature Black Friday, after his debut Paanch which still remains unreleased - hopefully, not forgotten - was liberated after a long battle. Well-researched, well-detailed, it showed flashes of a promising, uncompromising filmmaker. That tag Kashyap lived up to. Still does.
Vishal Bharadwaj made his directorial debut with Makdee, a feature adapted from a fable, that went unnoticed. But he came back with Maqbool, a perturbing gangland drama that is, in my opinion, the second best crime film after Ram Gopal Varma's Satya. And it introduced one hell of an actor in Irfan Khan. Bharadwaj boasted of his artistry in Omkara and Kaminey too, but Maqbool's expertise cannot be topped. No way, sir, no way.
There's one movie that criminally escaped everyone's attention. That's Khosla Ka Ghosla, directed by a ballsy debutant, Dibakar Banerjee, who proved with his succeeding fleet of films why he's the biggest prevailing hope for Hindi cinema. I'll remember Khosla Ka Ghosla for it's impeccable script by Jaideep Sahni, who hasn't let me down as yet, the witty, loquacious dialogue backed by the swank detailing that defined Banerjee's style of filmmaking. Banerjee is undoubtedly one of the finest filmmakers the industry has nurtured in the past decade.
While some filmmakers addle with movies outside their comfort zone, few of them try making a likable bunch of them without steering clear of the contemporary style of storytelling. Rajkumar Hirani, the mustachioed master of the genre, proved it with Munnabhai M.B.B.S, his debut. Though I did enjoy it, I found its supposed sequel Lage Raho Munnabhai a far better film. Hirani sticks to his exegesis of Hindi cinema. He packs a substantial amount melodrama - sometimes overdoes it, aargh! - with genial characters who are funny without ever trying to be. And, as always, they go home happy so everyone goes home happy. Hirani knows what its like to have an enjoyable experience at the cinema. He may not always pitch cohesively-structured films but he sure as hell shows us a good time. Sometimes that's all you need, ain't it?
When I look at the whole picture, I don't see why I can't classify it as a good decade for the industry. And then, I see why I can't. I contradict myself. Sure, we had a few films that stood out and I've mentioned a few of them in this treatise, but how many of them have been gladly received by the general public? That precise impression gave the producers the idea of making, uh, films apparently, that would entice the audiences to walk into the theaters. So began an armada of godawful poppycock movies that sustained themselves on a paper-thin plot. They'd usually feature a protagonist that tries to catch the attention of a shy female while mouthing off the corniest lines one could imagine, snide humor in handfuls and an antagonist that popped out of a '90s cartoon. I can't imagine why anyone would want to put their money in a film that hyped to be that kind of snotty cinema but, well, the films found the darn money.
The last few years of the decade have been cataclysmic for the industry. We saw an uprising on highly commercialized cinema, which we now associate with the Hindi film industry, and the benighted industry now ostracizes movies having feeble audience connectedness and intellectually compelling plots. One example of this was Stanley Ka Dabba, the debacle that was one of the best movies of that year. Though I realize it released in 2011, Amole Gupte's miraculous film was indirectly rebuffed because of the obsession that jostled out many for the same reason.
So, I've given my views about what I think of the movies the Hindi film industry fostered in the '00s. I'd root for the talent that has emerged in the past decade but sadly I just can't say the same about the movies. If you yak about the variation, I'd say I wouldn't know about. I can't see it.
We started on a high, no doubt about it. Lagaan, Aushutosh Gowariker's absurdly entertaining epic, which revolved around a bunch of enthusiastic young men in a famine-affected village in the heart of rural India challenging a British constituency to a cricket match. If they win, they can evade the tax imposed on them. And if they don't, they'll pay treble the tax. A story that could've made a scream of a gag, you know. But Aamir Khan was at reins so I took it seriously. I had to. And, boy, did it come through! It brought the audiences at the cinema - me included - on their feet cheering, and I can't last remember a Hindi movie doing that. But we lost to Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land, a stunner of a war movie that wasn't about war. Lagaan was whiffed out and I couldn't argue, not after I saw Tanovic's vanquisher. Don't believe me? Check it out at your leisure.
Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai glorified the urban India that had evolved covertly sometime in the late '90s, and had people talking and enthusing over it. An acutely observed drama that examined the friendship between three men, it benefited from a magnificently-written quip script by Akhtar, who was a major revelation, maybe the most significant of the decade. Dil Chahta Hai was a landmark film, possibly more important than Lagaan, and was certainly one that opened doors to free speech.
Anurag Kashyap, the rugged brainiac behind the surfacing feisty trend in the industry, proved his mettle as he had promised with his first real movie job - writing the script for Satya. His second feature Black Friday, after his debut Paanch which still remains unreleased - hopefully, not forgotten - was liberated after a long battle. Well-researched, well-detailed, it showed flashes of a promising, uncompromising filmmaker. That tag Kashyap lived up to. Still does.
Vishal Bharadwaj made his directorial debut with Makdee, a feature adapted from a fable, that went unnoticed. But he came back with Maqbool, a perturbing gangland drama that is, in my opinion, the second best crime film after Ram Gopal Varma's Satya. And it introduced one hell of an actor in Irfan Khan. Bharadwaj boasted of his artistry in Omkara and Kaminey too, but Maqbool's expertise cannot be topped. No way, sir, no way.
There's one movie that criminally escaped everyone's attention. That's Khosla Ka Ghosla, directed by a ballsy debutant, Dibakar Banerjee, who proved with his succeeding fleet of films why he's the biggest prevailing hope for Hindi cinema. I'll remember Khosla Ka Ghosla for it's impeccable script by Jaideep Sahni, who hasn't let me down as yet, the witty, loquacious dialogue backed by the swank detailing that defined Banerjee's style of filmmaking. Banerjee is undoubtedly one of the finest filmmakers the industry has nurtured in the past decade.
While some filmmakers addle with movies outside their comfort zone, few of them try making a likable bunch of them without steering clear of the contemporary style of storytelling. Rajkumar Hirani, the mustachioed master of the genre, proved it with Munnabhai M.B.B.S, his debut. Though I did enjoy it, I found its supposed sequel Lage Raho Munnabhai a far better film. Hirani sticks to his exegesis of Hindi cinema. He packs a substantial amount melodrama - sometimes overdoes it, aargh! - with genial characters who are funny without ever trying to be. And, as always, they go home happy so everyone goes home happy. Hirani knows what its like to have an enjoyable experience at the cinema. He may not always pitch cohesively-structured films but he sure as hell shows us a good time. Sometimes that's all you need, ain't it?
When I look at the whole picture, I don't see why I can't classify it as a good decade for the industry. And then, I see why I can't. I contradict myself. Sure, we had a few films that stood out and I've mentioned a few of them in this treatise, but how many of them have been gladly received by the general public? That precise impression gave the producers the idea of making, uh, films apparently, that would entice the audiences to walk into the theaters. So began an armada of godawful poppycock movies that sustained themselves on a paper-thin plot. They'd usually feature a protagonist that tries to catch the attention of a shy female while mouthing off the corniest lines one could imagine, snide humor in handfuls and an antagonist that popped out of a '90s cartoon. I can't imagine why anyone would want to put their money in a film that hyped to be that kind of snotty cinema but, well, the films found the darn money.
So, I've given my views about what I think of the movies the Hindi film industry fostered in the '00s. I'd root for the talent that has emerged in the past decade but sadly I just can't say the same about the movies. If you yak about the variation, I'd say I wouldn't know about. I can't see it.
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