For a long time, I had been wanting to curate a list of Hindi gems of the past decade, but it was such a cinch to pick the best from the good that I just didn't find it worth the shot. However, over time, I figured that the gems lay under the colossal debris of commercial cinema, and that's where I should have been looking in the first place.
3. Dor (2006)
I despise the phrase 'once upon a time'.
4. Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005)
Talk about being absurdly ambitious and this movie is bound to knock your socks off.
Sudhir Mishra has always been a guy to watch out for. A filmmaker who still remains true to his craft even if his films are zippy like shots of espressos, he has always stood out because of his persistent refusal to bow down to those mawkish potboilers the studios spawn in handfuls each year. And that, my friends, is the making of an auteur.
What impressed me, and still does, is how he took two newcomers and a then-relatively unknown actor and made a political drama minus the opulent touch and, my, what a film that was! Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi ranks among the best Indian political films I have seen, and that is a mighty big achievement for a film that does not boast of august credentials. Isn't it? And I'm not exaggerating here. A political drama whisked with strands of ticklish romance and heartbreaking tragedy, it is a jaunt that runs for an exhilarating two hours against the backdrop of the Naxal uprising of the early '70's.
Tragically as it may seem, it crashed, tooth-first. Let's not shun it anymore. Let's grow up for once.
5. Khosla Ka Ghosla (2007)
Dibakar Banerjee is incapable of making a bad film.
A few months ago, before the excellent anthology of shorts, Bombay Talkies, hit the theaters, I was watching Banerjee's journey from an ad-filmmaker to, in my humble opinion, currently the best filmmaker working in the Hindi film industry. Now, I don't know how many agree with me on that, but this gent sure has come a long way. So, in that forgettable little television programme, he calmly disclosed that he 'knew jackshit about filmmaking' when he walked on the sets of his marvelous debut on the first day. Turns out, that very film has made it on this list and always makes my day.
Khosla Ka Ghosla, a film that discernibly carries the mark of a debutant, is a film of small marvels, the biggest being Jaideep Sahni's ingenious quip-script. Really, that fab little thing he penned bursts with humor and novelty. Banerjee's film is a tribute to his upbringing in Delhi with well-etched, nuanced characters and fastidious details. Though some may find the plot to be a tad preposterous, the characters make it believable. Me, I don't have a problem with either one.
Khosla Ka Ghosla may well be a small film but it a film made with heart.
6. Lage Raho Munnabhai (2008)
Honestly, I thought this film would suck.
I mean, the ghost of Gandhi meeting up with an affable gangster when he sings? Ridiculous, so ridiculous. I deplore sequels because I see them as frantic attempts to make a quick buck. But Lage Raho Munnabhai smashed that thought to smithereens. Yes, it entertained and edified. Yes, it was preachy and cloying. But, somehow, someway, Rajkumar Hirani made it all work. And everything seamlessly fit into this potboiler like a finished puzzle.
Lage Raho Munnabhai not only improved on its wonderful predecessor but also gave us a thorough lesson in Gandhi's principles. Though it is sappy and excessively dramatic, and unapologetically so, it never fully settles into the holier-than-thou mode, keeping in mind that it is a film after all.
Here is a rare film that entertains and educates. And never bores.
7. Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005)
This should not have worked. Yet, it did. Yay.
Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Bahrua's first Hindi film hit me like a thunderbolt. I'd very much like to see how Bahrua talked his producers and distributors into lending their services to a tour de force with virtually no chance of minting their lost money. Screw that. Lost cause, is what it is.
Here is a film so gallant that it shames the bigger box-office triumphs. Here is a film so strikingly original, conceptually and in terms of execution, that it compels you to question why films such as this don't get a broader release. And why Bahrua doesn't make more Hindi films. Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara delineates the eclipsed horrors of schizophrenia though the character of Uttam Chaudhury, a retired Hindi professor slowly going insane and who is plagued with hallucinations of having committed Gandhi's murder. His dysfunctional family disowns him, saying he should be kept in an institution, but his dogged daughter helplessly fights on for her father.
Films like this don't deserve this lily-livered industry. It may not have created a lot of noise at the time of its release - which was almost invisible, you know, as if the distributors were fervently praying it would go unnoticed - but it needs to be watched. We could do as much.
8. Maqbool (2003)
The past decade also saw the advent of commercial cinema in its most brutal transformation yet, and the beast wiped out the smaller films from the market. This is what we get when someone accidentally lets Sajid Khan and Prabhudeva fiddle with a camera. Gee.
I'll also remember it as an epoch that saw the arrival of several auteurs like Vishal Bharadwaj, Anurag Kashyap and Dibakar Banerjee, who got to run the show for a few years before commercial cinema did its little gig and cuffed their films into limbo. It also saw the undoing of one of the most promising filmmakers of the '90's, Ram Gopal Varma, who was doing fine until he made a juicy piece of codswallop called Naach, which I suspect is Satan's favorite film.
But I'm not going to use this space to be reminded of that excruciating odyssey. What I am going to do instead is list ten of my favorite Hindi films of the past decade. A finicky task that made me reject a lot of great films, I concede, but these are films that I think deserve their rightful places on any such list.
These are my personal picks, so I should add that I don't think I have missed out on any film and I don't want to know which film you think should be on here and which film shouldn't. Any film not on here has been left out consciously. Keep the comments clean of scorn if one of your picks hasn't made it on this list.
So, without further ado, here is the list in the alphabetical order :
1. Black Friday (2004)
Oh, the irony is clobbering.
Really, how often does it happen that a filmmaker's first two efforts are gleefully embargoed and yet, he goes on to become the one of the most interesting filmmakers in the industry? Anurag Kashyap's masterful second film - his first, Paanch, still lies in the cans - is a loyal adaptation of S. Hussain Zaidi's non-fictional book of the same name. The book was an eruption of details, conversations and people, a crowded book, but Kashyap beautifully weaved those subtleties and conspiracies into a cohesive film and gave us a plucky film worth cheering.
Fantastically researched and detailed, right down to the jargon, Black Friday was terrifying and fascinating, a film with a distinct visual style and structure. Such cinema is rare, and a newbie did what no one in a timorous industry would have had the courage to do a decade ago. This isn't a film that entertains, it is a film that illuminates.
Inspired, Mr. Kashyap, inspired.
2. Company (2002)
Ram Gopal Varma made this? The Ram Gopal Varma?
First things first, to dismiss this as the sequel to one of the best Hindi films I have ever seen is a wry notion. Company has enough spunk to stand on its own legs. Unmistakably carrying the mark of a director comfortable with making a drama rife with violent tension in Mumbai's sweltering ganglands, it is a heady blend of craft and characters, a film that paints two worlds on either side of the law with the same brush.
Company may well be the last great film we will ever get to see from this director but it is a film good enough to pass on the last whit of hope that he will bounce back with something dandy up his sleeve. Till then, we will leave this mustachioed chap in the hunt of that film.
2. Company (2002)
Ram Gopal Varma made this? The Ram Gopal Varma?
First things first, to dismiss this as the sequel to one of the best Hindi films I have ever seen is a wry notion. Company has enough spunk to stand on its own legs. Unmistakably carrying the mark of a director comfortable with making a drama rife with violent tension in Mumbai's sweltering ganglands, it is a heady blend of craft and characters, a film that paints two worlds on either side of the law with the same brush.
Company may well be the last great film we will ever get to see from this director but it is a film good enough to pass on the last whit of hope that he will bounce back with something dandy up his sleeve. Till then, we will leave this mustachioed chap in the hunt of that film.
I despise the phrase 'once upon a time'.
But when I talk about Nagesh Kukunoor, I absently tend to use it more often than once, you know. So, once upon a time, there was Kukunoor, who made films so dandy that he was in a different class altogether and no one in the industry dared to take a stance against him. Ha! Those chickens. Whatever he touched turned to gold statuettes, such was the creative power of this lad, who then floundered terribly. Amen to that.
But, but, not before he made a small masterpiece a few years ago. Dor, his last great film, is an intricate, wonderfully-layered, moving cross-culture drama about forgiveness, friendship and redemption. From the bucolic, merciless terrains of Rajasthan to the prolific, blithe hills of Himachal Pradesh, it is a fable that steers clear of petty cliches and comments acerbically on the regressive customs still followed blindly in some parts of the country. Impressive. Daring, even. Lend an ear.
Be tolerant and you'll see what is so rewarding about this small gem.
4. Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi (2005)
Talk about being absurdly ambitious and this movie is bound to knock your socks off.
Sudhir Mishra has always been a guy to watch out for. A filmmaker who still remains true to his craft even if his films are zippy like shots of espressos, he has always stood out because of his persistent refusal to bow down to those mawkish potboilers the studios spawn in handfuls each year. And that, my friends, is the making of an auteur.
What impressed me, and still does, is how he took two newcomers and a then-relatively unknown actor and made a political drama minus the opulent touch and, my, what a film that was! Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi ranks among the best Indian political films I have seen, and that is a mighty big achievement for a film that does not boast of august credentials. Isn't it? And I'm not exaggerating here. A political drama whisked with strands of ticklish romance and heartbreaking tragedy, it is a jaunt that runs for an exhilarating two hours against the backdrop of the Naxal uprising of the early '70's.
Tragically as it may seem, it crashed, tooth-first. Let's not shun it anymore. Let's grow up for once.
5. Khosla Ka Ghosla (2007)
Dibakar Banerjee is incapable of making a bad film.
A few months ago, before the excellent anthology of shorts, Bombay Talkies, hit the theaters, I was watching Banerjee's journey from an ad-filmmaker to, in my humble opinion, currently the best filmmaker working in the Hindi film industry. Now, I don't know how many agree with me on that, but this gent sure has come a long way. So, in that forgettable little television programme, he calmly disclosed that he 'knew jackshit about filmmaking' when he walked on the sets of his marvelous debut on the first day. Turns out, that very film has made it on this list and always makes my day.
Khosla Ka Ghosla, a film that discernibly carries the mark of a debutant, is a film of small marvels, the biggest being Jaideep Sahni's ingenious quip-script. Really, that fab little thing he penned bursts with humor and novelty. Banerjee's film is a tribute to his upbringing in Delhi with well-etched, nuanced characters and fastidious details. Though some may find the plot to be a tad preposterous, the characters make it believable. Me, I don't have a problem with either one.
Khosla Ka Ghosla may well be a small film but it a film made with heart.
6. Lage Raho Munnabhai (2008)
Honestly, I thought this film would suck.
I mean, the ghost of Gandhi meeting up with an affable gangster when he sings? Ridiculous, so ridiculous. I deplore sequels because I see them as frantic attempts to make a quick buck. But Lage Raho Munnabhai smashed that thought to smithereens. Yes, it entertained and edified. Yes, it was preachy and cloying. But, somehow, someway, Rajkumar Hirani made it all work. And everything seamlessly fit into this potboiler like a finished puzzle.
Lage Raho Munnabhai not only improved on its wonderful predecessor but also gave us a thorough lesson in Gandhi's principles. Though it is sappy and excessively dramatic, and unapologetically so, it never fully settles into the holier-than-thou mode, keeping in mind that it is a film after all.
Here is a rare film that entertains and educates. And never bores.
7. Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara (2005)
This should not have worked. Yet, it did. Yay.
Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Bahrua's first Hindi film hit me like a thunderbolt. I'd very much like to see how Bahrua talked his producers and distributors into lending their services to a tour de force with virtually no chance of minting their lost money. Screw that. Lost cause, is what it is.
Here is a film so gallant that it shames the bigger box-office triumphs. Here is a film so strikingly original, conceptually and in terms of execution, that it compels you to question why films such as this don't get a broader release. And why Bahrua doesn't make more Hindi films. Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara delineates the eclipsed horrors of schizophrenia though the character of Uttam Chaudhury, a retired Hindi professor slowly going insane and who is plagued with hallucinations of having committed Gandhi's murder. His dysfunctional family disowns him, saying he should be kept in an institution, but his dogged daughter helplessly fights on for her father.
Films like this don't deserve this lily-livered industry. It may not have created a lot of noise at the time of its release - which was almost invisible, you know, as if the distributors were fervently praying it would go unnoticed - but it needs to be watched. We could do as much.
8. Maqbool (2003)
The Bard-Bharadwaj pairing is one of the finest Hindi on-screen romances of recent times.
It is a taxing responsibility to adapt one of the Bard's stories for the big screen, especially if you're doing it in a language different from the one that had been used. And Vishal Bharadwaj has done it thrice now, may God bless him. The auteur, who made a rather tame debut with Makdee, bounced back with this classy adaptation of Macbeth, crucially choosing to cast a then-unknown Irrfan Khan in the lead role. And, my, did the gamble pay off!
It is quite remarkable how neatly the lovely words of Hamlet were refashioned into the gangland argot. Bharadwaj, exuding great promise in the writing and directing departments, blended brutality, tragedy and lustful romance into a memorable film, a film that wasn't peopled by big stars but by luminaries. Applause.
Maqbool undeniably marked the arrival of one of the most important filmmakers of this generation. We duly note that down.
9. Mithya (2008)
We all know Rajat Kapoor, the actor. But how many of us know Rajat Kapoor, the director?
Not just any director, mind you, a National Award-winning one at that. Chances are slim that you'll know his terrific directorial efforts if I count them off my fingers. This guy bankrolls and directs crazy-good tragicomedies when he's not acting, and every single one of them is a noteworthy addition to the seemingly dead Indian independent cinema. This guy strides on the path of offbeat cinema. This guy is the real face of the indie scene. And still, this budding talent isn't counted among one of the best filmmakers working in Hindi cinema.
Before he left a lasting impression on me with Mithya, even I didn't count him as one, you see. Though I was gladdened by the fact that a filmmaker was taking conscious efforts to revive the defunct indie scene, I thought his films, though fine, lacked structure. There was so much potential packed in them, they just needed that dash of pep. But Mithya changed everything. It was a film so beautifully written and made that I didn't need a second reason to watch it again. It was harrowing, funny and moving, and Kapoor's most personal film yet, a work of deep passion for storytelling. Patently one of the most original films of the past decade too. I won't ruin it for you by yapping about its whimsical plot. You've got to experience it firsthand.
As far as black comedies go, this is as perfect as they get.
It is a taxing responsibility to adapt one of the Bard's stories for the big screen, especially if you're doing it in a language different from the one that had been used. And Vishal Bharadwaj has done it thrice now, may God bless him. The auteur, who made a rather tame debut with Makdee, bounced back with this classy adaptation of Macbeth, crucially choosing to cast a then-unknown Irrfan Khan in the lead role. And, my, did the gamble pay off!
It is quite remarkable how neatly the lovely words of Hamlet were refashioned into the gangland argot. Bharadwaj, exuding great promise in the writing and directing departments, blended brutality, tragedy and lustful romance into a memorable film, a film that wasn't peopled by big stars but by luminaries. Applause.
Maqbool undeniably marked the arrival of one of the most important filmmakers of this generation. We duly note that down.
9. Mithya (2008)
We all know Rajat Kapoor, the actor. But how many of us know Rajat Kapoor, the director?
Not just any director, mind you, a National Award-winning one at that. Chances are slim that you'll know his terrific directorial efforts if I count them off my fingers. This guy bankrolls and directs crazy-good tragicomedies when he's not acting, and every single one of them is a noteworthy addition to the seemingly dead Indian independent cinema. This guy strides on the path of offbeat cinema. This guy is the real face of the indie scene. And still, this budding talent isn't counted among one of the best filmmakers working in Hindi cinema.
Before he left a lasting impression on me with Mithya, even I didn't count him as one, you see. Though I was gladdened by the fact that a filmmaker was taking conscious efforts to revive the defunct indie scene, I thought his films, though fine, lacked structure. There was so much potential packed in them, they just needed that dash of pep. But Mithya changed everything. It was a film so beautifully written and made that I didn't need a second reason to watch it again. It was harrowing, funny and moving, and Kapoor's most personal film yet, a work of deep passion for storytelling. Patently one of the most original films of the past decade too. I won't ruin it for you by yapping about its whimsical plot. You've got to experience it firsthand.
As far as black comedies go, this is as perfect as they get.
10. Swades (2004)
Aushutosh Gowaiker's love for epics remains unmatched.
His masterpiece, Lagaan, was virtuosic in every department, and Swades was as intelligent as Lagaan was absurd. It was as quiet as Lagaan was chaotic. Two films so utterly different and yet they hung from the same dimension. It was an intimate film that I suspect Gowariker wanted to make for a long time, an excursion through the rural side of the country seen through the eyes of an outsider.
The genius of this film was that we saw ourselves in the eyes of the character of Mohan Bhargava. Every single person who saw it in the theater or on television did. But we're not outsiders. Or are we? That's precisely the point Gowariker tried to make. We are all outsiders in this country, we just never got around to accepting that as a fact. We are as oblivious to the problems tormenting this nation as much as Mohan was. In the end, he worked towards solving them, why shouldn't we do that?
The beauty of this is that Gowariker gave us a character to root for, a nation to root for. He made responsible citizens of us, or at least tried to. The ultimate decision rests with us.
Aushutosh Gowaiker's love for epics remains unmatched.
His masterpiece, Lagaan, was virtuosic in every department, and Swades was as intelligent as Lagaan was absurd. It was as quiet as Lagaan was chaotic. Two films so utterly different and yet they hung from the same dimension. It was an intimate film that I suspect Gowariker wanted to make for a long time, an excursion through the rural side of the country seen through the eyes of an outsider.
The genius of this film was that we saw ourselves in the eyes of the character of Mohan Bhargava. Every single person who saw it in the theater or on television did. But we're not outsiders. Or are we? That's precisely the point Gowariker tried to make. We are all outsiders in this country, we just never got around to accepting that as a fact. We are as oblivious to the problems tormenting this nation as much as Mohan was. In the end, he worked towards solving them, why shouldn't we do that?
The beauty of this is that Gowariker gave us a character to root for, a nation to root for. He made responsible citizens of us, or at least tried to. The ultimate decision rests with us.
