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CINEMA:
NEW RELEASES
Trial
By Public
2001 will see a return of period films and multistarrers. Whether or not
they will succeed is anybody's guess.
By
Anupama Chopra
Two
hundred and nineteen releases. One blockbuster. These are the kind of
numbers that give Bollywood heartburn. The year 2000, which started with
the resounding crash of Mela and ended with the even more raucous collapse
of the Rs 30-crore Raju Chacha, has been officially declared the "worst"
year in the history of Hindi cinema. And the arrest of moneybags financier
Bharat Shah has created even more chaos. "It's an alarming scenario,"
says Film Information's Komal Nahta. "But we can't do worse than
last year."
Indeed. The
line-up for 2001 is a motley mix of big names, small experiments and mid-way
movies that hope to do a Kya Kehna and become sleeper hits of the year.
Budgets range from the Rs 2-crore Bollywood Calling to the Rs 30-crore
Devdas. Number-crunchers are predicting a slump in the stack of releases
even as the small movie gets a fillip with the entry of multiplexes.
Interestingly,
the new millennium will be a return to the past for Bollywood. Period
films, out of favour for most of the 1990s, are coming back with a bang.
Undeterred by the high costs and difficulty of attracting an MTV-bred
audience to costume drama, directors are pursuing ambitious dreams. The
grandest is Sanjay Leela Bhansali's remake of the classic tragedy Devdas.
Aided by a to-die-for starcast (Shah Rukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya
Rai and Jackie Shroff) and brilliant technicians, Bhansali is hoping to
repeat the astounding success of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam.
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JODI
NO. 1
Budget: Rs
10 crore plus
Producer: Time Audio
Yet another No. 1 movie has Govinda and Sanjay Dutt in lead roles
PYAR, ISHQ AUR MOHABBAT
Budget: Rs 10-15 crore
Producer: Gulshan Rai
The year's only pure romance features Aftab Shivdasani and Keerthi
Reddy
GADAR:
EK PREM KATHA
Budget: Rs 20 crore
Producer: Zee Television
The first film by Zee is a Partition era love story featuring Sunny
Deol
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Besides
the weepy lover, Shah Rukh Khan also plays the legendary
king Ashoka in his home production, Ashoka the Great. Helmed by director-cinematographer
Santosh Sivan, Ashoka is the industry's best-kept secret. Aamir Khan is
equally silent about his home production Lagaan. Set in colonial India,
the film-among the first to have synch sound-was originally slated to
be completed last year but will now be released in June. Apart from the
Khans, he-man Sunny Deol will don a costume for the Partition drama Gadar:
Ek Prem Katha. Directed by Anil Sharma, Gadar is the first film to be
produced by Zee, which is sparing no expenses. Shot extensively in Punjab,
Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, Gadar is a tragic story of a Sikh truck driver's
love for a Muslim girl, set against the Partition. Made on a smaller scale
but equally ambitious is Shyam Benegal's Zubeida, a love story set in
the 1950s.
The year
2001 also seems to herald the comeback of the multistarrer. Even though
procuring star dates is a herculean task, more filmmakers are opting for
the safety of the two-hero film. So Govinda and Sanjay Dutt match comic
timing in David Dhawan's Jodi No. 1. Dhawan says the two stars "had
amazing chemistry". As do presumably Amitabh Bachchan and Manoj Bajpai.
The two actors, who profess great admiration for the other's talent, come
together for the first time in Rakesh Mehra's thriller Aks. Bachchan also
shares screen time with Akshay Kumar in Suneel Darshan's Ek Rishta. And
debutant director Farhan Akhtar's Dil Chahta Hai stars Aamir, Saif Ali
Khan and Akshaye Khanna. But the mother of all starcasts is Karan Johar's
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham, a family romance, with Bachchan, Shah Rukh, Hrithik
Roshan, Jaya Bachchan, Kajol, Kareena Kapoor and Rani Mukherjee in a special
appearance.
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Romance,
of course, will grab sizeable screen time. Coming soon is Indra Kumar's
Aashiq with Bobby Deol and Karisma Kapoor. Subhash Ghai's Yaadein has
Hrithik Roshan back in loverboy mode after his forays as a militant in
Fiza and Mission Kashmir. Hema Malini's daughter Eshaa makes her debut
in Koi Mere Dil Se Pooche with Aftab Shivdasani. With Jaya playing a pivotal
role and Godmother director Vinay Shukla behind the camera, it definitely
won't be candy floss. Neither will be Dharmesh Darshan's Haan, Maine Bhi
Pyar Kiya. Despite the title, says Darshan, the film is about relationships,
not just romance. Perhaps the year's only pure romance will be Rajiv Rai's
Pyar, Ishq aur Mohabbat. With that title, the director could hardly make
anything else. Then there are the movies that refuse to be categorised.
Like Sudhir Mishra's Rakht, a thriller about a father searching for his
lost son. And Shankar's Nayak, in which Anil Kapoor plays a journalist
who becomes chief minister for a day.
Amidst the
sound and fury of these glossy 70-mm sagas, several smaller films will
try to make their presence felt. Nagesh Kukunoor, who started the independent
film movement with Hyderabad Blues, is back with Bollywood Calling, a
humorous look at the Hindi film industry. Indie films haven't had much
luck lately and Kukunoor could provide the hit the movement badly needs.
The situation is similar for low budget left-of-centre Hindi filmmakers.
After Satya, no small film has made a mark but this year may change that.
Director Kalpana Lajmi's marital-rape drama Daman will release, as will
Chandani Bar, a hard-hitting look at the life of Mumbai bar girls, starring
Tabu.
In the battle
for the box office, size won't matter. What connects will work. After
several years of the director being king, power equations in Bollywood
seem to have shifted back to the hero. With the burgeoning satellite,
overseas and domestic music market, raising money is no longer a problem.
Putting a proposal together is. But the trade is hopeful that with increasing
corporatisation and entry of multiplexes, the situation will become better.
Says Sanjay Bhattacharya, vice-president, UTV Motion Pictures: "We'll
see smaller, sensible films, even made-for-satellite movies. The audience
is fed up of trash."
Absolutely.
When accepting the distinguished D.W. Griffith Award from the Directors
Guild of America, Stanley Kubrick retold the story of filmmaker Griffith
who attempted several ambitious but commercially doomed projects towards
the end of his career. Kubrick intertwined this story with the myth of
Icarus who flew too close to the sun and melted his wings and then asked:
"What is the moral of this story? Is it 'don't fly too close to the
sun' or is it 'build better wings'." Kubrick chose to believe that
it was 'build better wings'. If the numbers are anything to go by, it
is time for Bollywood to build better wings as well.
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