Cities, towns as important as actors in Bollywood

Filmmakers may be playing favourites at the BO when it comes to genres of their films, but interestingly a growing fascination to have films that strongly reflect the backdrop of a particular city or town as a theme is common to almost all of them. And there’s been a constant rise in the number of films that have featured these cities as an integral character as the leads themselves.

Citing the latest example of Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani which gave the slice of Kolkata life nearly as much screen time as its actors and an earlier release London Paris New York, that focussed on the three cities as well, trade analyst Komal Nahta points out that these places lend a character of their own to the film.

“Filmmakers today are sub-consciously bending towards realism and contemporary stories. And these are to a great extent driven by what’s happening around where the film or story is based, so naturally they become focal points too,” he says. As for the growing importance of the backdrops being used as a theme, Nahta adds, “You name a city and it’s easy to understand or expect the characters around the lead actors to react in a certain way. Besides, it’s interesting to get a glimpse into the life of other towns.”

Offering an explanation Ghosh says that showing the city’s tempo was vital for his Vidya Balan starrer as it captured the warm madness and a sense of organised chaos that reflected the emotional upheaval that the protagonist was undergoing. Not surprising then that an increasingly high number of films also have the names of places in their titles.

Dibaker Banerjee, whose upcoming political thriller is titled Shanghai, reveals that the name is symbolic to what everyone dreams their city to be. “It’s aspirational and reflects the story aptly, hence the name,” he says, adding, “The film is not based in Shanghai or any other foreign location; in fact it is the story of a small town, but the name stands for the city that politicians have been promising our towns will be.” Filmmaker Sanjay Gupta too is all for a title like Shootout At Wadala. “It’s real, stark and raw. Our earlier film Shootout At Lokhandwala was extremely well-received, so we thought of keeping it as direct as possible this time around too,” says Gupta.