Bollywood 2010: The year of the fresher

The first month of this year saw a varied bunch of films releasing.

Among them was Chance Pe Dance, starring Shahid Kapur, a young star fresh from the success of Kaminey. Then there was Rann, made by veteran filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Riteish Deshmukh. The biggest among them was the mega-budget Salman Khan starrer, Veer. And lastly, Ishqiya, a medium budget film from Vishal Bhardwaj’s banner, helmed by debtuant director Abhishek Chaubey and starring Vidya Balan, Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi — none of them particularly big draws at the box office.

Chance Pe Dance sank without a trace, Rann was quickly forgotten, while Veer was one of the colossal failures of all time. Ishqiya, though, on the strength of good reviews and positive word of mouth, had decent box office collections. Its producers recovered their investments and made a small profit too.

This turned out to be the scenario for the rest of 2010 as well.

While the big-budget, star-driven potboilers met with a tepid response at the box office, small, meaningful films made by debutant directors and starring fresh talent found a ready audience.

Think of the films that might have made it to a list of ‘Films to Look Forward To in 2010’ — Kites, Guzaarish, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, Action Replayy, Raavan … Each one of them had top stars lining the cast, and was made by a filmmaker of repute. None of them impressed audiences.

Now think of Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Udaan, Tere Bin Laden. Do Dooni Chaar, Peepli [Live], Band Baaja Baaraat... While you may not have even heard of Vikramaditya Motwane or Maneesh Sharma or Habib Faisal, these were the filmmakers who gave audiences plenty of cheer. Even Dabangg, the biggest blockbuster of 2010, was directed by a first-timer, Abhinav Kashyap.

Different stories
Debutant filmmakers have, in recent times, displayed a knack for surprising both audiences and critics with films you would have least expected to become hits — think of Dibakar Banerjee’s Khosla Ka Ghosla or Neeraj Pandey’s A Wednesday in previous years. But in 2010 there has been a significant uptick in this trend, with a whole range of newcomers making a mark, some with films that found critical acclaim and others who saw success at the box office too. And they all told different stories.

Anusha Rizvi’s Peepli [Live], for example, took a tongue-in-cheek look at farmer suicides and the role of the media in modern society, while Vikramaditya Motwane’s Udaan narrated the difficulties of a teenager growing up in Jamsehdpur. Maneesh Sharma’s Band Baaja Baaraat told the story of two fresh-out-of-college youngsters who take to wedding planning as a career option, while that film’s scriptwriter Habib Faisal himself debuted as a director with Do Dooni Chaar, a film about the travails of a middle-class Delhi family in pursuit of their first car. These filmmakers veered away from the usual fare and dared to experiment, without worrying about a formula for box office success. The only formula followed was that there was no formula at all.  

“I reckon it’s deliberate,” says veteran scriptwriter Javed Siddiqi. “I don’t think the experimentation was by chance. These young filmmakers realise that we have access to 80 films a day on our television sets. If you want to bring audiences to theatres, you have to give them something new, or something real.”

Siddiqi points to Peepli [Live] in illustration. “All of us have been reading about farmer suicides in newspapers. It’s something that affects me at a personal level. So when a filmmaker decides to put that on screen, or make a comment about it, it’s bound to appeal,” says Siddiqi.

Social commentator Santosh Desai believes that the young filmmakers, coming from different parts of the country, seem more aware of what’s happening around us than the established filmmakers who flounder in connecting with audiences today. “The newcomers seem to be more rooted to reality, aware of real issues, hence facilitating different stories about things that affect us directly.”

Business sense
Habib Faisal, who directed Do Dooni Chaar, says that there is also a noticeable change in attitude among actors and producers towards small meaningful films. “Rishi Kapoor was so excited when I went to him with my script. And if Walt Disney hadn’t agreed to distribute it, the film wouldn’t have reached such a wide audience. Even Udaan would not have got so much exposure if Anurag Kashyap hadn’t been backing it,” says Faisal, adding that a Salman Khan agreeing to star in a Dabangg reflects the changing mindset of even the top stars, who are now willing to experiment.
The big banners too are more willing than ever before to support a variety of films. “Earlier, there would be a gap between films like Bheja Fry and Mithya. Today, producers are willing to make 10-15 such films every year,” says Faisal.

Hence Ishqiya had Bhardwaj as one of its producers, Peepli [Live] was backed by Aamir Khan, Love Sex Aur Dhoka was produced by Ekta Kapoor’s banner. Even Yash Raj Films, known to make star-driven, opulent films set against lavish backdrops, made Band Baaja Baaraat, starring newcomers and narrating the story of two middle-class youths.

Siddharth Roy Kapur, of UTV Motion Pictures, says that the industry has always had filmmakers with different ideas, but now what’s changed is that production houses are willing to market these films aggressively. Consequently, they’re reaching out to more people. “Out of the 12-15 films a corporate house produces, there will be your big budget commercial film — it’s what forms the staple diet for most Indians, after all — but at the same time, we are willing to back a small film too. Since the cost of making it isn’t too high, there’s more room to take risks, and with debutant filmmakers waiting to experiment with ideas, it makes for the perfect amalgamation between a filmmaker and a production house.”

It’s a happy set of circumstances that has led to films with different themes finding a wide audience, and not just critical acclaim like the art film of yore. Now it remains to be seen if the trend will continue in the new year.