Bollywood has a lot of variety?comedy, thriller, supernatural drama, children?s film?on offer this summer. Sudipta Datta speaks to four directors to find out why we should watch their films.
Everyone should should see the film for Nana Patekar?s acting,? says Tigmanshu Dhulia, who has directed Shagird, one of the much awaited summer releases of 2011. Patekar plays a corrupt policeman, but his wit and sense of humour make him endearing. Dhulia who has never made a thriller wanted to try his hand at the genre and with Patekar putting in a great performance, there?s a buzz around the film. Though his first film Haasil pleased the critics, Dhulia says it?s never easy in Bollywood ?if you want to make a film which is slightly different from the routine?, and yet he admits that cinema has changed for the better and fresh voices are being heard.
For Shashant Shah, who directed Vinay Pathak with great aplomb in Dusvidaniya, a pun on the ten things to do before you die, his second feature, Chalo Dilli, produced by Eros and Mahesh Bhupathi, is a comedy in which he is ?not asking people to leave their brains behind?. With an unlikely pairing of Lara Datta and Vinay Pathak, the film pits the two on a journey from Mumbai to Delhi with a forced stopover in and around Jaipur. ?In our country, the landscape, dialect and food habits change every 100 metres, I wanted to capture this in Chalo Dilli?India as a movable feast. With great situational humour and the places and towns they pass through, from Tomato Palace to Jhunjhunu, this is a film which also showcases Lara?s immense talent as an actor,? says Shah.
After Dusvidaniya?s success, especially its festival runs, offers poured in for Shah from all the big studios to ?make the same kind of story?. But Shah didn?t want to tread that path and chose to make a quirky comedy. What?s changed in Bollywood for relative newcomers, points out Shah, is that ?if you have a good story, you will end up making the film?.
For the past three to four years, many good stories?think Dibakar Banerjee?s Khosla Ka Ghosla, Neeraj Pandey?s A Wednesday and Rajkumar Gupta?s Aamir?have been made into good films, with a good run at the box office, too. ?If a script is good, the film will do well,? says Dhulia, who also attributes the success of many of these content-rich small films, rooted in the Hindi heartland, to the growth of multiplexes in small towns. For a while, the industry, points out Dhulia, appeared to have forgotten about the Hindi heartland, ?but now a lot more stories are again being rooted there?. Big blockbusters of the past like Pakeezah, Sholay and Lagaan were all ?rooted to the zameen?.
Multiplexes are springing up in tier-2 cities like Benares and Allahabad, which have a strong middle class voice. ?They can?t relate to I Hate Luv Storys, but welcome an Ishqiya,? says Dhulia. After Shagird, Dhulia has two more films, rooted in the heartland, up for release?Sahib, Bibi aur Gangster and Paan Singh Tomar.
For Pavan Kriplani, watching the horror film The Signing is a weekly ritual. A horror film buff, Kriplani?s Ragini MMS is a tribute to the genre, though as the title suggests, ?voyeurism plays a key part in the film?. Kriplani puts his two characters?a rich South Mumbai girl and her boyfriend who is struggling to find his feet in Mumbai?at a weekend escapade where things go horribly wrong. ?There?s horror both physically and psychologically,? says Kriplani, who wonders why the horror genre is such a rarity in Bollywood though Indians are rooted in myths, fables and religion. For a first film, Kriplani has managed to create quite a buzz around Ragini MMS, especially since Balaji Films agreed to produce it. ?Ekta Kapoor knows what works and I have tried to listen to her remarks very carefully,? says Kriplani, adding, ?it?s a film which would have got lost otherwise?.
Vikas Bahl, the former chief creative officer of UTV who oversaw such productions like Anurag Kashyap?s Dev D, co-wrote the film Chillar Party with Nitesh Tiwari. The film about a bunch of kids and a dog took almost a year to write. Now, the film is all set for release and Bahl is excited about his first directorial venture. Ask him how was his experience shooting with kids and he quips, ?I think they were not as bad as some of our stars who throw tantrums.? In a shoot of 45 days with the kids, ?we lost some teeth in between, sometimes they would cry or sulk, but overall, it was a delight to film children?.
Bahl says the industry is headed in many directions, ?but the good news is that every which way a good film is working, small or big. People can smell good films now, and one hopes the production houses, too, can smell it for hype alone won?t work any more.? At least one of these films Challo Dilli has an item song featuring Yana Gupta in the Zeenat hit Laila O Laila, but Shah insists that it fits into the scheme of things, and is not in the film just for hype.