The 80's Are Back..But Why?

The trailor of the new Himmatwala is doing the rounds on television these days. Judging from the promos, it looks like the film has two basic selling points: testosterone-fueled action sequences and a reboot of the song "Nainon mein sapna". Right at the end the trailor proclaims gleefully "The 80's Are Back". Now, I found this a bit strange - why would the 80's want to be back in 2013? In fact, there are several very good reasons why the 80's most definitely should not be back now.

The 80's were an exceptionally disastrous decade for Hindi cinema. Most of the films made in this decade had unimaginative plots, regurgitated storylines and very poor music and song picturization. The original "Nainon mein sapna" is as ludicrous as it gets - the song screams larger than life through each of its frames and the dance moves are exaggerated. There were a total of, maybe, three storylines doing the rounds...

Storyline 1: Poor hero falls for rich snobbish girl-rich girl's father does bad things to the hero-rich girl is locked up in her room by daddy-love triumphs all-happy ending.

Storyline 2: Bad guy kills hero's father-hero's only life-purpose is to avenge his dad's death-hero beats up several goony-looking men on the way-couple of songs with heroine-kills bad guy-happy ending

Storyline 3: Virginal boy and girl are madly in love-Yeh paapi duniya can't see them happy-bad things happen to girl and boy-love triumphs all-happy ending (or sometimes love cops out and both boy and girl die as in Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak or Ek Duje Ke Liye)

There were, however, some film-makers who were willing to take a risk with unusual stories, full-bodied male and female protagonists, and songs that did not come with in your face picturization. Unfortunately, these people got slotted into the category of "parallel cinema", which meant that even though their films were hailed by the critics and recommended by intellectual types, they almost never drew crowds and were not box office hits.

Coming back to the new Himmatwala, there was something else that struck me while watching the song "Nainon mein sapna" about the performers Ajay Devgn and Tammanah. I'm not sure they are the right people to re-do the song. Even though I've referred to the song as ludicrous here, there is something about the sheer madness of the original that I love. When Sridevi and Jeetendra do those Mass P.T. inspired steps, I know they fully believe in them. There is no hint of the silly on their faces; they dance in full earnestness and joy. Not the case with Ajay Devgn and Tammanah, though. She is coy, not super-confident like Sridevi was in her performances; he looks plain silly and has a smirk on his lips like he is thinking "What the twinkle-toes am I doing? The film better make a 100 crores and then some!"

I don't have any plans to see this new and improved version of Himmatwala because I suspect it will simply be a new and improved version of Devgn's earlier blockbuster Singham. I know it will join the "100 crore"club - and that, perhaps, will be its only claim to fame.

The Yash Chopra that We Forgot

There has been a common theme in all the Hindi film award functions this year - a tribute to Yash Chopra. Mostly, these tributes feature Shah Rukh Khan serananding Yash Chopra heroines from the yesteryears to the current times. So, in one award function that I saw, Katrina Kaif floated down to the stage in a white dress, while in another Rekha made an appearance on stage in her trademark shiny, gold saree. Now, in all this veneration of Yash Chopra as the "man who taught us how to love" or the "king of romance" the film folk have conveniently forgotten the earlier films of Yash Chopra which are far from romantic, and even further from conformist.

Case in point: Chopra's first film Dhool Ka Phool. This film, released in 1959, tells the story of a boy born out of wedlock, and the derision that he has to face from society as a result of this. Featuring the memorable song "Tu hindu banega na musalman banega, insaan ki aulad hai insaan banega", the film provides a unique humanistic perspective on this sensitive topic, without the usual moralizing and melodrama of plots involving naajaayaz aulads. The film does not implicate the mother only, as other films with similar storylines do (like Aradhana, 1969), but both the parents in refusing to take responsibility for the baby they unintentionally made. There is no romance in this story, no indulgence from Chopra's side in making his heroine (Mala Sinha) look unrealistically aesthetic - it a simple film that makes a strong social comment, about a hypocritical society that revels in sitting on a high horse, categorizing people and then demeaning them.

Chopra also directed one of the first multi-starers, Waqt (1965), which boasted of a casting coup of Sharmila Tagore, Shashi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Sadhana and Raaj Kumar. This trend was later used by film-makers like Nasir Hussain, Manmohan Desai, and more recently Karan Johar. But this film is significant for me not for its star cast, but the manner in which the characters and backgrounds are represented here. This variation in the background of the characters somehow disappeared from Chopra's other films like Silsila (1981), which only focused on the high society of Delhi without problematizing issues such as class and glaring differences between the haves and the have-nots. 

But the most ground-breaking of Chopra's film would have to be Ittefaaq (1969), a song-less thriller starring Nanda and a young and very dishy Rajesh Khanna. The film uses the hand-held camera technique to heighten the intrigue of the crisp, no-nonsense murder mystery. The Ram Gopal Verma style topsy-turvey camera angles seem a far cry from the soft focus sanitization of Chopra's later cinema.

Then, somewhere along the way, this perceptive and intelligent director changed into the "King of Romance". The love story element in his films has occupied our collective consciousness to such an extent that we miss the moments of the unexpected in his films. Sample the mother-son banter of Kabhi Kabhie (1976) between Rishi Kapoor and Rakhi. Or the deep frienship between Anupam Kher and Anil Kapoor in Lamhe (1991). Turning the ek ladka aur ladki kabhi dost nahi ho sakte myth around in Dil To Pagal Hai (1997)in the relationship of Karisma Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan. And the most surprising of all - casting loverboy Shah Rukh Khan as a stalker and sociopath in the film Darr (1993).

If we look at Yash Chopra's films only as romances, then we unfortunately conformize him. But in a way he confomized himself as well in films like Chandni (1989), Silsila and his latest, Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012). And sadly we remember him only for these films, which fit into our notion of an ideal escapist world, where women are pretty and chiffon-clad and men are rich and own fancy cars.