Flying kicks, three point landings and stolen kisses. As both budgets and box offices for Hindi movies reach new heights, two trends become strikingly obvious. First, movies that would play well to international audiences are more often than not getting green-lighted. Streamlined scripts and far-flung geographic settings, supported by India’s expanding international trade ties, are helping to expand the market for Hindi movies to the farthest corners of the globe. The other trend is the fondness for story lines taken from real life events—indeed, six of the ten films on this short list are based on real life stories. The convergence of real life and reel life and other movie highlights in a year of Hindi movies.
1) Neerja
A real life planned hijacking from the 1980's retold three decades later in Ram Madhvani’s taut thriller was the apex Hindi movie event for 2016. An otherwise on-time PanAm Boeing 747 flight from Bombay to New York via Karachi is stormed on the runway in Karachi and immediately ignites jittery and far-reaching pre-9/11 geo-political shock waves. The pilots escape and the almost 400 passengers are at the mercy of armed Palestinian terrorists. Everything appears lost—save for the actions of one very brave Indian flight attendant. Sonam Kapoor’s coming of age in the title role Neerja was both convincing and moving. Supported by Shabana Azmi (as Neerja’s mother), Yogendra Tikku (as the father) and Jim Sharbh (as an especially creepy, crazed gun-wielding on-board antagonist-in-chief), the gripping entertainer also tapped into anxieties related to modern travel and the existential fear of death at a moment’s notice.
2) Aligarh
The rights of the LGBT community in India perfectly correlate to the rising and ebbing fortunes of Indian Constitution’s so-called Section 377, an archaic writ carried over from the British Raj. Hansal Mehta’s ground-breaking Aligarh, based on a true story, unfolds as a 64-year old linguistics professor is entrapped in a consensual sexual tryst with a rickshaw puller. Manoj Bajpayee in the lead superbly channels the professional and personal toll taken on a learned, tortured and ostracized man piecing together shards of an explosively shattered life. Supported by Rajkumar Rao as a rookie reporter struggling to land on his two feet, Aligarh in on par with Broke back Mountain in chronicling situational alienation faced by older, detached gay men up against a deluge of official and social scorn.
3) Pink
This story is from the December 2016 - January 2017 edition of India Currents.
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This story is from the December 2016 - January 2017 edition of India Currents.
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