REWIND REPLAY

OLD IS GOLD AGAIN. PREVIOUSLY RELEASED BOLLYWOOD FILMS ARE RETURNING TO THE BIG SCREEN. BUT DOES THE TREND SIGNIFY SOMETHING DEEPER HAPPENING WITHIN INDIA'S LARGEST FILM INDUSTRY?

- ARNAV DAS SHARMA

RE-RUNS RULE Previously released movies are being given a second run on the big screen. One such film is Darr, which was screened recently at a multiplex in Noida. DHWANI CHANDEL, a Mumbai-based communications professional, keeps Fridays aside for movies. It gets even better if it is experiencing a film on the large screen. In early May, Dhwani, wanting to catch a film at the nearest PVR, began to flip through her BookMyShow app.

“Of late, I have not come across a decent Hindi film to watch. When there are some great Hollywood releases, my Fridays are sorted. But I do miss a good Hindi film, you know,” she says. As she began to flip through possible movies being shown at the nearest theatre on her phone, she suddenly paused; this Friday would be different.

And there it was: Andaz Apna Apna. The poster of the 1994 cult classic stared back at her, almost 31 years since it first came out. In the foreground one can see Aamir Khan and Salman Khan, with their unmistakable chocolate boy looks. Orbiting them is a constellation of characters: Shakti Kapoor's gleefully unhinged Crime Master Gogo, Paresh Rawal’s Teja—yes, the one with that mark—and, of course, Karishma Kapoor and Raveena Tandon playing Karishma and Raveena, a delightfully meta-cinematic nod to their off-screen personas. Dhwani’s fingers took less than a minute to book her ticket. “It was like I was being summoned by the movie,” she laughs.

Dhwani isn’t alone. Across cities, from Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, audiences old and young have flocked to theatres for films they had already watched a dozen times. And which are readily available on OTT platforms.