New breed of Bollywood movie
Neerja, a dramatic look at the 1986 Pan Am Flight 73 hijacking, shows Indian film is not all about corny plots and familiar dance scenes
Sept 5, 1986. Pan Am Flight 73 from Mumbai to New York was on a stopover at Karachi airport. The senior flight purser Neerja Bhanot alerted the captain, co-pilot and other crew members as to what was going on, and they fled under gunfire from the cockpit’s overhead hatch. Before the 350 passengers on-board realised what was happening, the plane was hijacked.
Neerja, portrayed by Bollywood star Sonam Kapoor, bursts into the scene with a terrorist’s pistol pointing at her head. Neerja was one of the most extraordinary films that came out of Bollywood last year — an Indian movie without the familiar dance scenes and dated plots recognisable by all audiences.
Earlier this month, I attended the open-air ZEE Cine Awards event in Jio Garden, Mumbai. It made me realise that Bollywood, as one of the biggest film industries in the world, has revolutionised its production values, and there are more modern themes running through its movies.
Neerja swept up a total of six awards — Best Editing, Best Production Design, Best Male Debutant (Jim Sarbh), Best Actor in a Negative Role (Jim Sarbh), Best Screening and Best Supporting Actress (Shabana Azmi), making it the Indian movie that received the highest number of ZEE Cine prizes this year.
Alia Bhatt, who turned 24 this month, won Best Actress for playing a poor female worker trapped in a drug lord’s mansion in the Indian state of Punjab in Udta Punjab.
We’re familiar with Alia from Chetan Bhagat’s novel-based 2 States in which she co-stars with Arjun Kapoor. The movie is not a love story, but about what actually happens between the Indian couple who come from very different backgrounds — Tamil and Punjabi — after their relationship begins at college.
Apart from these two Indian movies, which were nominated in many categories at the 2017 ZEE Cine Awards, the family drama Kapoor And Sons won the Best Story award.
The movie narrates a rough relationship between brothers Rahul Kapoor (Pakistani actor Fawad Khan), a successful novelist, and the vulnerable Arjun Kapoor (Sidharth Malhotra). Besides English Vinglish, which starred the legendary figure Sridevi that I watched a long time ago, Kapoor And Sons has become one of the most lovable Bollywood family movies for me.
Undoubtedly, it’s a tear-jerker, but the daddu (meaning grandfather in Hindi, played by Rishi Kapoor), generates enormous joy and Kapoor’s humour runs through the worrying moments in the film impressively.
Needless to say, Kapoor grabbed two gongs for his performance, Best Actor in a Comic Role and Best Supporting Actor. At the grand event, Amitabh Bachchan won Best Male Actor for his film Pink, while a film featuring Aamir Khan, Dangal, grabbed Best Film in the Viewer’s Choice category.
Digital TV channel Workpoint TV last year aired Indian TV series The Life Of Gautam Buddha, which was jointly produced by Mumbai-based Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited (ZEEL). It drew great attention from Thai audiences and enabled them to notice Mumbai’s dynamic movie industry.
Zee Nung, ZEEL’s first Thai-language TV channel, was launched three years ago with several hit Indian films and series being dubbed in Thai.
Likewise, many locations in the Land of Smiles have been featured in hundreds of Bollywood movies. Thai women have started shaking their waists and training themselves to be masters of
Bollywood dancing, even though they don’t really understand Hindi lyrics. In recent years, Indian movies 3 Idiots, The Lunchbox, PK, Barfi! and many others have been the topic of discussion on online forum pantip.com.
Even though Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Punjabi, Telugu and Urdu films are yet to achieve great audience reach in Thailand, Indian films will soon achieve greater acclaim here as Thais talk more about them.