Screen playing

The film biz in India spans almost every language that is officially recognised in the country. But, where public perception is concerned, there is one overwhelming influence that is the colour of all things filmi: Bollywood. A word coined by some enterprising wordsmith or journalist many years ago, one disliked by superstar Amitabh Bachchan and many others, it still works well to describe a world that is about dreams and ambitions, successes and failures and great joy and even greater heartbreak. The age-old and astonishingly seductive showreel of a young man (women were less visible in the particular sequence) from the village coming to the big bad city that was (in those days) Bombay and serendipitously meeting a big-time producer/director and becoming the new Big Star illuminated by flashbulbs and starry eyes still brings people — young and surprisingly older too — to the City of Dreams, as Mumbai is called now, is still very much a valid, working clip. There are still hundreds who come to the megalopolis to become the next Salman Khan, the next Madhuri Dixit, the next celluloid sensation, the latest Yash Chopra or anyone else whose name may echo through the peninsula. And some of them do…as was seen in various films released over the past year.

Annum 2010 was not a time when big was better. A number of films that came from established and reputed production houses sat flat on their cans (sic!) while the box office rattled sadly to poor collections. Movies expected to go stratospheric in their success fizzled unexpectedly, shaking Bollywood and its fan following out of a state of cinematic complacency. Big-budget big-star big-prediction films like Kites (with Hrithik Roshan), Guzaarish (directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, with Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Hrithik Roshan), Raavan (by Mani Ratnam), Veer (Salman Khan) and We Are Family (with Kajol) failed. And smaller, less touted productions from comparative unknowns, like Love Sex Aur Dhoka, Ishqiya, Tere Bin Laden, Peepli Live and Band Baaja Baaraat did startlingly good business, pushing all those involved with them into the spotlight.

The result of this shake-up could have been predicted, following all patterns of uncertainty and surprise: Bollywood decided that it was time to rethink formulae and strategies and try, once again, to figure out what worked, what could win and what would bring in the money. Unfortunately, as with anything filmi, that attempt to rewrite the formula and find a success guarantee will never be possible. After all, there were too many unpredictable wobbles that happened – Salman Khan, superstar of the mass audience, wrote a film called Veer that failed almost as it was released; that same Salman Khan rewrote audience perception with Dabangg and his act as a corrupt cop had cash registers ringing all the way to the bank and back. Farah Khan's success with Main Hoon Na and the Om Shanti Om, both starring Shahrukh Khan, spurred her into declaring her independence from the star with Tees Maar Khan with Akshay Kumar playing the lead. It was panned by critics and audiences alike, with not even a steamy 'item' number by hot-stepper Katrina Kaif being able to revive its fortunes. Shahrukh underlined his track records by retaining and building on his fan base with no releases and not many appearances over the year, though his My Name Is Khan still brought in good business overseas.

Unusual stories and screenplays were perhaps the deciding factor in the success-failure game in 2010. First time directors hit it huge (Abhinav Kashyap being the best case in this point with Dabangg), small towns were centrestage (as in Prakash Jha's Rajneeti) and comedy was central, especially if it was slapstick (see Golmaal 3). Thrillers did well too, from Once Upon A Time In Mumbai to the aforementioned Ishqiya. And, as total 'paisa vasool', or value for money, Rajnikanth's Robot (more in the Tamil version) and, of course, Dabangg, with their clichéd dialogue, dramatic delivery and over-the-top action did the trick best of all for everyone, even the most carping critic. It was a time when big stars lost a lot of their starry sheen to the raw newcomer, the underdog, even the obvious non-starter. Consider the surprise hit of the year in Band Baaja Baaraat, where Ranveer Singh, who came out of nowhere to play a loud, crude, un-citified hero against the more experienced Anushka Sharma, won accolades from his critics, his audiences and, best of all, his more senior colleagues in filmbiz!

So what does Bollywood hold for the next year? Filmmaking now is all about polish, sophistication of technique and a much greater degree of depth than has been visible for some time. Production houses and financiers have realised that whatever the name attached to the film, however big and bright the star, whoever the director and the 'item number', what really does make the difference is the story itself. If there is a tale worth telling, Bollywood is finding that it needs to be told in order to tell a different story at the box office: that which is about finding – and keeping – the limelight.

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Ramya Sarma is a Mumbai-based writer-editor.