A sneak peek into Bollywood

A sneak peek into Bollywood

Hindi Cinema or Bollywood has been called as the gateway of Indian cinema which gave us memorable gems and many legendary actors that came their way. In order to understand how Bollywood is becoming relevant, we need to throwback ourselves into the history of how it all started. 

It was 1897. The Lumiere Brothers films were displayed at Star Theatre in Kolkata. Hiralal Sen a young photographer was encouraged by Professor Stevenson to make films. The early films that came out were that of one reelers that had no dialogues. The first ever feature film that came from Bollywood was Dadasaheb Phalke's Raja Harishchandra in the year 1913. This marked the first ever arrival of Indian cinema. By the early 1930s, Bollywood switched from silent to sound films with Ardeshir Irani's Alam Ara.  

In the 1940s, to 1960s Hindi Cinema witnessed the arrival of many films that brought the increase in marketability terms. It also saw the birth of a golden age triumvate; Dilip Kumar (The Tragedy King) , Raj Kapoor (The Greatest Showman) and Dev Anand (The evergreen star). Parallel Cinema had also arrived with IPTA (Indian People Theatre Association) playing an important role in bringing Social Messages to Cinema. This also saw the arrival of Sunil Dutt who was credited for playing many popular roles. The singers in Bollywood included Kishore Kumar, Asha Bhosle, Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammad Rafi and KL Saigal with Musicians like Madan Mohan, Naushad, Bombay Ravi, Laxmikant- Pyarelal. etc. Guru Dutt also played an important role in bridging the commerce and art of Hindi Cinema but his film Kaagaz Ke Phool had become a box office dud thus his name became Anathema to the box office. Patriotic Films also came with Bharat Kumar who made films on India before and After Independence.

In the 1970s, The Old Guard of Dilip Kumar, Dev Anand and Raj Kapoor gave the batons to 2 young actors. Rajesh Khanna who was India's First Superstar and Amitabh Bachchan who became India's Angry young man. This saw the arrival of Salim-Javed who wrote scripts that represented the angst of the common man in India. This also marked the arrival of Yash Chopra who arrived and changed Hindi Cinema by making films that focused on Romance, Action and Drama. Masala Films also arrived with Nasir Hussain's Yaadon Ki Baraat. It also saw the rise of a young man from Amritsar who became the He-Man of Bollywood. Dharmendra.

In the 80s, Bollywood started to lose its sheen with the arrival of Hindi Films that were remade from South Indian Films. This marked the entry of Yash Johar as a producer through Dharma Productions. This introduced the angry action packed heroes through Sanjay Dutt and Sunny Deol. Bollywood was going through a bad phase with every Masala Film becoming more stale than ever. 

Things started to look up in the 90s with the arrival of new young faces. The 3 khans came and Changed it all; Aamir Khan (Mr. Perfectionist), Shah Rukh Khan (The King Of Bollywood) and Salman Khan (The Muscle Man of Bollywood). It also brought in a new breed of action heroes such as Akshay Kumar and Ajay Devgn. Bollywood witnessed Romance and family dramas with the likes of filmmakers such as Karan Johar, Aditya Chopra, Sooraj Bharjatya and Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Music of the 90s were literally topping the charts with composers like Jatin- Lalit, AR Rahaman.etc. The singers of that kind included Kavita Krishnamurthi, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan.

2000s came with fresh new musicians and singers such as Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, Sonu Nigam, Vishal-Shekhar, Suraj Jagan, Sukhvinder Singh, KK, Shaan.etc. This also brought about new young actors such as Hritik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Manoj Bajpayee, Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra Jonas .etc. Hindi Cinema was finally on a brink of success with Amitabh who was now in his second innings playing character roles.

2010s came with new crop of debudantes and star kids such as Siddarth Malhotra, Varun Dhavan, Alia Bhatt, Ranveer Singh, Katrina Kaif, Anushka Sharma - Kohli, Sonakshi Sinha, Tiger Shroff.etc. 2020s was a mixed period as Bollywood went through a bad phase with the Me Too movement setting in alongside the Boycott Bollywood that was triggered by the death of Sushant Singh Rajput who was an underrated artist. Hindi Cinema witnessed a comeback with Pathaan that was the dhamaka based comeback for SRK from a 5 year hiatus. 

Bollywood has seen both success and pitfalls. I love Bollywood.  

How has Mollywood changed from the last quarter of 2023 to the 1st half of 2024

How has Mollywood changed from the last quarter of 2023 to the 1st half of 2024

Malayalam Cinema since the 2020s has witnessed both bouquets and brickbats everywhere. It has brought in some underrated masterpieces from new directors with a penchant for storytelling. It was in 2022 that Malayalam cinema brought out many new projects that spelt love, mass and style. Hridayam by Vineeth Sreenivasan was a story of our college days and I could honestly relate to leaving the college with the secret alley scene before the interval when I left the college after my last exam. Bheeshma Parvam brought back Mammootty and Amal Neerad for a stylish amalgamation between Ved Vyasa's Mahabharata and Mario Puzo's The Godfather. Jana Gana Mana by Dijo Jose Anthony questioned what was going wrong in our country. Naa Thaan Kola Case pointed out the bad politics that contributed to open portholes in a satirical manner and also revived Oussepachan's oldest composition 'Devadoothar Paadi' from Late Bharathan's Kaathoru Kaatharam. 

2023 on the other hand witnessed a promising start with Lijo Jose Pelissery's Nanpakal Nerathu Mayakkam starring Mammootty but later went downhill with a lot of releases that didn't work well. It produced a few amazing films like Kaathal the Core, RDX, Neru.etc. Dulquer Salmaan's Career witnessed the arrival of the DQ aura generated through King Of Kotha which was made by his friend Abhilash Joshiy. King Of Kotha was a look back to the film collaborations between their dads. It produced a few masterpieces that were unnoticed in the box office but later became cult classics.

2024 witnessed the new renaissance of Mollywood with the arrival of films that showed that they were experts in comebacks.

The Release of Brammayugam by Rahul Sadasivam which featured Mammootty as a scary villain was a big surprise. It was shot in Black and white and redefined the Tharavadu Horror Genre that came in 1964 with Bhargavi Nilayam. It had a clash with 2 films; Premalu and Manjummel Boys. Premalu was a love story set in Hyderabad, Telangana. It continued the trend of Malayalam films shot outside Kerala. The first being Bangalore days set in Bangalore and the second being Hridayam set in Chennai. Manjummel Boys by Chidambaram S Poduval was based on the real life incident that happened in Guna caves (Devil's Kitchen). This film revived special interest in Kanmani Anbodu Kadhalan from Guna which resulted in the makers meeting Kamal Haasan and Santhana Bharati. The 3 films desified the Hollywood phenomena of Barbenheimer. 

Aadujeevitham by Blessy was a comeback of an old trend of adapting Malayalam Literature for cinema. It was the much awaited film of Mollywood because of the combination between Blessy, Prithviraj and A.R Rahman. Jithu Madhavan made his sophomore directorial named Aavesham that starred Fahadh Faasil as a loud mouthed but quirky gangster in Bangalore. This film was credited with making a devotional song trend everywhere.

Vineeth Sreenivasan was back as a director with his 6th film Varshangalluku Shesham which was in a way termed Mollywood's Cinema Paradiso. He introduced Bombay Jayshri's son Amrit Ramnath as a composer. 

Premalu's success witnessed its distribution into Telegu and Tamil territories with its dubbed versions brought by Red Giant Movies from Tamilnadu and Showing Business by SS Karthikeya from AP - Telangana.

Looking at this success, This tells us that Malayalam cinema is a phoenix which rose from its ashes of flops from 2023.