A good year in the movies can mean multiple things. Studios sufficiently bankrolling films, independent projects finding their way to the mainstream, underdogs triumphing over tentpole projects, new faces coming up and old faces rediscovering their voice. In that sense, 2024 fulfilled most of these possibilities. Filmmaker Sriram Raghavan, known for curating gore in his films, conjured a heartbreaking romance in Merry Christmas. Three female actors fronted the commercially viable Crew, a modest-budgeted Munjya won big, Payal Kapadia’s independently-funded All We Imagine As Light got a theatrical release and ensembles like Madgaon Express, Stree 2, and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 were triumphs. On paper, we are steadying ahead. But a little probing dismantles this neat narrative.

There can, and should, be different ways of looking at something. But no matter how one sees it, 2024 reveals to be uninspiring for Hindi films. Quantity is no longer the problem. Admittedly, there was a lull during the Covid-19 crisis, but some time has passed and as of now, a steady roster of theatrical and streaming releases is in place. Theatre owners and exhibitors also came up with a ploy to combat infrequent releases: re-releasing old Hindi films. Yet, the quality has been on a steady decline.

The Era Of ‘Genericness’

As of now, the landscape of Hindi films resembles a linear line drawn by a vanishing ink. The multi-crore industry has come to be imbued by such genericness in plot and aesthetics that is hard to locate its identity. In other words, no matter how long the line is—and how expansive the industry is becoming—the growth feels incidental, for the ambition is stunted.

It could have been the post-pandemic uncertainty, the easy availability of other Indian language films through streaming sites during that period, or the gigantic successes of those ventures. In 2022, S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR registered the highest opening by an Indian film; this year, another Telugu language film, Sukumar’s Pushpa 2, became the highest-grossing Indian film in the first week. But evidently, the monopoly of Hindi films and its false equivalence with Indian cinema have considerably weakened. The diversity of the industry has been steamrolled into a prickly homogeneity where any two films look the same, the scale feels identical, the action looks uniformly designed and the style is fashioned in self-reflexive humour.

As is often the case, Shah Rukh Khan paved the way. His 2023 film Pathaan not just marked his return to the screen after a four-year hiatus but was one of the few outings that earned money at a time many others struggled to do so. Its success did three things: it reiterated the supremacy of Khan, legitimised action as a thriving genre, and recognised star cameos in films as the onset of multiverses. 

Spectacle Over Everything Else

This year, most Hindi films can be slotted in these distinct categories. Rohit Shetty’s Singham Again was his version of a (cop) multiverse, and the production house Maddock Films furthered its horror-comedy universe with Stree 2 and Munjya. Sagar Ambre and Pushkar Ojha helmed the action-thriller Yodha, Siddharth Anand directed the aviation (action) thriller Fighter and Ali Abbas Zafar made the abysmal Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (BMCM). There are more examples: Nikkhil Advani leaned on action with Vedaa, Ravi Udyawar did the same with Yudhra and so did Aditya Datt in Crakk. Clubbing them together could be reductive, but it is difficult not to identify the sweeping attempt by the makers to treat plot as an accessory to action.

In the midst, meta references clog the screenplay. Khan’s famous “Bete ko hath lagane se pehle, baap se baat kar” (“Before touching the son, deal with the father”), rooted to the personal turmoil of his son’s arrest in 2021, spawned similar iterations post Jawan (2023). Tiger Shroff repeated his meme-famous “choti bachi ho kya?” (“are you a little girl”) a decade later in BMCM after mouthing them for the first time in Heropanti (2014); Chitrangada Singh briefly appeared in Akshay Kumar’s Khel Khel Mein (2024) and their scenes were scored to the music of Desi Boyz (2011), the last film they did together. The subtext here is actors winking directly at the audience and establishing a connection despite the fourth wall. But Hindi films have never seemed more distant.

Stuck On Repeat

If 2024 proved anything, it is that what works really does, and when it does, it is repeated. The success of Stree 2 and Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 furthered the accomplishment of sequels, and now, there are multiple in the works. The Ranbir Kapoor-starrer Animal (2023) ended with the announcement of Animal Park, which is supposed to go on floors in 2027. Varun Dhawan is part of No Entry 2, Border 2 and reportedly a sequel to Jugjugg Jeeyo too. Vikas Bahl’s Shaitaan, which minted money this year, has a sequel in the making, and in October, actor Salman Khan and producer Sajid Nadiadwala confirmed working on Kick 2 with a cheeky Instagram post. Meanwhile, Shah Rukh Khan is rumoured to be featuring in Pathaan 2.

Every actor, it appears, is either working in a sequel or wants to be in one. It is a jarring trend that spells a creative crisis in Hindi cinema with a damning pronouncement. As of this moment, filmmakers are more involved in catering to the audience than creating for them. Budgets are being amped up, more investment is tailored for VFX and Hindi films are getting bigger. Yet, one would be hard-pressed to distinguish between the trailers of, say, Baby John and Animal. It is the same story everywhere: overgrown men fighting with an obscure vengeance to prove their manhood rather than seek justice.

Bankruptcy Of Imagination

Perhaps this crystallises the most terrifying symptom of Hindi cinema today where the bankruptcy of imagination has manifested in accentuating machismo. More and more films centre around men who need an excuse to draw out blood from the next person. The face does not matter, nor does the cause. While they thumped about the screens, smaller and more inventive projects, such as Sanjay Tripaathy’s warm Binny And Family, Karan Gour’s whimsical Fairy Folk, Shoojit Sircar’s affecting I Want to Talk battled for more screens and our attention. Even Kiran Rao’s wonderful Laapataa Ladies and Varun Grover’s perceptive All India Rank garnered appreciation once they landed on digital platforms. Once upon a time, they would have been referred to as multiplex films. Today, they are too ambitious for streaming and too atypical for theatres. They reside in a no man’s land, and in their dislocation, they mirror the gradual distortion of Hindi cinema.

(Ishita Sengupta is an independent film critic and culture writer from India. Her writing is informed by gender and pop culture and has appeared in The Indian Express, Hyperallergic, New Lines Magazine, etc.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

At its surface, Reema Kagti’s latest feature, Superboys of Malegaon (2024), is the story behind the story of a motley group of film enthusiasts from the eponymous city, who made low-budget parodies of famed Bollywood and Hollywood films. To subject Kagti’s film to a surface-level reading, however, is a disservice to not just one of India’s most intelligent storytellers but also to the industry which, with every passing film, dissolves into a decadent and dramatically stagnant being. A nation where any existence of artistic intelligence is strangled by moneymaking goons masquerading as film producers, who continue to push lacklustre universes of IP-driven dross where nothing that glitters is actually gold. 

“Writer Baap Hota Hai“

Kagti’s film, albeit set in a place some 270 km and 25 years in the past from today’s Bollywood, offers considerate commentary, for anyone willing to listen, on the times we live in. “Writer baap hota hai,” screams Farogh Jafri (Vineet Kumar Singh), an underappreciated writer from Malegaon, when his original stories are repeatedly rejected by Nasir Shaikh (Adarsh Gourav), the leader of their ragtag film crew, in favour of more parodies. While this dialogue, penned by Varun Grover, exists within the time-space continuum populated by this specific group from Malegaon, it evokes an emotion that transcends all borders, tangible or intangible. A similar emotion was evoked some 400 years ago by the ‘baap’ of all writers, William Shakespeare, when he penned down his sonnet, Not Marble nor the Gilded Monuments, stating as fearlessly as Jafri, “Not marble nor the gilded monuments, Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme.” Nothing supersedes a good writer. And if Shakespeare and Grover said it, then it must be true.

It is quite remarkable then that this simple thought that has defied artistic evolution from its very inception remains incomprehensible for filmmakers and producers in India. Underpaid screenwriters underscore the reality of every film set, successful or unsuccessful, large or small. Ours is an industry that has not merely normalised this disparity but has also vigorously facilitated the culture of hero worship, which further curtails writers’ wages in favour of a bigger paycheck for an actor who would be fundamentally unemployed, if not for the writer.

Nasir Understands A Complex Truth About Identity

The parodies with an accentuated Malegaon accent in the film emphasise another important idea in this vein—the importance of socially and culturally cognisant writers and filmmakers. The granular motivation for these superboys of Malegaon was to create a cinema that cements their identity on the big screen in a manner that is not offered to people of their economic and social belonging by the system. It is but Bombay’s cruelty that it teaches you to dream. Nevertheless, a replication of Bombay’s glamourous filmmaking remains incredibly important as films, above all else, are entertainment, especially in Malegaon.

It is not lost on Nasir that his films are meant to be seen by loom workers and farmhands who work too hard for too little in a place where nothing ever happens. To infuse Malegaon’s desperation with the dynamism of Mumbai thus becomes his primary goal. What this requires, however, is an acute understanding of both lands—Malegaon and Mumbai. A familiarity with the texts and lives of both their source material and their reference material. A realisation that would save Bollywood bigwigs crores of rupees.

Same Old, Same Old Bollywood

Bollywood’s is a rich history of self-referential, self-aware cinema. However, of late, there has been an increase in the need to refer sans innovation. An attitude that extends itself from major plot points to throwaway one-liners. We no longer have jokes; we have reminders of comedies released a decade ago. Humour manifests itself through arduous meta-textual and pop culture references as we laugh at feeble echoes of the same punchline perpetually reverberating across the hollow industry.

Cutting decisively through the sparkling exterior, Superboys also magnifies the physical, emotional, and financial stresses that burden filmmakers. Observing the Malegaon filmmakers toil tirelessly amidst societal and economic restrictions to deliver films with heart and soul puts into perspective exactly how detrimental it is when Bollywood churns out movies worth hundreds of crores with no ambition. Filmmaking is a privilege, as professed by Kagti’s picture, and it is evident that not just the filmmakers of Malegaon but the filmmakers in Malegaon recognised and responded to the duties that accompany this privilege. Unfortunately, this maturity eludes most of Bollywood.

Superboys Is Filmmaking Free Of Constraint

While the film’s ideas are eloquently expressed through Varun Grover’s deliberate dialogues, there is a lot that is to be understood from the film’s silences as well. Faiza Ahmad Khan’s Supermen of Malegaon (2008), the documentary film that in many ways inspired Kagti’s fictional account, addressed the communal differences between Malegaon’s population and how the build-up of a majority Muslim and a minority Hindu population impacts the access to and attitudes towards cinema. Superboys of Malegaon, however, decides not to address this side of Malegaon’s history, which doesn’t come as much of a surprise in today’s Bollywood, where extremist groups exercise undue but immense influence across the industry; one does understand the weight that this decision carries. The permanence of celluloid also means that this silence will ring loud forevermore.

At its core, however, Superboys is a story of liberated filmmaking. Free from all conventions of form, style, and substance, and in pursuit of euphoria. You feel it in the characters’ motivations, and you read it on their faces. When they laugh, you laugh with them. When they cry, you shed a tear as well. It is honest filmmaking by a filmmaker who has remained demonstrably diligent towards her craft, about filmmakers who were nothing short of being dedicatedly determined towards theirs. And in that sense, Superboys of Malegaon is a joyous film that celebrates everyone who has ever made a film. It applauds all filmmakers who are unable to or unwilling to break through Bombay’s hardened exterior. It is a film about everyone who is not a Bollywood bigwig, but quite poetically, it is also a must for everyone who is. A wake-up call for a fraternity that has only ever learnt to flatter itself.

(Nidhil Vohra is a writer, filmmaker, and film studies student at the University of Toronto.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

What is common to Aavesham, Premalu, Manjummel Boys, Aadujeevitham, Bramayugam, Aranmanai4 and Hanu Man? All these South films were made on budgets ranging from Rs 10 to Rs 40 crore and were blockbusters, with some even collecting over Rs 100 crore. Though South does have big star flicks too, small- and medium-budget films have always been part of the industry’s oeuvre. They form its backbone, and they are what many filmmakers strive for. 

Cut to Bollywood, where after a revival of sorts in 2023, the industry is again seeing itself go kaput this year. Big Hindi films like Maidaan, Bade Miyan Chote Miyan and Chandu Champion fizzled at the box office, stunning filmmakers. On the other hand, medium-budget films like Munjya (Rs 30 crore), Article 370 (Rs 20 crore), Madgaon Express (Rs 30 crore) and Srikanth (Rs 45 crore) turned out to be hits.  Karan Johar and Guneet Monga’s recent release, Kill, made at just Rs 25 crore, is also performing very well at the box office, despite the Kalki 2898 AD juggernaut. 

Also Read | Bollywood Needs To Stop Bleeding Producers Dry. South Has Lessons

Even so, the risk appetite for most producers remains intact as they sign on A-listers and make big-budget, lavish (Rs 80 crore and above) films. But is the box office giving them the desired results? Sadly, no.

What The Audience Wants

It’s no secret that the Hindi film industry has been going through a tough time this year. Many producers and corporates have seriously started introspecting on what needs to change.

In a recent interview, producer and director Karan Johar said that with shifting audience tastes and high filmmaking costs due to inflation, the Hindi film industry and filmmakers must stop chasing trends and write fresh stories that are culturally rooted. “Firstly, the audiences’ tastes have become very definitive. They want a certain kind of cinema. And if you (as a maker) want to do a certain number, then your film has to perform at A, B, and C centres. Multiplexes alone will not suffice. Simultaneously, the cost of filmmaking has increased. There has been inflation. There are about 10 viable actors in Hindi cinema, and they are all asking for the sun, moon, and earth. And then your film doesn’t do the numbers. Those movie stars asking for Rs 35 crore are opening to Rs 3.5 crore. How’s that math working? How do you manage all these? Yet, you have to keep making movies and creating content because you also have to feed your organisation. So, there’s a lot of drama, and the syntax of our cinema has not found its feet,” he said in the interview.

Can’t Just Dismiss Spectacle Cinema

Of the 1,000-odd movies that are released in India each year (across various film industries), most are small- and medium-budget ones. Spectacle movies number just around 12. While they are important for the Hindi film industry and contribute a significant portion to the box office each year, smaller films are also needed to provide a continuous flow of content to distributors and keep the business going. Plus, the risks for the producer are much lower – smaller and mid-budget films are known to give major returns on investment. Thus, a producer needs to be strategic not just in terms of the number of films he finances each year, but also the budgets.

While scale may matter, substance does too. Where the South film industries are scoring sixes after sixes is content. Small and mid-budget flicks give more room to filmmakers and writers to experiment and be more creative with new themes, genres and storylines. Content-driven films do bring the audience to theatres, as seen across states in India.

Also Read | Anurag Kashyap On Actors’ Demands, Entourage Cost: “Car Is Sent Three Hours Away To Get A Five-Star Burger”

This phenomenon was new neither to the South film industry nor to Bollywood. But over the past several decades, Hindi film producers slowly started looking the other way as they felt such films weren’t able to draw enough people to theatres. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck, the burst of OTT platforms changed the game altogether in India.

The Economics Of The Film Industry

Director Gauravv Chawla, who’s known for Adhura and Baazaar, says, “Tentpoles will always be present and should be. As an industry, we need those big films. But these are few and far between because of the time and scale it takes to mount them and the risks of getting them just right. What has been heartening this year is the number of medium-budget films that have performed well at the box office. This used to be the case pre-pandemic too. We need to make sure we build on this audience appreciation by creating more films where content is the star, be it comedy, drama, supernatural or romance. The steadier the flow of these films, the better it will be for all – makers, exhibitors, distributors and audiences.”

From a film distributor’s point of view, it can be said that both big films and small films have been doing well at the box office. Akshaye Rathi, a film exhibitor and distributor, says, “I think it’s important for all sorts of movies to be made. As much as Laapataa Ladies and 12th Fail have done well, these are very niche successes in terms of their geographical impact. These are movies that have done well in 15-20 large cities. For the entire exhibition sector of the country to sustain, you need big-ticket films or tentpole blockbusters like Gadar, Animal, Pathaan and Jawan to set the box office on fire across the length and breadth of the country. Only that will allow the exhibition sector of the country to sustain well. Simultaneously, it’s important for mid-segment and small-budget movies to fill the gap and keep the scorecard ticking between the tentpoles.”

A Healthy Mix

Ultimately, filmmakers in the Hindi industry feel that a mix of movies across genres – and across budgets – is what is needed to keep the audience happy. As Rathi puts it, the more the Hindi film industry churns out just large-scale, big-ticket actioners, the more fatigued the audience will get. Badly made films will not help the industry either. “We need all sorts of genres and styles of film-making to coexist so that there’s something in the cinemas at any given point of time for every audience category,” he adds.

The Hollywood in the 2000s had witnessed a similar situation. Studios had been consolidating budgets to make blockbuster films, and consequently, the number of smaller films reduced drastically on studio ledgers. In 2013, predicting the end of this cycle, director Steven Spielberg warned makers of an ‘implosion’. “There’s going to be an implosion where three or four, or maybe even half a dozen mega-budget movies are going to go crashing into the ground, and that’s going to change the paradigm,” he said. Hollywood ultimately went through an upheaval at the time. Of late, that cycle has re-emerged after COVID-19 as Hollywood studios bat for big blockbusters and mid-range films are premiered directly on OTT platforms.

The bottom line is that movie theatres can’t survive on blockbusters alone, whether it is Hollywood or Bollywood. Perhaps, it is time for the Hindi film industry to rethink its model.

(The author is a senior entertainment journalist and film critic)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

New Delhi:

The Supreme Court laid down guidelines against “disparaging” portrayal of persons with disabilities in visual media and films on Monday, saying that terms such as “cripple” and “spastic” have acquired “devalued meanings” in societal perceptions.

The verdict came on a plea filed by one Nipun Malhotra, who submitted that the Hindi film ‘Aankh Micholi’ contained deprecatory references to differently abled persons.

Pronouncing the verdict, a bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said, “Words cultivate institutional discrimination and terms such as cripple and spastic have come to acquire devalued meanings in societal perceptions about persons with disabilities.” Laying down several guidelines, the bench said the film certification body CBFC must invite the opinion of experts before allowing screening.

“Visual media should strive to depict diverse realities of persons with disabilities, showcasing not only their challenges but also successes, talents and contribution to society. They should neither be lampooned based on myths nor presented as super cripples,” it added. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)