Bollywood’s facelift
Sudipta Datta

The workers’ strike, holding up shooting of 40-odd films, may be the last straw, but it’ s anyway been a year of surprises in Bollywood. Big-ticket films (Tashan, Bhootnath) that were slated to do well didn’t, instead small-budget, refreshingly different films (Aamir, Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane Na, Jannat, Rock On!!) stole the show and with the audience showing the way, multiplexes laid down the red carpet for new cinema, be it from the world, Hollywood or Bollywood.

Really, Anurag Kashyap must be rueing the fact that he made Paanch seven years too early. Paanch, a story about five rock stars in the making and their pursuit of success at all costs, got caught at the censors in 2001 and has never been commercially released. But in 2008, you have Rock On!!, a film on a sub-culture like alternative rock music, meeting with box-office success too; you have an Ingmar Bergman retrospective at multiplexes and the response is overwhelming; and for the next Bond film, Sony Pictures’ Quantum of Solace, an unprecedented 650 prints of which are going to be released on November 7.

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