I recently spotted R. Madhavan in a movie theatre in Mumbai. As he was entering the lift, a young man called out ‘Sir, aapne baap film banayi hai!’ The lift door shut on Madhavan’s bemused face. Rocketry, the film helmed by him, has earned a lot of admiration nationwide. It is currently one of the most watched films across OTT platforms in India. The film was released in six languages and the multilingual universe has paid off like no other. Much like the story of a misunderstood and maligned Nambi Narayanan, the father of the cryogenic engine in India, the films from the South are getting their due attention late in the day.

It is heartening that Indian audiences are welcoming regional sensibilities much more than before. However, it is also eating into revenues of the mainstream Hindi film industry or Bollywood as we know it. Many have owed it to the explosion of the OTT platforms and content that caters to different sensibilities and regions.

As part of the film industry, I have been keenly observing the trend myself. All around I hear from my peers and seniors that the death knell of the Hindi film industry, as we know it, has been sounded, with #boycottbollywood trending online and a popular radio jockey going on to say that all Hindi films should just be shelved for the next five years. He said this in defence of the Hindi film industry so that we stop, rethink and reboot. Where are things going wrong? Perhaps the lack of Hindi films hitting theatres will create a demand for them. Perhaps then a #wemissbollywood might start trending, he said in jest.

The phenomenon called Baahubali

What we are seeing trending today started in 2014-15 when Amazon Prime Video started bringing in a number of dubbed South Indian films and the phenomenon called Baahubali happened. Producer Karan Johar at that time caught on to the wind of change and distributed the Rajamouli blockbuster for the Hindi film audience and pushed it heavily in terms of promotion.

When the film released, Baahubali became an overnight sensation like no one had seen before. Bollywood studios suddenly woke up to this big-event film phenomenon which the South industry was not new to.

This was also the time when DC Comics and Marvel Studios were churning out big-event films. Scale in terms of films that come from the South, be it Mani Ratnam or Shankar or Murugadoss, always sought a Hindi-isation of their films to cater to the North Indian film audience. So, an Aamir Khan in Ghajini or Manisha Koirala in Bombay were usual calls to make. Similarly, a parallel Hindi cast like in Mani Ratnam’s Yuva was unique in its time.

With a Vikram, you forget about the language

Now when you see a Vikram, you forget about the language. You are mesmerised by the high-octane drama and action; despite having some of the biggest stars of South cinema today – Kamal Haasan, Vijay Sethupathi and Fahadh Faasil – the director (Lokesh Kanagaraj) doesn’t adulate them but sticks to a riveting storyline that keeps us hooked till the end. The film ensures a rollercoaster ride for the audience and hence housefull theatres over the weekend.

However, if you feel that the South aesthetic is all about portraying the larger-than-life super-macho genre, one could not be further from the truth. A very quiet but powerful film called Gargi — essayed by Sai Pallavi — is about a school teacher whose father is accused of raping a minor and she goes all out to prove him innocent. Gargi is an unflinching character who faces a strange twist of fate in the end that reaffirms her strength of character, which is what the audience leaves with. And a film called Ariyippu has been making waves at the Locarno Film Festival. It is helmed by Mahesh Narayanan, who made brave films like Take Off and C U Soon.

Opportunity cost costs Bollywood formula fare dear

The pandemic has made all of us sit back and reassess the time we spend with ourselves and what we watch. Watching Shamshera with a group of young people, I realised how the audience that Bollywood has banked on in urban cities now have access to the best of films being made worldwide and are attuned to watching movies in foreign languages with subtitles. So for them the two hours they spend in front of a screen is a choice of opportunity cost, “the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen”.

Films like Shamshera suffer from a Bahubali hangover, which is all too evident. A trapped mother estranged from her son. A son trying to fulfill the dreams of his father. A mountain to not just climb but dive from. The aspirations were evident but sans a real narrative. No real pull of emotion from any of the characters is felt and one fails to understand why so much emphasis is being underlined through a hard mixed soundtrack.

Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra… Pushpa!

Hindi films of the era of Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra are seen more evidently in films like Pushpa, which speaks of the common man who can prove himself to be a hero if he wants. Pushpa walks strangely and is not your sanitised good-looking hero of Hindi cinema we are used to watching. He has matted curly hair full of sweat and grime, thus he connects with the man/woman on the street who can watch it on a crowded Mumbai local train and spend his two-hour ride to and from work lost in the world of this film. S/he cannot help but admire the simple and direct: “Pushpa naam sunkar flower samjhi kya? Fire hai main…” Unlike any other Hindi dialogue, it is flawed, it is pedestrian and it hits the right chord.

A film like Jugjugg Jeeyo that comes very close to opening a dialogue on the institution of marriage and its relevance (or not) with time was a great premise where the marital discord of a younger couple is hit with the news of their own parents separating. However, it falls short at many levels with only one sibling being the audience to this predicament, ignoring the other lesser known actor (who has made a transition from being a YouTuber to an actress), whose wedding is the setting in which this problem comes out in the open. The reason for the elderly couple to fall out could have been just out of boredom or some other reason, why did it have to be about an extramarital affair?

Time for us to excavate real stories that affect us

These trappings still show that Bollywood is facing a crisis of the traditional formula of storytelling that has been established in the 2000s and 1990s and is still trying to give a spin to those rather than excavating real stories that affect us at large. Recently, a renowned filmmaker mentioned how Hindi films are “not rooted enough” to enjoy the numbers that South films are basking in.

I will harp back to the RJ who said Hindi films should just take a break for five years to rethink.

We should rethink and assess the stories we tell. The act of sitting around a fire like the primitive man did, telling stories that would excite and regale everyone as night fell, that setting remains the same. The darkness of a theatre or the mind which focuses on light emanating from the size of a screen you prefer. It all is an excuse to leave one’s present surroundings and get enamoured in another world, whether it be Lokesh’s or anyone else’s, it really does not matter.

Samimitra graduated from SRFTI specialising in Direction & Screenplay-writing. He has worked as an Assistant Director on films like Lootera and Commando, and has completed work on the film Lost as an Associate Director