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Blockbuster bucks trend

Shubhra Gupta

When `Gadar -- Ek Prem Katha', a love story set in the time of Partition, was released on June 15, no one -- producer for Zee Telefilms, Nittin Keni, director Anil Sharma, lead star Sunny Deol, assorted trade pundits, seasoned film critics -- had any ide a that the film, which revisits such a turbulent time in recent history, would create box-office history.

Made for Rs 18.5 crore, ``Gadar is well on course for gathering up an imposing Rs 60 crore, as it surges in the popularity stakes. If nothing interrupts the way it is going, we could be looking at Rs 100 crore,'' says Nittin.

The last time a film enjoyed such an unbroken run, with spiralling curiosity leading to fresh influxes in theatres across the country, was Sooraj Barjatya's saccharine-sweet family saga `Hum Aapke Hain Koun'. Trashed initially by critics as a four-hour l ong marriage video, an apt definition given the number of pre and post marriage rituals showcased in the movie, the Barjatya film became a Bollywood benchmark, with collections upwards of Rs 80 crore.

This unleashed the Decade Of Unadulterated Treacle. It became mandatory, post `Hum Aapke...', to include a large undivided Hindu family and its shenanigans in every other film. Other elements, such as romance having to play second fiddle to tradition and sanskar, and an insistence on cultural and societal uniformity, began a relentless domination of mainstream, big-budget Hindi movies.

It has taken seven years, and the ultra-violent `Gadar', to break the the-family-which-sings-together-lives-together barrier -- the film eschews a cloying joint family in favour of a couple of fiery lovers. The unlettered Sikh truck-drivers attraction fo r an upper-class, refined young Muslim girl culminates in a marriage which makes her aristocratic family unhappy. Her father spirits her away across the newly-created border, goading her spouse into embarking upon a daring rescue mission. Fighting tremen dous odds -- his wife's odious, politically powerful father, hidebound mullahs, and what seems like half the Pakistan Army -- he is reunited with his wife, and the mother of his child.

On the surface, there was nothing to suggest that the film would catch the fancy of the elusive all-India audience (in these bad times, where for each success story there are 40 which fail, doing alright in a single territory is enough to cause minor tri umph). Director Anil Sharma, known for his kitschy, lurid potboilers, had had a row of flops behind him, leading man Sunny Deol's market had turned shaky after a series of rank bad movies, and producer Nittin Keni was orchestrating a film of such scale f or the first time. Distributors were hesitant over the price Nittin was demanding -- only after a protracted wrangle, which included showing them the film in its entirety, did they cough up Rs 2.5-3 crore per territory.

The film, befitting an Anil Sharma movie, is loud and jingoistic, replete with anti-Pakistan dialogues, rendered in Deol's inimitable snarl. Its last half-hour is interminable, as the hero single-handedly fights off gun-toting militiamen in jeeps and hel icopters. The leading lady, Amisha Patel, looks young enough to be Deol's daughter. Controversy erupted in Bhopal over certain portions of the movie, deemed to be anti-Muslim by a section of the clergy -- shows were briefly suspended.

But it was as if `Gadar' was ordained for a dream run. The controversy died down remarkably soon. Amisha Patel's lissome look and her relationship with her burly Sikh caught the imagination of the audience, which was also wowed by the Pakistan-bashing li nes mouthed by Sunny Deol and his sidekick. But the chief reason behind Gadar's massive success is the fact that it found a resonance among the millions of people for whom partition and the events around it strike a strong sentimental chord.

``I had a gut feel right from the time I selected the story that it would do very well,'' says Nittin, who ``called the shots in every aspect in the making of Gadar, right from the choice of filmstars to its locations. In that sense, Gadar is a producer' s movie, much the way it is in Hollywood.'' The ex-IIM Calcutta graduate cut his teeth, as he puts it, on many things -- eight years with National Film Development Corporation ( NFDC), one-time assistant to Basu Bhattacharya, and then on to Zee as its pr ogramme head.

Nittin sees the role of a producer as a team's coach, who decides strategy and goals, and encourages the weaker players, to glue things together. He devised the revolutionary idea of drawing up contracts with every single member of the unit, and paying t hem by cheque -- an unheard of practice in the film industry, which is fuelled, by and large, by unaccounted cash. And he attributes the film's success to its elements of emotion, action and patriotism, and the tremendous passion and effort all of us put into it, where people were transported to a different period altogether.

Bouyed by the film's performance, Zee Telefilms has resurrected its idea of acquiring and releasing one film every month. Says B.L. Gautam of Essel Vision, ``We take over the finished product (an outside production), the publicity and distribution. As fa r as the financials are concerned, the movie becomes ours. Coming up next month is `Tere Liye', followed by Little John and the Hindi version of the Marathi superhit, Bindhaast -- this could well be the start of a new trend.

The author can be reached at shubhrag@vsnl.com

Picture: A still from Gadar- Ek Prem Katha