Last week, the Hindi film industry delivered two of its shiniest offerings of the year: Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and Singham Again.
It was a box-office face-off that had trade analysts and fans buzzing. Asked if this could be called "the Indian Barbenheimer", I just about managed to answer "Not quite", before my brain melted at the thought of Anees Bazmee being our Greta Gerwig and Rohit Shetty, our Christopher Nolan.
Their box-office successes aside, last year's Barbie and Oppenheimer stood out as unprecedented for the creative decisions taken by their directors. They were both bold, novel attempts to tell a somewhat-familiar story in a stunning new way.
Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 and Singham Again, in contrast, take pride in their lack of originality. Irrespective of how much they earn at the box office, the two films are emblematic of a critical problem within Bollywood: a crisis of the imagination.
This story is from the November 10, 2024 edition of Hindustan Times.
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This story is from the November 10, 2024 edition of Hindustan Times.
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