Anees In Wonderland

Even after 40 years in the industry, ANEES BAZMEE feels like a little boy lost in a mela. SUMAN SHARMA takes notes as the filmmaker recounts his journey

- Suman Sharma

Anees Bazmee is on cloud nine these days. His massy comedy, Mubarakan, starring Arjun Kapoor in a double role, and Anil Kapoor in a ‘youthful’ avatar has been the surprise hit of the season. Anees is thoroughly enjoying this bit of unexpected luck and attributes the film’s success to it being a clean, family entertainer. Unlike other practitioners of the fine art of making comedic films, Anees doesn’t like sexual innuendos and beams proudly when he tells you that, “I don’t enjoy adult comedy. I enjoy films that I can watch with my family. Bipasha Basu played a prostitute in my film No Entry but there was nothing cheap or vulgar about her. There was a certain dignity to her character. The audience empathised with her.” He mentions that his films enjoy numerous reruns on television because of their clean content.

Anees believes one man’s tragedy is another man’s comedy and his films reflect that. There is at least one character in his films, whose life goes topsy turvy but his woes win the maximum laughs. He sighs and says such is life. He mentions he gets all his masala from observing life and he exaggerates it slightly while putting it on celluloid. He doesn’t ask his actors to treat their characters as comic tropes. “I tell them to make their characters as believable as possible, that the comedy will arise from the situations.”