Woman at helm as film sets Bollywood record
Print Edition
A RECORD opening-day debut for a Bollywood film that happens to be directed by a woman is shaking up the men’s-only club of filmmakers in the list of India’s highest grossing movies.
Farah Khan’s new film, a heist caper that doubles as a song-and-dance extravaganza, is a rare blockbuster by a woman filmmaker in the Indian movie industry, the world’s largest by ticket sales. Two of Khan’s three previous films in the last decade were hits too, but not as big as “Happy New Year.”
The choreographer-turned-filmmaker said withstanding pressure from people who expect her to make a certain kind of cinema because of her gender is her biggest success. “Nobody is expecting a 200 crore (US$33 million) hit from a woman director, which in itself is very sad and very patronising,” said Khan, whose recipe of breezy, entertaining cinema woos children and adults alike, but is panned by critics.
“I hope more women come and break this record. I think it will help every woman who wants to go out and make a movie, if our movies end up making as much money as the male directors.”
Khan, 49, said she lived her dream with “Happy New Year,” having wanted to make the “biggest film you’ve seen in India.” But reviews have mostly been critical with one critic writing that “the desire to entertain overshadows everything else — script, character, coherence, narrative logic.”
But Khan is unfazed by criticism. “Why should I take the pressure of making a movie that will only appeal to 10 people and not to 10 million people?” she said. “If the critics don’t like it, let them keep watching boring movies, what else can I say?”
Trade analyst Amod Mehra said the film had the “highest opening ever in the history of Indian cinema so far,” raking in around 440 million rupees (US$7 million) in India when it was released on October 24.
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