Watching Old Movies During Lockdown

During Lockdown, I watched several old movies and it was very different from the way movies of current times are. It reminded me of how time is changing, relationships are changing and our society is changing too.

Gardish: In this movie, the relationship between father and son was really interesting. Amrish Puri played the role of “old fashioned” father who was a very strict, authoritative figure in the house and Jackie Shroff as son who was always misunderstood and shown little empathy towards. Watching this movie, it seemed I was watching a movie from some different world. It was very engaging and interesting. Even Mukesh Rishi has done an epic role of a dreaded villain.

Ye Mera Dil To Pagal Hai: https://youtu.be/7AjiKd07N5I

Wo Lamhe (2006): This movie shows the other side of life of movie starts very well, especially the actresses. Kangana Ranaut plays the role of an actress fighting mental health issues. She looks very different in this movie. In fact during her younger days she looked very different and kept changing with time. She has played this role of a disturbed actress very well. Now Shiney Ahuja played the role of a not-so-famous film-maker. I had not watched his movies so far and perhaps this is his first movie that I watched. And he totally impressed me. He has a slightly sad look on his face. And he is able to express various moods of the story very well. Perhaps he has remained an underdog, or perhaps his career was cut short due to the allegation against him and he could not achieve his full potential. Shaad Randhawa has played his role very well. He too is a great talent who underachieved if we look at the potential. The songs of this movie are great. I am surprised why the movie could not do very well on box office. I read that this movie was based on Parveen Babi’s life story.

Chal Chalen Apne Ghar: https://youtu.be/mzEWcwDmUKs

Kya Mujhe Pyar Hai: https://youtu.be/Gg6NMU4ivXM

Bin Tere Kya hai jeena: https://youtu.be/IP1f7yDp4qk

Tu Jo Nahin Hai To Kuch bhi Nahi https://youtu.be/3dSLo0EUK-g

So Jaaun Main: https://youtu.be/NRjaeYRITHc

Taal: Watching ‘Taal’ the second time seemed like going through a wonderful world which has gone now (forever). I remember the time when this movie had released, and it had generated a great craze and it was super hit! It had set a benchmark for the future movies at that time. What a great picturization of a simple story, what a sensitive portrayal of roles, and how each character has done a great justice with one’s roles. What a fantastic story. Aishwarya was at her best and Akshay Khanna and Anil Kapoor are epic. I also remembered now how I used to be a fan of Akshay Khanna during those days. This is also a movie which I think can be watched many times. And its songs are epic songs and evergreen ones.

Nahin Samne https://youtu.be/bNK94h7vUeA 

Bali Umar Ko Salam (1994): I happened to watch this movie now. When it was released in early 1990, I was too young and I did not even hear about this movie or its actors. But now after watching it, this looks like a cult movie or one of the cult movies of its time. I saw its actors Kamal Sadanah and Tisca Chopra for the first time and both have been great in this movie. Both were so talented that I wonder why they did not become superstars! This is a movie where an Angry Young Man meets an Angry Young Woman – both are absolutely hot blooded youth who go around doing what they wanted. In one incident, Kamal saves Tisca but the later accuses him of doing a “staged” fight, accuses him of rape and gets him arrested by the police! In another instance, she drives a truck and flattens the auto-garage where Kamal worked! The whole treatment to the story has been done so differently as compared to the movies from current time. It was indeed like watching a movie from another time and space.

Dastak (1996): Dastak was a psycho thriller film directed by Mahesh Bhatt and written by Vikram Bhatt. It was also the first movie of Miss Universe Sushmita Sen. I guess her voice would have been dubbed, but she did a fine performance in the movie. And she looked so different at that time and I had no memory of her looking like that. This movie had Sharad Kapoor and Mukul Dev, both newcomers at that time, and both are my favorites. Both Sharad and Mukul have done a good performance in the film and it does not look like their initial period film. I read that this movie flopped, perhaps because it was a different kind of movie at that time and it did not have big names in it. But comparison can be made with SRK’s Darr which was also a movie based on story of a psycho man following a girl. It was interesting to watch this movie from an old world since I did not know about this movie till now even though it had my favorite actors in it.