Gadar & Lagaan : 10 Years On

Wednesday 15th June 2011 13.30 IST

Boxofficeindia.Com Trade Network

Today (June 15th) will be tenth anniversary of the release of Gadar Ek Prem Katha which was a box office phenomena and probably sold more tickets at the theatres in India than any film in history apart from Sholay (1975). This was mainly due to the unparalleled business it gathered from B and C centres across India. The reactions by the public at the theatres where the film was playing had not been seen before and also have not been seen since.

In Mumbai city which forms a big segment of all India business the film grossed around 7 crore nett as compared to the 12 crore nett of the highest grosser of that time Hum Aapke Hain Kaun but this 5 crore shortfall and more was made up from B and C centres where tickets were priced much lower than Mumbai city.

Gadar Ek Prem Katha released on 15th June 2001 left the trade stunned. There had been mega blockbusters just a few years back like Hum Aapke Hain Kaun and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge but these were small releases and prints increased gradually but with Gadar it was a full blown release of 350 prints and never had anybody seen collections remain this high for such a big release.

The first week opened to around all India 7.25 crore nett collections without West Bengal where the film was not released. The film had a massive release but prints had to be added in week two due to demand and with West Bengal seeing a release the collections went up to 8.25 crore nett. The third week was 7.50 crore nett. In its tenth week it was still bringing in around 2.50 crore nett with most of its prints still in play. Never had a film with such a big release held up this strongly.

In its 10th week the film had a billing of 75 lakhs nett in Delhi/UP and this was higher than what most films did in their second week at that time. In fact a hit film which was released alongside, Lagaan had that 75 lakhs nett billing in the third week of its run. At many centres, it still holds lifetime theatre records ten years after release.

Even today, Gadar finds it's way to a theatre a for re-run at some theatre every month. It's a favourite with exhibitors in UP, Bihar, MP and Rajasthan who mainly do re-runs at their theatres. The other major hits released in that period like Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai, Mohabbatein, Lagaan and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham hardly ever get a repeat run probably because they do not have the same repeat value for the masses.

The film sold around 4 crore tickets at theatres in its run while films like Three Idiots and Dabangg are around 2.5 crore. Thats 60% more and these films are also amongst the biggest hits of all time.

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Celebrating Lagaan, 10 years on

Suhasini Mulay stands on a barren piece of land somewhere in Bhuj, Gujarat, and looks up at the scorching sun. She is dressed in a white sari and has squinted her eyes as the sun shines mercilessly upon the arid landscape.

A few feet above her, cinematographer Anil Mehta sits on a giant crane with a movie camera aimed directly at Mulay.

After a few takes, everyone decides that the shot is good enough. From behind a monitor, Ashutosh Gowariker says 'Okay' into a microphone and is greeted by a round of applause.

Among the ones watching this scene unfold are Tahir Husain and Nasir Husain, the usually reticent AR Rahman, Aamir Khan's then wife Reena Datta, his to-be wife Kiran Rao and Khan himself.

Hugs and backslaps follow. Soon after, the guests make their way into the cars waiting for them. The others get back to work.

This is pretty much how it all began -- at around 11 am on January 6, 2000 -- the shooting of what would become one of the greatest films in Indian cinema and undoubtedly the biggest landmark movie of the decade that would follow: Lagaan.

Originally posted by: Gobsmacked

I know Gadar was a ATBB but the movie was so OTT with typical Sunny paji screaming and what not.

Gave me a bad migraine back then.

On June 15, 2001 the movie released amidst much anticipation. Rumours were flying thick and fast that Aamir Khan, the producer and the hero of the movie had finally lost his bearings.

Why else would anyone want to invest his time and money in a movie that had a 90-minute long cricket match as its climax?

Cricket-based movies have traditionally bombed at the box office -- one of them, Awwal Number,even had Aamir Khan in the lead!

At a little over three hours and 45 minutes, Lagaan was a terribly, terribly long film, not to mention that its very premise seemed featherbrained -- a group of villagers in pre-Independence India taking on an English team in a game of cricket in the hope that their lagaan or land tax for the next three years would be waived off.

In the weeks that followed the release of Lagaan, the word spread like a wildfire -- the improbable story of an imaginary Indian village had caught the fancy of the nation.

It would win accolades not just in India but also across the world. At Locarno film festival, 8,500 people would sway to the tunes of Rahman and cheer for Bhuvan and his team even though they understood little of the language and absolutely nothing about the game of cricket.

Lagaan would become the first Indian movie to receive a nationwide release in China and an unprecedented nine-week golden run in Paris.

Special screenings would be held in Russia even as it travelled to film festivals across the world including Sundance, Cairo, Stockholm, Helsinki and Toronto.

Back home, it would sweep every single award worth its salt including seven National Awards and would go on to become only the third Hindi language movie after Mother India and Salaam Bombay to be nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards.

Despite all these accolades and the dizzying success, perhaps the greatest achievement of Lagaan is the fact that it is being talked about even 10 years after it first hit the screens.

Even as Aamir Khan Productions is readying itself for its next release Delhi Belly starring Khan's nephew Imran -- he was all of 17 whenLagaan released -- questions about Lagaan haven't stopped.

Kiran Rao, who has been promoting Delhi Belly, if unwillingly, has had to take questions about the movie in press conferences. An interview request with Rao was denied because 'she was only the fourth AD (assistant director) on the film'.

She did however answer a couple of our questions in an open forum recently telling the media how time has flown and how

Lagaan was a milestone in everyone's life before congratulating Ashutosh Gowariker who directed the film.

Rao went on to marry her boss, Aamir Khan after he divorced his first wife Reena Datta of 16 years.

Recently, she directed the critically acclaimed film Dhobi Ghat that Khan agreed to produce and acted in.

Kiran Rao's wasn't the only one whose life changed after the movie.

Her colleagues -- Apoorva Lakhia and Reema Kagti who were assisting Gowariker also went on to make major Bollywood films.

Lakhia made Shootout at Lokhandwala a film based on a real life encounter in the eponymous Lokhandwala suburb of Mumbai.

Kagti went on to make Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd -- a charming tale about six unlikely couples on their respective honeymoons and is shooting her next, also starring Aamir Khan.

The fourth member of that team, Dr Priyamvada Narayanan went back to being a medical practitioner in the US till she realised where her true calling lay.

So ten years after she decided to try her hand at filmmaking, Priyamvada returned to India and is assisting Kagti on her new film.

Lagaan will probably be remembered best for the cricket match that took up at least half the running time of the movie. And its most enduring image will be that of Aamir Khan and his teammates standing in a single file ready to take on the English team.

Staring at you with conviction, you would imagine that the life of each of these 10 men would have changed drastically after the movie.

After all, how many movies do you come across in Hindi cinema where each character stays with you years after the film's release?

But barring Yashpal Sharma who played Lakha, the woodcutter who rats on Bhuvan whose career pretty much catapulted after the movie, one cannot for a fact say that the movie made a world of a difference to most of the 'character actors'. Even the leading lady of the film, Gracy Singh couldn't really capitalise on the success of the movie.

Suhasini Mulay who played Aamir Khan's mother in the film points out that this happened because the match overshadowed the characters. She doesn't say this in a manner of complaining as much as a matter of fact.

"The climax itself is so powerful that all the build-up is lost," she says.

Lagaan, however, Mulay confesses, didn't get her any work per se.

What changed her life really was the film she'd done before Lagaan -- Gulzaar's Hu Tu Tu where she played a scheming and cold-hearted politician.

"Lagaan didn't change my life," she says over the phone. "By the time I was doing Lagaan I was at crossroads of my life. What got me going was Hu Tu Tu. (In fact) Ashutosh (Gowariker) spotted me while watching the promos ofHu Tu Tu."

Mulay who has completed her English honours and holds a diploma in agricultural technology had taken a break from movies early on in her career. After her first film -- the 1969 classic Bhuvan Shome -- Mulay stayed away from the limelight, focusing rather on making documentary films before a chance conversation with Gulzar led to Hu Tu Tu.

As Derek Elley wrote in his review for Variety, the film 'could be the trigger for Bollywood's long-awaited crossover to non-ethnic markets'.

And indeed it was. Despite being formulaic in its own way, Lagaan had broken a lot of unwritten rules of Bollywood. It thus ended up being the face of the Hindi film industry in the west and its appeal went beyond the non-NRI market attracting crowds and raking in the moolah.

According to Ramachandran, Lagaan also infused a fresh lease of life in the Indian music industry. "Before Lagaan, the music scene had dropped for a bit. Rahman's music changed that," he says.

Interestingly, it was also around the same time that Rahman went international.

While he was working on the background score ofLagaan out of a room in Sahajanand Towers -- the apartment that the production house had booked for its cast and crew in Bhuj -- he was also preparing for his first major outing in the West, Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Bombay Dreams.

According to Satyajit Bhatkal's book The Spirit of Lagaan, it was a race against time as Rahman worked nights (as he usually does) and completed the score before flying out.

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If there were two men who benefited hugely from the success of Lagaan, they were the films producer and director.

Before the filming of Lagaan, Khan was going through a lean patch. He had two flops behind him -- Mann and Mela. Khan's third was 1947: Earth, a movie that hardly got the adulation and welcome Khan is so used to.

Gowariker had even little to write home about.

His first movie was a 'remake' of the classic Body Double and Baazi, neither of which left the desired effect on the box office. Gowariker made his daily bread and butter acting in television serials on the sets of one of which he wrote the script of Lagaan.

Lagaan was a gamble and a very huge one at that.

Much to their relief, it paid off.

Gowariker was catapulted in the big league of directors. He went on to make Swades with Shah Rukh Khan and Jodhaa Akbar with Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

It also put him in a position where he can sit back and not worry about the fact that his last two movies -- Khele Hum Jee Jaan Se and What's your Rashee? -- have failed miserably at the box office.

When we meet him at his office in Mumbai, Gowariker walks in, cool as a cucumber. An iPad in his hand and a confident stride, Gowariker greets us with a warm smile. If the failure of his most recent movies is bothering him, it doesn't show.

We talk about the movie and how it shaped him and his career.

In Madness in the Desert, the documentary about the making of Lagaan directed by Satyajit Bhatkal, Gowariker has spoken about his days before Lagaan happened -- how he made two movies he didn't entirely believe in, giving in to industry demands and how one fine day he decided that he would make a film he'd be proud of.

When we ask him how Lagaan changed his life, he takes a long pause before answering, "It gave me the courage to make films I believe in."

More: https://www.rediff.com/movies/slide-show/slide-show-1-celebrating-lagaan-ten-years-on/20110614.htm

Originally posted by: Gobsmacked

Just realised that its also the anniv of Lagaan which is one of my all time fav movie. I remember the first time I saw the movie in a cinema,the audience were all clapping and cheering Bhuvan towards the end.

You can see how much the audience were emotionally engaged with the movie and the characters.