Bullets Over Bombay
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In 1998, Satya opened to widespread critical acclaim. At a time when Bollywood was still rediscovering romance, Ram Gopal Varma's film dared to imagine the ordinary life of a Mumbai gangster. It kicked off a new wave of Hindi gangster films that depicted a vital, gritty side of Mumbai, rarely shown in mainstream cinema until then. More than two decades later, it has become an iconic film. When it was released, the regular moviegoer would have been hard-pressed to recognise more than a couple of names in the film's credits. Today, it reads like an honour roll - Anurag Kashyap, Manoj Bajpayee, Vishal Bhardwaj, Saurabh Shukla. Speaking to the people who made Satya a landmark film, Uday Bhatia tells the incredible story of how it all came together, how it drew from the gangster and street film traditions, and why it went on to become a modern classic.
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This was more of a 3.5 I think.
I don't think I remember much about the movie Satya except the two most popular songs and how much I loved the acting of Manoj Bajpai and Shefali Shah. I was only a 10 year old and I probably shouldn't have been watching a gangster film but I was a fan of RGV's movies and me and my family were excited to watch it. I don't know what I felt then but I'm hindsight, it's easy to see the kind of impact this movie had on Hindi cinema, not only in terms of the gangster movie genre but also the amount of talent that came out of it, who remain influential and honored to this day... except maybe the maker RGV himself.
So when I saw this audiobook suddenly while browsing, I knew I had to read it. Books about Hindi cinema always fascinate but I'm never sure where to look for and who are the authors writing them. So a chance encounter felt like providence and I started listening immediately. I liked how this book wasn't much about the gossipy side of filmmaking and concentrated more on the technical aspects, how difficult it was to make a film like this in those times and all the lengths that the technicians went to, to make it possible. It's a story of grit and resilience but also silliness and conviction and you can totally see all that reflected in the movie. There was parts of the book which weren't as engaging as I wanted them to be, but listening to it was an easy experience and I liked the narration by Faraz Khan.
If you are a casual fan, I don't know if this book will work for you. But if you like knowing a bit about the filmmaking process behind one of Hindi cinema's defining movie from the 90s, you should check this out.
