2023 Wrap: The Year of Superhits and Blurred Lines

It has been no ordinary year for Hindi cinema. All sorts of holiday and non-holiday records have tumbled. The post-pandemic asterisk no longer exists. There’s the time-machine-like return of the Old Guard: Shah Rukh Khan (Pathaan, Jawan), Sunny Deol (Gadar 2), Karan Johar (Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani) and Salman Khan (Tiger 3) are box-office kings all over again. Akshay Kumar (OMG 2), Vidhu Vinod Chopra (12th Fail) and Rani Mukerji (Mrs. Chatterjee vs Norway) joined the party. There’s also the timely return of the New Guard. Ranveer Singh’s barren run is over with Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. Ditto for Ranbir Kapoor with Tu Jhooti Main Makkaar and Animal. And for Kartik Aaryan (Satyaprem Ki Katha), Vicky Kaushal (Zara Hatke Zara Bachke, Sam Bahadur), Vikrant Massey (12th Fail), Katrina Kaif (Tiger 3), Ayushmann Khurrana (Dream Girl 2), Emraan Hashmi (Tiger 3), even the Fukrey gang. 

To paraphrase an iconic moment in television history, the movie gods did an Oprah and yelled at almost everyone in the Hindi film industry: “You get a hit! And you get a hit! Everybody gets a hit!” (Cue single-screen and multiplex tears). It feels like just yesterday that obituaries were written, toxic fandoms exposed, and gatekeepers trolled for lacking the vision and ambition of their Southern counterparts. While some of the criticism was justified, the demise of an entire culture was exaggerated. It’s worth noting that four of the five highest-grossing Indian movies of the year are big-budget Bollywood potboilers. Which raises the loaded question: Has Hindi cinema suddenly…improved? And, more importantly, what does it mean to “improve” today?

Good Film, Bad Film, Event Film

First, let’s do some world-building. The practice of making year-end lists in December offers more than cheap thrills. It’s a useful way to diagnose a film industry: Patterns, themes, trends, overall direction, audiences, flavours. There are times when 10 spots are simply not enough – debates rage on about exclusions and wild-card picks. Take 2012, the golden period. The contenders: Barfi!, Kahaani, English Vinglish, Gangs of Wasseypur, Talaash, Vicky Donor, Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu, Ship of Theseus, Shanghai, OMG – Oh My God!, Paan Singh Tomar. (I know, right?) Regardless of their box-office fates, it’s hard to argue against any of them in terms of quality – these were objectively solid movies. One was so spoiled for choice that critical acclaim could be placed above commercial heft. Consequently, the biggest grossers of that year – Ek Tha Tiger, Dabbang 2, Jab Tak Hai Jaan, Agneepath, Rowdy Rathore – stood nearly no chance of making it to best-of lists. And rightfully so. It’s like how we all know that the ‘critics’ section of an Indian awards ceremony is often the more legitimate one. They’re the consolatory nod to the art form while the popular categories are a self-congratulatory ode to the business. 

At first glance, 2023 doesn’t hold a candle to the previous decade. Sifting through the titles, it looks like slim pickings. Barely any of the films from the perceivably serious film-makers – like Anubhav Sinha (Bheed), Sudhir Mishra (Afwaah), Vishal Bhardwaj (Khufiya) or Sujoy Ghosh (Jaane Jaan) – would make a 2012-level list. Sure, the Pathaans, Animals and Jawans have set the cash registers ringing. Some of us got a kick out of them, too. But purely on a cinematic scale, do they belong in the same sky as, say, objectively sounder efforts like Avinash Arun’s Three Of Us, Pushan Kripalani’s Goldfish, Parth Saurabh’s Pokhar Ke Dunu Paar or even a mainstream gem like Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail? One’s relationship with blockbusters is subjective – the films themselves are only a part of the movie-going whole. They thrive on the blurred lines between the craft and the experience; between theatre and spectacle. Which is to say, it’s possible to enjoy massy entertainers without really liking them.

When it comes to choosing the cream of the crop, then, most of us are conditioned to tap our inner cinephile and look down on them. That’s the (unsaid) stigma: Box-office success is inversely proportional to creative merit. Entertainment is the lowest common denominator of art, and all that. There are also the obvious caveats: Would Pathaan and Jawan have been half as explosive, if not for the meta-SRK commentary? Would Gadar 2 have triumphed in a more tolerant India? Would Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani have been as disarming if we didn’t know that Karan Johar directed it? Would Animal have exploded with a less controversial director? Would any of these movies have worked in any other year? The easy answer to all of these questions is no. But the counter-question is: Does it need to be yes anymore?

Reorient to be Inclusive

The point is that, in this event-film and crazy-numbers era, perhaps it’s time to reimagine our definition of a “good film”. Subjectivity is, after all, the human aspect of processing art. There’s no reason to isolate a film from the world it exists in. When propaganda movies like The Kerala Story break the box office, it’s certainly not because of their craft. When we judge the socio-political acumen of action thrillers, too, it shouldn’t be limited to our perception of them as flimsy ‘paisa-wasool’ movies. By extension, there’s no reason to isolate the circumstances of Bollywood from the movies that transcend them. The resurgence of the Hindi film industry is a romantic narrative. For better or worse, it’s an underdog story. Nearly all the names mentioned in the first paragraph were struggling to fill theatres during the New Normal. The superstar era, too, felt like it was on the brink of extinction. The failure of Laal Singh Chaddha (2022) last year seemed like the penultimate nail in the coffin. So there is no denying the euphoria of a comeback. 

It’s as if Bollywood itself became a character in the biggest Bollywood hit of the year: A wrinkled, cigar-chomping, beautifully grizzled superstar back from the dead, making a pre-interval entry to save a battered younger version of himself. And this context matters. The cumulation of history matters. Pathaan brought back Khan as well as old-school pride in an age of hyper-nationalism. Karan Johar brought back the rom-com and updated his own legacy with wokeness. Ranbir Kapoor brought back the man-child that appealed to an entire generation (and gender). The bringing back is inextricable from the viewing experience. Reinvention and restoration are an integral part of their success; there’s no point pretending that the only story we see is the one on screen. To draw a sports analogy: The reason Roger Federer’s 2017 Australian Open victory is widely touted as his most significant is because he was injured for most of the previous season. He renovated his backhand and returned to win in his mid-30s – and knowing this added to the thrill of his title run. It’s impossible to tell our subconscious investment in his journey from his actual performance.  

A Superpower Called Nostalgia

It’s not like the standard of commercial Hindi cinema has skyrocketed. The skill-sets, talent and genre landscapes are more or less the same. But nostalgia – a key component of this post-lockdown whiplash – is a factor. Most of us are happy to accept familiarity after three years of boycott hashtags and uncertainty. The average viewer’s relationship with Hindi film has slowly become a reflection of their relationship with society. As a result, traditional tropes are viewed through a new lens. What may have felt repetitive a decade ago is now reassuring. What may have looked stale a few years ago is now a wistful reminder of endurance and antiquity. What may have once seemed customary is now brave and political. A return is camouflaged as a reset – it’s like rekindling an imperfect friendship that we once took for granted. 

That’s not to say it’s all clouds and angels. The ratio is still skewed. Awful films exist, and there are many every month. One viewer’s masala is another’s pepper spray. But if that’s what it takes to re-examine our reading of what qualifies as good cinema, so be it. Maybe we’ve reached a stage where liking a film is synonymous with enjoying it. Maybe entertainment is the cinema of returning, not escaping. And maybe year-enders can reflect the objectivity of storytelling and subjectivity of eyeballs at once.