Anmol Ahuja
4. Rangeela
Apart from everything else that works in its favour, a major selling point of ‘Rangeela’ was its music, with each and every track memorable even today. Incidentally, this was A.R. Rehman’s debut Hindi score, and, what a show it is ladies and gentlemen! Urmila Matondkar and Jackie Shroff are great, but this film belongs to Aamir Khan, ranking among the best ones of his career. Unfortunately though, while everything else works, the story is the weakest link here, usually relying heavily on tried and tested tropes.
However, fret not, for this movie has enough colour (quite literally) and investing performances to keep you interested for its 140 minute runtime. While a bit of tighter editing would have certainly helped, this is among Ram Gopal Varma’s finer films back when he gave out potential cult classics by the number.
3. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jaaenge
There are no second opinions about it, 1995 was the year of DDLJ, and pretty much every film released after it in the decade has had to directly or indirectly face the ginormous impact this movie had over the history of Indian cinema. To think about it, apart from the regular-girl-meets boy and falling-in-love routine, this film had extremely popular music for its time, the Yash Raj tag, something for the Indian diaspora and NRIs, exotic foreign locales, passable locales closer home, oodles of melodrama, comedy and dialogues that would later become part of the common tongue.
It was no surprise the film emerged a hit, but even the Chopras wouldn’t have imagined then what a mammoth blockbuster DDLJ would go on to become, leave alone playing at a theatre to packed houses even 2 decades hence! I am not going to argue to the actual merit of the film, believing that to be an exercise in futility. What I am completely in awe of is the way we Indians consider our films as a religion of sorts, after cricket ofcourse. I have seen people able to recite the film to the last word, enact or parody a number of this film’s scenes, hum and dance to the songs of the film, still, and even people having flown to Mumbai to catch it at the Maratha Mandir as a bucket list point! This is the power populist cinema wields over the general public, and I couldn’t argue to that, even if I wanted to.
2. Naseem
Saeed Akhtar Mirza has been on more occasions than one, the torchbearer of the parallel cinema movement in Bollywood. With classics like ‘Albert Pinto ko Gussa Kyoon Aata hai’, ‘Mohan Joshi Haazir Ho!’ and ‘Salim Langde pe Mat Ro’, I expected nothing less than a really, really well made film and I wasn’t disappointed at all. Films like ‘Naseem’ are products of mavericks, men who know and are in complete control of their craft. Steering clear of all the tropes that are better absent from movies but somehow ended up being hallmarks of an entire decade in cinema, ‘Naseem’ literally translates to morning breeze, and serves a purpose completely synonymous with its name, along with the only other film on this list ranked higher.
‘Naseem’ was much needed, both in accordance with the theme it deals with, and the quality of film it finally turned out to be. The story is a sensitive account of 15-year-old Naseem and her grandfather, in the days leading up to the infamous Babri Masjid demolition in Ayodhya. While the grandfather (played effectively by Kulbhushan Kharbanda) reminisces of his days in Agra, pre-communal feudalism, Naseem finds it hard to accept all that goes around her in the name of religion. I will leave the rest of the themes in this movie for you to explore, lest I spoil a good thing with unrequited excitement.
1. Bombay
The second film in Mani Ratnam’s “Terror” trilogy, ‘Bombay’ is not only the best film of the year, it is clearly among the best films of the decade. Although primarily made in Tamil and dubbed in various languages, ‘Bombay’ achieved outstanding success for a film dubbed in Hindi for its time. The film deals with a couple united despite religious differences, settling in for the city life when communal and religious upheavals disrupt their lives.
The second film in the list showing the impact that the Babri Masjid demolition and the chain of events following it had on the country while it was torn among communal lines resulting in violent clashes, riots and deaths in the thousands, ‘Bombay’ is riveting, stark, emotional too in parts, but well narrated always. One of the better things it does is not take sides, subtly driving home the message that no matter who the perpetrator, it is the innocent that pay the price for it. Apart from the harder, more concrete facets of this incredibly well made film, need I remind you of the absolutely amazing work A.R. Rehman did on the Hindi album?
Read More: Bollywood Movies 1996
