What Hanuman Ansh gets right: Faith, simplicity and its appeal to an entire generation Bollywood forgot
Here's the latest update from the Bollywood world:
The last time my parents sat inside a theatre was in 2012, when Barfi rolled out. I had booked their tickets online, leaving them with no option but to go. This time, no such force was required to get them to the theatre. In fact, my cinema-averse father willingly walked in and even dragged the whole family along with him to watch Hanuman Ansh .
Adding to this, Shobhinaw Satyaa played Neem Karoli Baba in Hanuman Ansh. How a crumbling, sole theatre in two-tier city came alive Unexpectedly, the only surviving theatre in this two-tier city in Rajasthan was packed on a Thursday afternoon. It felt less like a regular movie screening and more like a festival fair.
Meanwhile, The women of the city, mostly dressed in colourful poshaks and sarees, were making reels as if they had skipped their kitty parties and arrived at the theatre instead. The older members of the audience were being helped up the stairs by their adult children. Families from nearby villages, who would usually spend their afternoons at home, had also travelled to this crumbling theatre to watch this movie.
Notably, The children who have moved to bigger cities and happened to be back in town found the screening to be the perfect excuse for a family outing — one that their parents and grandparents could enjoy together.
As per the latest buzz, From our local milkman to the families of local police officials, everyone seemed to be at the theatre. And the irony was that Hanuman Ansh did not even have a poster on the theatre's main billboard. Perhaps the makers thought the soon-to-release Mirzapur would draw more crowds than a relatively unknown movie about a spiritual guru. They couldn't have been more wrong.
In further updates, Hanuman Ansh's popularity has increased manifold over the last two weeks, and that Thursday afternoon at the theatre made it clear why. The movie is a mass entertainer in the truest sense. It is sincerely made, has good music and follows a simple storyline. Most importantly, the makers have not tried to make it something it isn't.
On top of that, The movie follows the life of Neem Karoli Baba in its purest form, without unnecessary gimmicks or attempts to manufacture spectacle. It narrates the spiritual leader's miracles. Whether one believes these miracles actually happened or not isn't really the point. These are stories that generations of people have grown up hearing and believing. Hanuman Ansh gives those stories a cinematic validation of sorts by presenting them in exactly the way its audience wants to see them.
By telling a simple story in pure Hindi and relying on authentic performances, the director Vishal Chaturvedi have appealed to a generation that grew up in a much simpler time, when BR Chopra's Ramayan first aired on Doordarshan. This is a generation that is now in its 60s and 70s — the same people who, as children, would run to the one house in their neighbourhood that had a television to watch Ramayan. Today, many of them are being helped up theatre stairs by their own children and grandchildren to watch Hanuman Ansh.
Source: Hindustan Times