Bollywood in 2007

In recent years, Bollywood has produced some excellent movies which has given the viewers ample scope to ponder over the subject addressed in the movie.Drifting away from the usual Masala-type films, the directors are showing the courage to experiment in different ways, and the emergence of a bunch of good actors is helping them to achieve their goals.

I am not at all a film expert, but I like to watch movies. So in this post, I have decided to list some of my favorite movies released in 2007.

• Tare Zameen Par, released towards the very end of last year(Dec 21) will top the list. Being Aamir Khan's directorial debut, this film is unique in many aspects. The topic is new here, the treatment and presentation is excellent and above all,the performance of young Darsheel Safari as a dyslexic child Ishaan Awasthi is superb. Tisca Chopra, in the role of the child's mother and Sachet Engineer in the role of Ishaan's brother are worth-watching. Regarding Aamir, there is nothing much to say. Being the most versatile actor of the present generation, he excels himself both in acting (yet again) and direction. Some of the scenes of the movie bring tears to the eyes. The song Maa, penned by Prasoon Joshi and sung by Shankar Mahadevan, is one of the finest songs of the year.

• Shahrukh Khan's Chak De India takes the second position in my list. Directed by Shimit Ameen, this film brings out the best of SRK as an actor. He gives his best performance after Swades as the coach of the national women's hockey team of India. “Mujhe na to states ke naam sunai de te hai, na dikhai de te hai, mujhe srif apne mulk ka naam dikhai de te hai “ is one of the various dialogs which takes the film to a separate level. Each of the 15 girls of the team performed brilliantly, and it was difficult to believe that this was the first film for all of them.

• Mani Ratnam has been one of the very few acclaimed directors of the country at present, and his film Guru takes the third spot in my list. A brilliant performance by Abhishek Bachchan, and able support from Aiswarya Rai, Mithun Chakraborty and Vidya Balan makes the film a very special one. Loosely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani, Abhishek portrays his character superbly starting from the youth till the old age. He succeeded in bringing out the various shades of his character effortlessly and undoubtedly, this is his best performance of the year.

• I am an ardent fan of Amitabh since childhood, and the way he came back in the 2000's can be compared only with any fairy tale. The film Cheeni Kum, featuring Mr Bachchan and Tabu gave me an immense pleasure to watch. An unconventional love story between two people aged 64 and 32 respectively, this film depicts one of the finest performances of Mr Bachchan and Tabu. Zohra Sehgal as Bachhan's mother and the cute little Swini Khere simply excels themselves. Paresh Rawal is superb as usual in his small role.

• The film Dus Kahaniyan, directed by six directors, and consisting of ten short films, is already unique in its structure. Some of the stories were simply superb, and the top three stories according to me were Puranmashi, Zahir and Strangers in the night, directed respectively by Meghna Gulzar and Sanjay Gupta (the last two). They brought out the best performances from actors like Manoj Bajpai, Neha Dhupia, Minnisha Lamba, Amrita Singh, Dia Mirza and Mahesh Manjrekar. This type of anthology films is certainly a bit of fresh air in recent Bollywood industry.

Without going into the details, other films which I liked were Life in a Metro, Bhool Bhulaiya, Jab We Met, Blue Umbrella and Shootout at Lokhandwala, where each of them is different from the other.

I hope to see the same trend in 2008 also, the making of films which will not only entertain the viewers, but will also leave an impact on them.