The Hindi film industry seems to be living in a bubble, a rather large one, but a bubble nevertheless where makers and trade pundits like to blame OTT platforms for the failure of theatrical films. Every few weeks or so, someone from the trade, or a film producer, puts out a statement implying that they expect some kind of cooperation from the audience where they step into a theatre after spending a bomb to watch their mediocre movie that they already know is going to suck.
At least, you have the option of switching it off when it turns into an incomprehensible mess at home as opposed to watching it in a theatre where you would be stuck in a self imposed jail that you paid for. In the last six months, Hindi cinema has been suffering at the theaters. One doesn’t even need to look at the box office numbers and question the state of the movies, you can just watch those films (in part, at home) and you will know why the audience isn’t cheering for the movies at cinemas anymore. There are only a couple of films in the first six months of 2024 that have provided a pleasant viewing experience and the stand-out among them didn’t even release in the cinemas. This was the Netflix release Amar Singh Chamkila.
Amar Singh Chamkila starred Diljit Dosanjh in the titular part and had him playing the role of the slain Punjabi singer. This is the film with which Imtiaz Ali, once a favourite of the millennials with films like Jab We Met and Rockstar till he lost his brownie points with Jab Harry Met Sejal and Love Aaj Kal 2, found his mojo again. But, it was Diljit Dosanjh, who emerged as the actor that people didn’t expect him to be in Chamkila. In the last decade or so, Diljit has appeared in many Hindi and Punjabi films but watching him here was a meditative experience. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Diljit’s performance was perhaps the best Hindi film performance that we have seen in the last few years. One can create marketing campaigns around body transformations and how an actor did their own stunts, but there is no campaign for a performance that leaves your jaw on the floor, where you can’t tell the difference between the actor and the character he played.
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Diljit Dosanjh in Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila.
Amar Singh Chamkila had its share of flaws, but the idea that the lead character in the film wasn’t a goody-two-shoes felt novel, mainly because Hindi cinema has fed us hagiographies where even Mohd Azhruddin has been absolved of match fixing. The execution of that opening number in Amar Singh Chamkila was enough to leave us in awe but what Diljit did with the rest of the film was an experience that’s hard to replicate.
Amar Singh Chamkila doesn’t have the box office numbers to prove that it was a success. It doesn’t have those medals to prove that it was a success and so, perhaps like many other good films that have come before it, this might find itself to be an ‘underrated gem’ a few years later.
Bollywood trade pundits can hate on OTT platforms as much as they want and film producers can chant ‘content is king’ until the end of time, but the quality of Hindi films that have come out in the first six months of 2024 has been laughable. It is perhaps not the OTT model that is killing the film industry, but the films themselves. A rare Amar Singh Chamkila can’t save a sinking ship but it is surely a reminder that good cinema continues to exist in the sea of Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiyas and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan.
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