Bollywood is India’s Mumbai-based movie entertainment industry and is known for being the world’s largest filmmaking machine. Yeah, it is the largest film producing industry that this planet has ever seen. It started more than a century ago with the release of a classic black and white silent film “Raja Harischandra” on May 3, 1913. A historian of South Asian Cinema, Nasreen Rehman said, “The term Bollywood is an invention of the late 20th Century after Bombay cinema caught the imagination of the West.” Right now, with an average of 1,000 films produced annually (which is double of Hollywood’s output), Bollywood is undoubtedly the world’s most prolific cinema factory.
While we all agree that the general quality of Bollywood has not been fantastic over the past few years as there are lesser movies made which could be actually called talent show but still, every year, there is some gem of the movies being produced by Bollywood that makes Indian cinema worth a praise like Masaan, Raincoat, and Water etc. The number of ‘good movies’ made is very low as compared to the total production but movies like “A Wednesday” which restore the faith of Indian audience who wants to watch some serious thought provoking movies.
“A Wednesday” is one such movie, released in 2008 but still is one of the best and thought-provoking releases which came out last decade. Bollywood is an industry, where casting a “Khan” or a “Kapoor” is the guarantee of success with some very expensive film sets and beautiful outdoor foreign shoots. But, A Wednesday is not one of them; it neither has a Khan nor a poor script or direction. “A Wednesday” is a low budget movie and didn’t have any fake controversies attached with it for the promotion, but only remarkable hard work of its star cast, producer, director and the writer obviously.
The star cast of the movie includes some extremely good actors like Naseeruddin Shah and Anupam Kher under the direction of Neeraj Pandey. Featuring the mental state of today’s common man who doesn’t feels safe anywhere due to the increasing terrorism in the country. The movie directly questions the injustice on the ordinary man by a group of uneducated, shameless and mislead people who plant bombs and kills lots of innocent people in the name of independence. The movie doesn’t have songs but just an honest effort to awaken the leaders and make them aware of the impact that terrorist attacks lay on them. It clearly depicts that the authorities have failed to provide security to the citizens. The brilliant storyline and awesome acting skills of Naseeruddin Shah raised the level of the movie.
“Aapke ghar mein cockroach aata hai toh aap kya karte hai Rathore Sahab? Aap usko paalte nahi maarte hai,” as quoted from the movie. This dialogue depicts how badly this violence and hatred affects ordinary people. The film doesn’t ask us to seek war or violence but only questions that where these situations is going to lead our country and when will all this stop.
This movie is epic and a milestone in the minds of people who watched it. Big thanks to its makers as Indian viewers may fall for big stars but we do like to watch meaningful cinema as well.
