Cinema is an entertainment, people go there to escape from their day-to-day skirmishes for sometime. Movies Depicts stories and these stories can be of larger-than-life visualization or which shows the harsh realities and struggles. These types of cinema have their own importance, as the first category starts some trends and the public admire the characters displayed in the movie. The second type throws a light into the problems of the society that are sometimes overlooked, and may also enable people to change their perspectives about some issues.The one in the midst of the two which is called the feel good cinemas, that displays a very soothing story and most of the people relate to it.No one can say in particular that which of these types of cinema is most liked by the people, because everyone has their own taste, and also changes with time.
In the earlier years of Bollywood most of the movies were depicting the problems of common people like poverty, unemployment , lack of facilities and much more. Then in the early 70s most of the cinema being made were nail bitting thrillers with many action scenes and the romantic scenes being shot in beautiful places like Kashmir or Switzerland. At the time where heroism was the gig to make a movie hit, where the stories didn’t matter much but yes the climax should be intriguing, making movies which were simple yet thoughtful would have been a risk. parallel movies which used to depict the day-to-day issues of middle-class people that is more prone to reality. In Bollywood mainly three directors significantly contributed towards this category of movies mainly by Basu Chatterjee, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Bhattacharya.
Recent demise of Basu Chatterjee might have given an opportunity to browse YouTube to each of these types of movies. Basu Chatterjee's movies were always shot in the real locations, he seldom used sets. This depicts the thought process of the director to show the essence of the era, like in “chotti is baat” one can see the views of marine drive, the NMMT buses, the crowded road just ahead the CST station etc which makes us think the drastic changes the city has undergone all these years. In mainstream movies the heroines just were present in the movies as mere love interest of the hero and did not have any influence on the plot line, But if one observes Basu Chatterjee movies women had individuality which was significant in the movie, like Rajnigandha which is actually the story of a woman who goes to a new city in search of a job and the different emotions she develops being there.
The movie“dillagi” where the Sanskrit teacher Swarnkamal falls in love with the chemistry teacher Phoolrenu just because he thought she looked like Shakuntala, a fictional character in the book Shakuntalam written by Mahakavi kalidas, tells us that how passionate he was for his subject.She on other hand dislikes the idea of Sanskrit being taught as she thinks what is the use of learning a language which is not used in the present generation. The movie is about the beautiful journey where the chemistry teacher realizes that how incredible the sankrit language is and also the teacher too. There are many more movies which will make the viewers relate to the story, also he never fails depict the charm of that era.
The reason Basu Chatterjee was admired, his movies were simple, with small stories having a thread of connection between them which were beautifully portrayed. Nowadays cinemas are more sophisticated, maybe because people s lives have become sophisticated with introduction of technology. Never can we bring back the time where people had a life far less complex as that of now, nor can we bring back the director who used to replicate the simplicity on the movie screens.
