Bombay Talkies: Four short films in one celebration of Indian cinema

100 years of cinema in India and we should be glad to have hit such a great milestone. In comparison to the rest of the arts, film is the youngest having been invented a little more than a century ago. But the potential that a single film can have to change an entire life and make its mark upon the world is something which cannot be short-lived. Even the advancements that have taken place over the past century in film are amazing. Indian cinema too has witnessed many changes and many legends in its ranks over 100 years which are celebrated in the film Bombay Talkies.

The film is a collection of four vignettes, each created by a different director and a different cast. The first short film, directed by Karan Johar, revolves around the life of an openly homosexual man who has moved out of his father’s house when he is not accepted by his family. He works in a tabloid newspaper where he forms a close bond with his boss and affects the lives of both her and her husband. The second short film, directed by Dibakar Banerjee, follows a single day in the life of a failed actor as he comes to terms with his failed career and the need to revamp his life in his own surrealistic environment. The third short film, directed by Zoya Akhtar, is about a pre-adolescent boy’s passion for dance and need to accomplish his dream as opposed to his father’s plans of bringing him up as a rugged man. The fourth short film, directed by Anurag Kashyap, follows a man from a small town who comes to the city of Mumbai to fulfil his father’s last wish of having shared a piece of pickle with Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan. The end of the film also features a short celebration of the past years of Indian cinema with a montage of past films followed by a title song which brings together many contemporary Bollywood stars.

It becomes difficult to categorise and critique the entire film seeing as it has multiple directors in multiple sections but the overall film does have a consistent theme with constant references to past Bollywood movies and the effect of cinema over daily lives of people in India. Each director has left his or her own touch on their respective film which thus leaves Bombay Talkies to be a film with multiple styles of execution; from long shots depicting anguish in one of the short films to close ups depicting the same emotion in another; from a surrealistic character revelation in one film to a more humanistic angle in another film with a conversation between a father and son. Each film follows its own plot and own execution style.

Unfortunately, the film isn’t really a celebration of cinema in India. It is just a celebration of Bollywood and its impact. The references in the film only mark box office Bollywood hits of the recent past years with no mention of regional or artistic cinema nor does it have a single mention of language films other than Hindi. The song at the end of the film features many contemporary Bollywood actors with references of their most popular box office appearances with no directors, composers or other members of crews being visible. The song does not feature past actors either which just goes to reiterate the fact that cinema in India is synonymous with Bollywood and that in turn Bollywood only cares about the people that rake in the big bucks and those that mass audiences can relate to.

On the whole, the film is quite good as it touches upon decent topics with each of four directors bringing their own originality to the table. But the guise of being a celebration of 100 years of Indian cinema is just a selling point for the film and nothing else.