So Many Savarkars

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the new icon in Bollywood. Randeep Hooda’s Swatantra Veer Savarkar, written by Utkarsh Naithani, is already making news for suggesting that the Hindutva star inspired Bhagat Singh, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Khudiram Bose. Hooda, an old hand at playing real characters, really got into the persona, losing 26 kg for the role. Its tagline, #WhoKilledHisStory suggests a conspiracy of silence around Savarkar. Produced by real estate developer-turned producer Anand Pandit and Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s former associate Sandeep Singh, it’s not the only Savarkar film in the works. Ram Charan has announced he is producing The India House, about Savarkar’s years in London. India House was a student residence that existed between 1905 and 1910 in north London, and under the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, it promoted nationalist views among Britain’s Indian students. Prime Minister Narendra Modi famously got Varma’s ashes back to India from the Switzerland government when he was the chief minister of Gujarat in 2003. The India House will have Varma played by Anupam Kher, with Nikhil Siddhartha who was in the sleeper Kannada hit Karthikeya 2, playing the Hindu Mahasabha President Savarkar. Now comes the announcement that writer-director Yogesh Soman is making a Hindi web series, Veer Savarkar: Secret Files. Savarkar’s role is being played by Saurabh Gokhale. But perhaps the first filmmaker in recent times who paid tribute to Savarkar should not be forgotten. That was Priyadarshan who featured Savarkar’s character in his 1996 film Kaalapani, the local name for the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Played by Annu Kapoor, he was shown in a heroic light, as a protester against the inhuman prison conditions and as an evangelist of tolerance and liberalism inherent in Hinduism. Utkarsh Naithani says “Swatantra Veer Savarkar is yet again telling a story that we have known of, but somehow were conditioned to think that his story is inappropriate for cinema. Else, we would’ve had half-a-dozen movies made on such a dramatic life. When Randeep and I worked on the scenes, we often felt a special sense of responsibility, like we were sharing something precious that had been kept hidden from us.” The next series of pro-Hindutva films to be announced? Watch this space for more movies like Accident or Conspiracy Godhra, based on the 2002 riots in Gujarat and the Nanavati Commission.

Enter More Competition

The free subscription model of JioCinema, deployed effectively during IPL, has raised its market share nearly fourfold, rising from 10.73 per cent to 40.26 per cent, compared to last year’s IPL where it was only 3 per cent, according to data released by Bobble AI, the conversation media platform. But now that IPL 2023 has ended, its subscription-based model, for most of its foreign entertainment, will be monitored closely. One of the first things JioCinema delivered was the social media hit, Succession’s grand finale, through its exclusive arrangement with HBO. JioCinema has also signed a streaming agreement with NBC Universal, which it hopes will make it a giant in the streaming space. Ironically, Succession’s finale was all about who would take a legacy news media company into the new age of information and entertainment: the founder’s children, whom the founder did not consider to be “serious people”, or a professional appointed by the new media company that bought it. Spoiler alert: the one who won the crown —Logan Roy’s son-in-law Tom Wambsgans (played by Matthew Macfadyen) had this to say about the news: he would be happy to give the customer what he wants. “I don’t think it’s my place to offer dietary advice. You know, if they want red meat and boiling tar, then buon appetito.” And his managerial strategy? “Squeeze the costs and juice the revenue. Follow the boss. Digest strategy and implement.” Be a pain sponge and a grinder. That’s music to any owner’s ears.

Scene and Heard

Remember Elizabeth Russell, the English woman in Lagaan (2001) who left India with a broken heart because our hero, Bhuvan, did not reciprocate her affections? Rachel Shelley, who portrayed her, has done well for herself on TV, with recurring roles in Casualty and The L Word. Now, she will be back on Indian screens this month in Clean Slate’s brilliant thriller Kohrra, based in Punjab. Shelley plays the mother of an English boy in the Netflix web series, and is pretty good at it too.

BollywoodcinemaLagaanMatthew MacfadyenRachel ShelleyRandeep Hooda