Pataal Lok, Panchayat and a struggling film industry: 25 Years of Indian Cinema | Bollywood News
Three months into 2020, the pandemic struck, and theatres were closed down, not just in India, but world-wide. Funny how something as catastrophic– millions dead of an unknown virus, humans in lockdown, emerging, post-vaccine back to some kind of normalcy– already feels like history. What it did, apart from the lingering medical problems and virus mutations that doctors are still unpacking, is to cause profound changes in our viewing habits. Before that fateful day in March 2020, oblivious to the terrible days that were coming, Hindi cinema’s first quarter did not exactly cover itself in glory. ALSO READ: Between Delhi Crime and The Family Man, OTT comes of age; cinema has a new competitor: 25 Years of Indian Cinema The year began with Om Raut’s Tanhaji, another of the films which had Bollywood glorifying our past, and vilifying Mughal invaders. Ajay Devgn plays the valiant Maratha leader who saves his people from the evil emperor Aurangzeb’s man on the ground, played by Saif Ali Khan, chewing the scenery as a slit-eyed villain, as well as, …
