One of the joys of watching a film in a theatre that has gone missing with the advent of the multiplex is the sight of the audience singing and dancing, whistling and clapping, in the aisles. Particularly on a first day first show. Which, for the generation growing up on state-of-the-art multiplexes, meant a noon to 3pm slot on Friday. The atmosphere used to be charged, a frisson of excitement coursing down the crowd. Fisticuffs erupting between overzealous fans were par for the course. And you would be fortunate if you could make out a dialogue in the cacophony. For some reason, it didn’t matter. There was always a later show for the dialogues and other finery of the film.
Tezaab, Ram Lakhan, Rangeela, Hum, Darr — each of these films has stayed in my memory more for the crowd experience than their intrinsic merits. And when the film failed to excite audiences in this manner, you knew it did not bode well. For example, I still remember the disappointment of Shahenshah (despite the phenomenal advance bookings) that was palpable in the first show, or the lukewarm audience reaction to two back-to-back Anil Kapoor releases, Kishen Kanhaiya and Jeevan Ek Sungharsh (a full house in both, Anil Kapoor in the middle of a purple patch, but there was, as a guy seated next to me in the second row commented, no ‘current’), and thinking, ‘Well, there goes the next aspirant for number 1.’
With Pathaan, the frenzy is back in the multiplex
The advent of multiplexes killed this. I am not sure if this was because the plush seats priced at Rs 500 and more, the scented interiors, the exorbitant popcorn and Coke were too genteel for audiences to display that animal ferocity. Were viewers daunted by the ambience? (In fact, English films seldom had such screaming displays – not even a Jurassic Park, which played to an enthusiastic full house.) The ramshackle theatres that were the playground of my youth were characterised by broken seats, the cushions (if there were any) coming apart at the seams, a musty air about them, the smell of sweat and bidi. Was it that people, including me, felt that they could stand up on those seats and jump up and down because they were so rundown to begin with? Was the multiplex too intimidating, too bourgeois to allow such proletariat displays of affection?
These questions raced through my mind at my first viewing of Pathaan. The Siddharth Anand-directed film released just over a month ago to unprecedented adulation. And it continues on its triumphant march, earning more on its thirtieth day than other new releases that followed. But what floored me was the audience response which harked back to the single screens of my youth. This was the first time I was actually witness to such frenzy in a multiplex. This despite the fact that I was watching it on the third day, and that multiplexes had killed the concept of the first day first show anyway. The only other film that I remember getting a response anything close to this was the 9.20 am show of Spider-Man: No Way Home. That could, however, be because it was among the first theatrical releases after Covid-19 and the universe, desperate for a film, could not have enough of three generations of Spider-Man coming together in the multiverse.
A full house with a crowd that could barely be contained
With Pathaan, however, the frenzy was of a different magnitude altogether. You could not for your life hear a single word above the cacophony, not a single action went without appreciative howls from the crowd, and people just refused to sit down. It was magical – the way films are meant to be seen. And the line outside the multiplex ticket window – though nothing will ever be a patch on what I saw for Shahenshah in 1988 – would have gladdened any film lover’s heart. It was probably the first time I actually witnessed a multiplex booking window being mobbed.
I have watched Pathaan twice after that, including a late-night show in Narendrapur, Kolkata, on the twentieth day. Again, a full house with a crowd that could barely be contained. This time even the background music (a major highlight of the film) was eliciting thunderous applause. All this for a film that does not even have a hit musical soundtrack, a sine qua non for a film’s success (there are all of two songs in it, one of which plays with the end credits and the other everyone and their grandmother have watched in the controversial run-up to the film’s release). In the era of multiplexes, a film managing to stay 20 days in a hall is no mean feat, let alone having a full show. The film’s impact goes beyond the staggering box-office numbers.
The jaw-dropping success of Pathaan probably requires a fuller and more empirical study. Some films (and film stars) probably go beyond reviews and critiques, and the criteria of good or bad, logic or lack thereof. It is nobody’s case that Pathaan is a no-brainer. There have been quite a few posts lamenting how there is no logic to it, that nothing about the narrative makes any sense whatsoever. Well, even a critic as great as Roger Ebert has dissed the tyranny of realism and logic in cinema. Is Die Hard any more logical than Solaris? Does that impact the way I react to the two?
It helps that the film has a certain sheen to it
I have myself been severely critical of ludicrous Hindi films that defy ‘logic’. But I realise that as long as a film is true to its internal logic, is honest about the world it creates, it works. Pathaan delivers on that in spades. The film has a heavy hangover of the Mission: Impossible films, James Bond and even the Marvel Universe, but it is honest about telling you that that is what it is doing. It has no pretensions (Aamir Khan’s Forrest Gump remake Lal Singh Chaddha, in contrast, took itself too seriously and was weighed down with its messaging). Pathaan is in your face about telling you – ‘Here I am, the way I am, take it or leave it.’ That is remarkable candour and chutzpah for a film to possess.
It helps that the film has a certain sheen to it. Though every sequence, every pun, every cut seems calculated to elicit an audience response, there is something organic in the way all of it comes together without feeling contrived. The background score is a smasher, the cinematography (globetrotting all the way across the continent and beyond a la James Bond) is eye-catching, and the dialogues are ceeti-maar (even John Abraham nails it with killer lines comparing the country to an aashiq and a maa).
Pathaan is Shah Rukh’s love letter to his fans
Above all, to offset the lull of one climax too many, there’s Shah Rukh Khan charming your pants off. I loved the star in Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na, Darr and Chak De! India. Rooted for him even in Anjaam (which I took seriously enough to record for my parents on the VCR, cutting out parts I felt were superfluous, so that they watched a different, ‘better’ version of the film that did justice to Shah Rukh’s performance). Never quite took to his many Raj/Rahul iterations, and hated him in Devdas and Asoka. But I have never been as seduced by him as in Pathaan. It was as if he were looking only at me in the audience and daring me: ‘Come, resist me.’ I think he did that to every member of the audience. Pathaan is Shah Rukh’s love letter to his fans who have not only responded with equal ardour, they have also got the non-fan eating out of his hand. For the duration of its outrageous narrative, the audience is putty in his hands. They know it. He knows it. And they are both in it together.
Does Paathan mean anything for right-wing trolls who have made #BanBollywood the default mode in our country? Does its success say anything about the common man trumping the politics of hate and jingoism? What does it imply for the small, meaningful films, and directors who want to tell more intimate stories? Is its success a nail in the coffin for these films? These are questions that will have answers with time. Or maybe not. One swallow does not a summer make. But the heat that Pathaan has generated will light up a hundred winters of discontent.
(Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri is a film and music buff, editor, publisher, film critic and writer)