National Award winning director, Madhur Bhandarkar, is going through a rough patch and with the way his latest film, INDU SARKAR, has fared at the turnstile, it appears that the tough phase is going to continue, and that he will have to wait for a while to get that elusive hit.
One did expect INDU SARKAR to turnaround the fortunes of Bhandarkar. Reasons being aplenty!
It had been in the news regularly for over a month or so before release due to some controversies and hassle with CBFC.
The fact that it is a film based during the tumultuous and dark Emergency times which has been a sort of enigma for the new generation, made it even more exciting. Moreover it is a realistic, hard-hitting film, the kind one associates with Madhur Bhandarkar. And featuring experienced and talented actors like Anupam Kher, Kirti Kulhari, Neil Nitin Mukesh etc, things looked promising.
However, just being in the news and into controversies does not really translate into box-office returns, as witnessed by Amrit Nahata’s KISSA KURSEE KA, based on Emergency decades ago.
The highly talked about controversial film was in the news for a long time, grabbing headlines as its negative were reportedly burnt by the then government. It was re-shot and released post emergency, but to the surprise of all, the film flopped miserably at the box-office.
Well, it appears that not only did Madhur’s INDU SARKAR carry the same theme of Emergency as KISSA KURSEE KA, but it also emulated the fate of the film, and the adage that a film has to have intrinsic merits (not just controversy) to succeed, has been proved yet again and a stand out example of that is LIPSTICK UNDER MY BURKHA.
