Learn to jump the bar
Raise the bar and someone will jump higher than that bar, but the point is to raise the bar and hope that someone jumps that. It would be sad if no one could do that. What would be then the point of raising the bar if no one took the challenge? I am sure that no one could be happier than Sunil Gavaskar at the genius that Sachin
Tendulkar is and that he beat his record for the most test hundreds. Both so important in this case, the genius of Gavaskar to raise the bar and the genius of Tendulkar to jump over that bar.
I have been thinking since I read a news article that Robot had raised the bar of sci-fi, computer graphics and action in Indian films of the films that have raised the bar for me in various genres and I thought it might be interesting to put it down here. I might leave some out and include others that you might not agree with in this list but then this is my list and I get to choose!
Sholay! Sholay and Sholay! Enough said about that and a bar of bars and no point in even talking about that film. I don’t think I can say anything here about that film that has not been said before but Deewar? Now that is a film that raised a bar. It gave us perhaps the most angry hero ever. I am sure there have been angry hero films before that but I doubt think any such like that and Amitabh Bachchan remained the angry hero for a long time after that.
Teesri Manzil and Jewel Thief raised the bar for the musical thrillers in our country but one film that I feel jumped that bar was Subhash Ghai’s Karz. Some might call the film a drama but to my mind it is a great thriller and a great revenge story. It remains the most memorable re-incarnation film to date though there have been many after that and quite a few of them as successful like Karan Arjun.
Autobiographical and relationship based would be Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth and I think that bar still remains to be jumped over. Raw, felt and lived. Can’t get better than that when you talk about films based on extra-marital relationships. However, the entertainer in true bollywood style to raise the bar really high was Manmohan Desai’s Amar Akbar Anthony. An epitome of what we call Bollywood masala. Truly emotional, completely implausible and yet truly magical. In my opinion even Manmohan Desai could never out do that though he had a series of successful films.
At the risk of sounding a tad pompous I cant leave out my own film Raaz that raised the bar of horror films in India and though I feel 1920 came close to it, Raaz still remains Raaz.
Dhoom and Krish raised the bar for action films in our country and Sanjay Leela Bhansali has raised the bar of telling the most lyrical stories with stunning visuals.
Every time you see a brilliant piece of work my first reaction is to get disheartened and think to myself that I would never be able to jump this one but it is there as a finishing line calling you. After all there can’t be a race without a finishing line.
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