'Yaadon ki Baaraat' or loosely translated, 'A Parade of Memories', was a Hindi super hit film of the seventies. I must have seen the film at least five times since and hummed or whistled every song hundreds of times.
The last time I saw it was earlier this week with my wife, catching it on YouTube. Both of us had seen this when we were in our early twenties and both were seeing it after quite a long time.We found that our reactions to this viewing were very similar.
We both liked the music, we were quite alright with the action, we were not moved much by the attempted pathos, we actually laughed at the way the only love story in the film progressed, the so-called comedy sequences were terrible and we were quite appalled at the manner the story dragged in the first half. It was something like being in awe of a boyhood hero and wondering why you had respected him earlier when you grew up and met him again.
This movie incidentally has almost all of the tropes associated with Hindi films of that era and had even popularised some. To quickly state a few:
a) brothers being separated after their parents are killed by the baddies - nicely sets the stage for revenge and action in the latter part;
b) the chief baddie disguising his appearance over time by wearing glasses and growing a full beard
c) sliding doors, hidden switches and uniformed sidekicks in the villain's den
d) the villain owning a hotel - sets the scene for at least one song!
e) the villain(s) drinking, smoking and womanising
f) a villain's 'good' sidekick helping the hero
g) the villain trying to escape in an aeroplane while smuggling artifacts
and
h) brothers uniting because of an old song - this was YkB's main contribution to Hindi films and became a trope in itself!
How did such a cliched masala film become a super hit forty years ago? Anybody who had seen even a handful of Hindi films could have predicted the next scene - it was so stereotyped ! The movie really didn't do much for the career of most of its stars either - one hardly heard of Vijay Arora, Anamika and Tariq later. At this later viewing, the only point of interest was identifying a young Neetu Singh and an even younger Aamir Khan.
Was it just the music or the feel-goodness of this film which made it popular? I really don't know. All said and done, despite all these holes we picked now, we did enjoy the movie - probably that was the reason it did well!
The last time I saw it was earlier this week with my wife, catching it on YouTube. Both of us had seen this when we were in our early twenties and both were seeing it after quite a long time.We found that our reactions to this viewing were very similar.
We both liked the music, we were quite alright with the action, we were not moved much by the attempted pathos, we actually laughed at the way the only love story in the film progressed, the so-called comedy sequences were terrible and we were quite appalled at the manner the story dragged in the first half. It was something like being in awe of a boyhood hero and wondering why you had respected him earlier when you grew up and met him again.
This movie incidentally has almost all of the tropes associated with Hindi films of that era and had even popularised some. To quickly state a few:
a) brothers being separated after their parents are killed by the baddies - nicely sets the stage for revenge and action in the latter part;
b) the chief baddie disguising his appearance over time by wearing glasses and growing a full beard
c) sliding doors, hidden switches and uniformed sidekicks in the villain's den
d) the villain owning a hotel - sets the scene for at least one song!
e) the villain(s) drinking, smoking and womanising
f) a villain's 'good' sidekick helping the hero
g) the villain trying to escape in an aeroplane while smuggling artifacts
and
h) brothers uniting because of an old song - this was YkB's main contribution to Hindi films and became a trope in itself!
How did such a cliched masala film become a super hit forty years ago? Anybody who had seen even a handful of Hindi films could have predicted the next scene - it was so stereotyped ! The movie really didn't do much for the career of most of its stars either - one hardly heard of Vijay Arora, Anamika and Tariq later. At this later viewing, the only point of interest was identifying a young Neetu Singh and an even younger Aamir Khan.
Was it just the music or the feel-goodness of this film which made it popular? I really don't know. All said and done, despite all these holes we picked now, we did enjoy the movie - probably that was the reason it did well!
****
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