Bollywood has forgotten its roots: Aamir Khan on why South Indian movies are doing better pan India

As South Indian films figure in the first five of the top 10 Indian movies in domestic net collections, Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan has provided a fine insight into why Bollywood is seen as a laggard: It has forgotten its roots. Khan pointed out that in South cinema, directors tap into strong emotions in their stories.

Aamir Khan was speaking at the press conference of PVR-INOX's “Aamir Khan: Cinema Ka Jadugar” – a special film festival commemorating his contribution to Indian cinema.

Veteran lyricist-screenwriter Javed Akhtar, who moderated the session with Aamir, asked the actor why South films are working in theatres while Hindi films are struggling.

“One of the reasons also is that writers or directors in Hindi perhaps have been trying to entertain an audience which is slightly finer. They've forgotten their roots. There are finer emotions, then there are baser emotions,” Aamir said.

“Revenge is a strong emotion. But doubt is a light emotion, it's a less attractive emotion,” the actor, who also owns production banner Aamir Khan Productions, said explaining that anger, love, and revenge were among the strongest emotions viewers look for in cinema.

“We (Bollywood) are choosing to talk about different aspects of life. We're not sticking to the broader strokes,” he added.

‘Bollywood caters to multiplex-going audiences’

Aamir Khan shared that he believes that the South is giving more space to massy films through single screens, whereas Hindi filmmakers are catering to multiplex-going audiences, which represent a smaller section of viewers.

“When multiplexes came, there was a talk in the film industry that the audience is changing and its (multiplex) audience is different. It (The conversation) had started growing very strongly. And then there was a certain genre of films that were being made which were called multiplex films,” he said.

“The South films are what we typically used to call single-screen films, mass, very hard hitting, very broad strokes. I think maybe the Hindi filmmakers tried to go more towards multiplex films,” he added.

(With agency inputs)