Similarities of Story Line in Films

Yet another film has been released today on the subject of a new lover helping his girl to unite with her original lover.  There are striking similarities in the main plot of today’s  ‘Tanu weds Manu’ and Ranbir-Katrina’s  ‘Ajab Prem ki Gajab Kahani’, Shahid-Kareena’s ‘Jab We Met’ and Ajay-Kajol’s  ‘Pyar to Hona hi Tha’ (which also did not have original plot and was influenced by Hollywood’s ‘French Kiss’).  While we don’t know about the fate of today’s film, all the earlier three had been super hits.

I don’t know why our film makers can’t think of original plots.  For decades, Hindi films have been following hit formulas and get their main story line either from foreign films or from the hit Indian films.  Except for a very few bold directors,  the film makers do not dare to attempt anything new.  They don’t lack in film making abilities or techniques.  Technically, our films can compare with the best films from Hollywood.  They just lack in originality.  It is perhaps because the main aim of our majority of film makers is not to make their statements about life, but to earn money by making films on the well tested plots.     

In contrast, producers and directors of the bygone era,  V.Shanta Ram, Mehboob, Vimal Roy, Guru Dutt, Raj Kapoor, B.R. Chopra, Hrishikesh Mukerjee, Basu Chatterjee and many others, went for the original story line and some of their films were based on great literary works.  Their main aim was to produce excellent, socially relevant pictures and they were passionately devoted to the medium of film to make their statement about life.  Money-making was only the by-product.

How I wish that golden period to come back again!