Mumbai: Hansal Mehta hasn’t had the easiest journey in Bollywood. In fact, it was in television, with chef Sanjeev Kapoor’s Khaana Khazaana, that he had his “biggest blockbuster”. Well, at least until he made films like Shahid and CityLights, which have won him reputation as a sensitive, gifted filmmaker. Hansal says that he was attracted to “big ideas”, not big Rs 100-crore earning films, adding: “It is just a number for me. CityLights is a film that is much bigger for me. Many Rs 100 crore films don’t have any idea. And if a big idea costs Rs 100 crore, then why not? I have seen bits of Ranbir Kapoor in Bombay Velvet — I think it’s a Rs 100 crore film with a great idea.”
While making CityLights, Hansal was glad to have the backing of Vishesh Films, and he doesn’t agree with the contention that it isn’t the kind of film the production house has been attached to of late. “The truth is that it is the legacy of films that (Mahesh) Bhatt saab has directed in the past that made him a brand. Then there is the Mahesh Bhatt who threw all that aside and said I am going to sell erotica and make money, unapologetically. He cannot run his house with movies like Zakhm. He got a National Award for it but no one saw it in the theatres. Who will risk their home for art?”
Encouragement also came from another member of the Bhatt family — Alia, who broke down after she saw CityLights at a special screening. “I only met her (Alia) recently. I didn’t have the guts to see Student of the Year. It made money, yes, and a certain audience embraced it but I didn’t go. And then I saw Highway. I knew it would be something special if Imtiaz is making the film. Her performance blew my mind,” says Hansal.
With CityLights having won rave reviews and a National Award already under his belt for Shahid, we ask Hansal if life has changed. The filmmaker says that he just wants to continue making films that aren’t run of the mill. The National Award too, he says, is a kind of “golden leash” — “people tend to think that he makes only these kind of films,” he says.
