Forget all that Fifty Shades of Grey lark, the big noise in the movie world right now belongs to Bollywood, as the final curtain has come down on cult romcom Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge.
In English that means ‘The Brave-Hearted will take the Bride’, in case you were dying to know.
But whatever the lingo, all good things must come to an end, and Thursday proved to be its final screening after an uninterrupted 1,009-week run which started way back in 1995. That’s some going by any standards and has easily surpassed all the Bollywood records.
Starring two of the biggest names in Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol, the film tells the story of two Indian expats, Raj and Simran, who travel around Europe, eventually settling in Britain, and fall in love. This follows the tried and tested ‘young girl being forced to marry against her wishes’ storyline; not exactly original, but it works and is obviously something that many Indians can identify with.
It’s worked so well in fact, that Barack Obama, no less, quoted a line from the movie as part of a speech he made in India recently – how many films can lay claim to that? There’s also the not insubstantial gongs tally, as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge won a total of ten Filmfare Awards. No wonder it’s been such a money-spinner for Maratha Mandir, the Mumbai theatre that has been its home all these years.
Despite this, it has been decided that it’s time to move on. Managing director of Maratha Mandir, Manoj Desai, said: “Earlier we had lots of audiences to watch this film that included people from abroad. Now there is hardly any audience coming in.” It his view, however, that this could be a cloud with a silver lining: “Earlier, because of DDLJ, the other films did not used to get all the screens. Now it will be of benefit for fresh films which can occupy the shows which were earlier occupied by DDLJ.”
So if you were hoping to fly out to Mumbai and take a peak, you’re out of luck. But if you’d like to witness the brave-hearted do his thing and take the bride, there’s always the DVD.
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