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Sujoy Ghosh: Ten BEST Kahaanis
One of the biggest successes of last year was Sujoy Ghosh's Kahaani, a fantastically crafted thriller which told the story of a heroine (played by Vidya Balan) navigating through the murkiest, most shadowy bits of Kolkata -- a city that refused to pronounce her name right.
Ghosh, who got his story spot on, tells Raja Sen about the 10 Hindi film plots he absolutely loves.
Continuing our series celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema.
Khamosh
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Amol Palekar, Shabana Azmi, Pankaj Kapoor
Khamosh is my favourite, favourite, favourite, favourite, favourite, favourite thriller.
My basic yardstick for how much I like a movie is how engrossed I am in the film.
The film kept me engrossed and kept me thinking. And I thought Khamosh being (set) within a film set was a unique way of presenting a detective story. And the tricks being employed to evade the police, in order to get away from the cops, to confuse them. That was pretty cool.
One of my life's ambitions became to get a dog to chase me so I could run an '8' around trees and confuse it.
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Achanak
Director: Gulzar
Cast: Vinod Khanna, Lily Chakravarty, Farida Jalal, Asrani
I thought that was a pretty clever movie. A nice thriller with emotion attached to it. That's what you don't get in thrillers. It was nice and emotional.
Somewhere, the character was sad about killing his wife. There was something very sentimental. And it was a very engrossing film. It taught me something new.
The best thing about Achanak was it was a small movie, length-wise. A mean, packaged film.
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Jewel Thief
Director: Vijay Anand
Cast: Dev Anand, Vyjayanthimala, Ashok Kumar, Tanuja
Jewel Thief is the father of us all. That is the baap for movies like Kahaani.
When we write, that is the reference, that one day we will be Jewel Thief.
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Ittefaq
Director: Yash Chopra
Cast: Rajesh Khanna, Nanda
One very short film that I really like is Yash Chopra's Ittefaq. I hadn't seen anything like that, and it was very unlike a Hindi film.
Set in one night. It was very good.
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Trishul
Director: Yash Chopra
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Shashi Kapoor, Sanjeev Kumar, Hema Malini, Raakhee
It was one of those rare movies when we saw a son and a father, but in a different relationship, a totally different space.
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Aakhri Raasta
Director: K Bhagyaraj
Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Sridevi, Jayaprada
It was a uniquely plotted revenge drama. It was very interesting.
We didn't see it coming.
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Ghungroo Ki Aawaz
Directors: Shyam and Tulsi Ramsay
Cast: Vijay Anand, Rekha
This is a twist in the end kind of a tale.
Written by Vijay Anand and directed by the Ramsay Brothers, it was a very good story. Very much in the space of something like The Others or The Sixth Sense.
Nothing is what it seems.
It's a ghost film -- but not a ghost film. It's about a man who hears a ghost walking every night. And it has outstanding music by R D Burman. Very interesting.
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Johnny Gaddaar
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Cast: Neil Nitin Mukesh, Dharmendra, Vinay Pathak, Rimi Sen
Oh, Johnny Gaddaar. Of course Johnny Gaddaar!
I like Johnny Gaddaar even more than Ek Hasina Thi. I liked liked liked it.
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CID
Director: Raj Khosla
Cast: Dev Anand, Waheeda Rehman, Shakila
CID, by Raj Khosla is so, so, good.
Vijay Anand and he were way ahead of their times.
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Shubho Mahurat
Director: Rituparno Ghosh
Cast: Raakhee, Sharmila Tagore
I'd like to mention a Bengali film here.
Shubho Mahurat, directed by Rituparno Ghosh.
It's very good. Better than most of his dramas.