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London Calling: Why Bollywood dotes on the British capital

Camden Town in central London, as I discovered on a recent visit, is a readymade location for Bollywood. Believe me, walls coated with far-out graffiti, horse stables, antique bridges, a bustling market and a variety of retro and modern architecture - it could be a veritable studio for filming everything from romantic ballads, combats, car chases and tension-packed finales.
As far as I know, Camden's vivacity has been glimpsed only in the utterly forgettable Mujhse Dosti Karoge! (2002), with Hrithik Roshan frolicking around, vending Union Jack hats and other city souvenirs.
I'm not trying to serve as a location hunter for B-towners. I was just surprised Camden hasn't been justly exploited for its diverse delights by filmmakers who zoom off to the Queen's city to add a wildly colourful ambience to plots - because the screenplays require visual enhancement to narrate the often hackneyed plots about the adventures of Indians who find themselves abroad for the flimsiest of reasons.
While I was there last month in May, producer-director Vipul Shah was in the throes of shooting Namastey England, with Arjun Kapoor and Parineeti Chopra. Shah had belted out the romedy hit Namastey London (2007) with Akshay Kumar and Katrina Kaif over a decade ago. In between, Shah's messy rock musical London Dreams (2009), with Ajay Devgn and Salman Khan, had tanked like the Titanic though.
Through the month of May, Shah's Namastey England unit was filming on the 33rd floor with a view of the Reed Smith office on Primrose Street. I skipped that. Partly because such highrise vistas are common enough and partly because Arjun Kapoor on WhatsApp was quite tetchy, pleading, "Let's meet in the evening, please." Maybe he suspects I'll end up tracking his histrionic skills at the ongoing shoot.
Be that as it may, Bollywood film units have been travelling to London only occasionally nowadays. The sterling pound conversion rate makes the shoots prohibitively expensive. Moreover, London locations have been seen often on screen that there is a déjà vu about them. Inexplicably, the multi-ethnic Camden and the sylvan splendour of Wycamore, Buckinghamshire and Richmond still haven't effectively caught the eye of Bollywood's roving camera. A pity.
Who has been the leading London trendspotter, then? The answer's easy: Yash Chopra who jetted in between Switzerland and London right from Lamhe (1991) to his swan song Jab Tak Hai Jaan (2012). Glossy photography and the nature-kissed locations gave an extraordinary edge to his romantic rhapsodies.
With the cult movie Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Yash Chopra's son Aditya lingered around Trafalgar and Leicester squares with the wide-eyed glee of a newbie visitor to the UK. For his second film, Mohabbatein (2000), Chopra Jr converted a country house into a gurukul of sorts. The environs of Oxford and Cambridge universities were used too; however, the upbeat visuals couldn't redeem the film's contrived storytelling.
Then, there's, of course, Karan Johar who considers the British capital his muse. Whenever he has to write a script, he locks himself up in an apartment till the first draft's done in the city of many moods. And he's no stranger to the prime upscale zones, dotted with designer malls, night clubs and stately manors. If India's national anthem was played with fervour on a British school's campus in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), the high points of Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016) were set in plush restaurants, flower-stacked bylanes, and neon-splashed lounges.
The "Chalo London" move is age-old actually. Quite distinctively, Raj Kapoor's Sangam (1964) globe-trotted through foreign locations - Paris was the pièce de résistance of this classic though - which wowed audiences. Director Brij (in Night in London, 1967) and even the usually home-bound Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Pyar Ka Sapna, 1969) ventured towards UK. Apart from the locations, both movies - which incidentally repeated the lead pair Biswajeet-Mala Sinha - are barely worth a recall.
Over the decades, scores of Mumbai's mavens have zoomed off to London, but have often achieved disastrous results, especially the third-parter of the Housefull franchise, directed by Sajid-Farhad. The 'foreign locations', as they are called in film argot, were blandly lit and framed. Vikram Bhatt has employed baroque English castles for his scare flicks like 1920 (2008). But if you ask me, Bhatt could have saved himself and us from jet-lag: the backdrops could've been shot in a Mumbai studio.
Incidentally, permission was denied to Bollywood filmmakers to shoot at Madame Tussaud's wax museum - right till Shah Rukh Khan cracked the ban. His dual role thriller Fan (2016) was finally given the go-ahead to film among the fragile statues of world celebrities. Yet, the visuals weren't exactly eye-popping, were they? Khan, who is believed to maintain a home in London, has shot in the city perhaps more than any other actor has: for films of the Chopras, Karan Johar and for Ra:One (2011) made under his own production banner.
Amitabh Bachchan, who usually resides in a private apartment at St James Court hotel, has been another Bollywood-in-Britain regular, courtesy several films, including Jhoom Barabar Jhoom (2007), Cheeni Kum (2007) and Paa (2009). Ditto Anil Kapoor, who added the required quotient of looking at home in an English suburban home most recently in Mubarakan (2017).
More often than not, London isn't intrinsic to the screenplay which could be set in any part of the globe if not in Mumbai itself. Take the case of a somewhat spooky British mental rehabilitation centre used for the Kangana Ranaut-starrer Tanu Manu Weds Returns (2015). Earlier, Subhash Ghai's absolutely illogical Yaadein (2001) could have well been shot in Venus or Mars.
Indeed, apart from the Yash Chopra and Karan Johar movies, it's a golden oldie which has caught London memorably in its myriad moods - and that's actor-producer-director Manoj Kumar's Purab Aur Paschim (1970), even though its theme about the clash between Indian and western cultures was simplistic and exaggerated to the hilt.
But just rewind to the picturisation of the song Koi jab tumhara hriday tod de amidst a moss green garden dotted with roses in full bloom, and you just might exclaim, "Oh, to be in England!"
wknd@khaleejtimes.com