Movies are a visual medium for telling stories and how grand the movie looks on the big screen elevates the audience’s experience of watching them.
Hollywood movies like the recent Marvel movies and James Cameron’s movies like Titanic make the movie-watching experience quite memorable. India is also not far behind when it comes to making visually grand movies and the recent movie Brahmastra is a prime example of it. Here are a few visually extravagant movies from Bollywood.
Detective Byomkesh Bakshy was the first Bollywood adaptation of the famous fictional detective Byomkeesh Bakshi written by Bengali writer Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay which was played by the late Sushant Singh Rajput. The movie was set against the backdrop of a pre-independent Calcutta in 1942 when World War II was going on.
The real challenge for makers was to create an environment of a war-torn Calcutta with its vintage feel, old buildings, and antique cars and the tram. Dibakar Banerjee and art director Vandana Kataria created the look of Calcutta; they visualised and created the old city perfectly. The film was lauded by critics but tanked at the box office but is still remembered for its sets, cinematography, and performances of the actors, especially Sushant as Byomkesh Bakshi.
Tumbadd
Tumbadd is the lowest budget movie on this list but was nothing less than any movie when it comes to being a visually extravagant movie.
Tumbadd was unlike any movie made in Bollywood before. Set during the period of India’s independence, it’s a horror movie from the outside but if you go beneath, it’s the story of greed and its after-effects. The movie took years to make but it was worth it. Made with a shoestring budget, Tumbadd along with being a good movie was visually extravagant too. The movie is based on the legend of Hastar, one of the millions of Gods Mother Goddess gave birth to. The movie can be termed as a fairy tale for adults.
The movie is a perfect example of the intent and vision of the director being right, budget is never a reason to make a great-looking movie. The movie was set in real locations with very less use of CGI and VFX because of a lack of budget. As already acknowledged, Tumbbad is a visually rich movie with a great script with good performances by all the actors. It’s a must-watch for real cinema lovers and if you missed watching it, you missed something unique which Indian moviegoers never experienced before.
