Sholay at 50: Ramesh Sippy’s dazzling epic stands the test of time
For LFF’s closing archive presentation, an extended restoration of Sholay screened at BFI IMAX. Mixing romance, bromance, crime, spaghetti western action and unforgettable musical numbers, Ramesh Sippy’s colourful classic remains one of Bollywood’s defining hits.
The subject line of an old Reddit post asks the right question: “Is there even any song close enough to give a good fight to ‘Mehbooba Mehbooba’ from Sholay?” Tommy, Nashville and The Rocky Horror Picture Show have their moments, but 1975’s most unshakeable movie earworm must be this hypnotically joyous anthem, with its amorous oohing and strutting Arabic rhythms. Perhaps composer R.D. Burman had heard Demis Roussos’s very similar 1974 song ‘Say You Love Me’, but he transformed it with his usual finesse. Its distinctive intro beats were played on the mouths of beer bottles.
Ramesh Sippy’s magpie third feature also gleefully borrows shots and plot elements from Sergio Leone’s Once upon a Time in the West (1968) and Kurosawa Akira’s Seven Samurai (1954), mashing them together under blazing blue Eastmancolor skies. A 204-minute action adventure bringing monumental drama to the boulder country near Ramanagara in the southern state of Karnataka, this pop epic of fire and friendship was India’s Jaws in 1975 box-office terms and has been a touchstone ever since.
Star screenwriting duo Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar had already delivered a megaton hit that year with Yash Chopra’s crime epic Deewaar, giving Amitabh Bachchan another of his ‘angry young man’ roles and pushing his stardom into the super leagues. Their Sholay set-up offers a more homosocial vision of masculinity, pivoted on the bromance between Bachchan and Dharmendra, who play criminal charmers Jai and Veeru, hired by a vengeful police chief (Sanjeev Kumar) to apprehend a raiding dacoit outlaw, Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan).
Fresh out of prison, both Jai and Veeru have their heads turned by romance along the way, Veeru by feisty cart driver Basanti (Hema Malini), Jai by the more aloof Radha (Jaya Bhaduri). But it’s their own camaraderie and loyalty that hog the limelight. Their duet ‘Yeh Dosti’, an ode to male togetherness, is a mutual serenade sung while speeding through open country on motorbike and sidecar.
Sholay is a film of horizons which barely sets foot indoors – a 70mm fable meant for curving screens and big speakers. When Gabbar utters one of his villainous threats, his voice seems to echo around the red earth. When Basanti dances on broken glass to save her beloved, she is wrapped in lens flares. An opening train robbery sequence is action-cinema clockwork. Later, when Gabbar’s bandits attack during a song set to a Holi celebration, clouds of bright, multicoloured gulal powder float in the air and are strewn all over the ground. It’s dazzling and abrupt: a Sam Peckinpah western rampaging into a Vincente Minnelli musical.