Speaking at the Kerala Literature Festival, Prakash Raj said that Hindi cinema has become disconnected from its roots and is dependent on showmanship, while Malayalam and Tamil cinema are still telling strong, social stories. He said that the stories of nationalism in Bollywood have started weakening.
Amidst the success of Sunny Deol’s ‘Border 2’ at the box office, actor-filmmaker Prakash Raj has given a statement which is in the news. In the ninth edition of the ongoing Kerala Literature Festival (KLF) in Kozhikode, Prakash Raj expressed his frank opinion about mainstream Hindi cinema. He said that while Malayalam and Tamil cinema are still known for content-driven and grassroots stories, the Hindi film industry (Bollywood) is becoming disconnected from its roots and becoming fake and money-driven.
Lack of soul in Hindi films: Prakash Raj
Speaking at ‘The Artist I Became’ session on Saturday, January 24, Prakash Raj said that in the current era, everything looks beautiful in Hindi films, but it lacks depth and soul. He compared it to Madame Tussauds Museum—where everything is shiny, but not alive. According to him, South Indian cinema still has powerful stories to tell, especially young directors of Malayalam and Tamil cinema are making films on subjects like Dalit issues, which give hope.
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Prakash Raj enumerated the reasons for the decline of Bollywood
The 60-year-old actor, who has worked in five languages—Tamil, Telugu, Hindi, Kannada and Malayalam—also listed the reasons for the decline of Hindi cinema. He said that after the multiplex culture, Bollywood limited films only to the urban audience. The trend of ‘cute’ and glamorous films increased, which remained based on page-3 culture and superficial glamour. In this change, the industry lost its connection with the audience in rural areas like Rajasthan and Bihar.
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Stories related to weakened national spirit
Prakash Raj believes that along with this change, the stories related to the spirit of nation-building, which were once the hallmark of post-independence Hindi films, also weakened. To buttress his point, he cited the example of the 1977 superhit film ‘Amar Akbar Anthony’, in which three people from different religions come together to donate blood to save a life—a scene that symbolized shared values, social harmony and collective aspirations. He concluded that today’s Hindi cinema has become bogged down in reels, showmanship and loud self-promotion. In the race for money and appearance, he is losing emotional connect with the audience.