Filmmaker Smriti Mundhra revealed some unheard anecdotes and divulged the assiduous process that went behind creating The Romantics, the trending docu-series that celebrates the rich cultural legacy of the legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra.
On her primary goal while making The Romantics, Mundhra revealed, “The primary goal for me in making The Romantics, was to not just celebrate Hindi cinema but actually analyze how these films were constructed. The thought and the care they put behind them, and how much influence they had around the world. These films really gave us that connection to our roots. It’s almost like I had a real poignant resonance with the diaspora. We are starting to see more and more non-fiction storytelling that people are really understanding is on par with fiction. I’ve been lucky enough to have two series. The first being Indian Matchmaking. In the second series (The Romantics), I wanted to explore cinema which is another topic that is important to Indian people around the world.
In the 1970s, he (Yash Chopra) crafted one of the greatest angry-young-man films that we have, in Deewar. In the late ’80s when the whole trend was going towards action, he took a big chance to make Chandni and throughout the 90s, as the country was getting younger, though Yash Chopra in chronological years was getting older, his filmmaking style and sensibility was getting younger, giving us Dil To Pagal Hain and films that were progressively getting younger and still continue to appeal and resonate with younger audiences.
On getting Aditya Chopra to appear on-screen for the first time ever, “And as for getting Aditya Chopra to agree that might have been the most challenging part of the entire process. It just became clear that you cannot tell the story of Yash Chopra without the perspective of Aditya Chopra, and thankfully he agreed. There’s so much love for Yash Chopra that people were very eager to share their point of view and share their experiences working with him.”
