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Filmmaker Imtiaz Ali says he doesn’t get swayed by success or failures as the more important thing for him is to try something new as a storyteller, completely aware that not all “risks” will pay off, such as his 2017 romantic drama Jab Harry Met Sejal. The film was headlined by Shah Rukh Khan and Anushka Sharma and was one of the most poorly received films of Imtiaz, both critically and commercially.
Jab Harry Met Sejal was perhaps the first bump the filmmaker experienced after years of delivering consecutive acclaimed movies, right from his debut Socha Na Tha, Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal, Rockstar to Tamasha.
In an interview with Ranveer Allahbadia, Imtiaz Ali opened up about Jab Harry Met Sejal, which was one of the biggest flops of Shah Rukh Khan’s career. The filmmaker recalled the third anniversary of the film when someone asked him to post about it.
“‘So what if it didn’t do well, it is still your film,’ I was told. Toh mujhe bohot dard hua. It is an unfortunate child. I felt a sense of ownership over the film, I felt like telling it, ‘I am not embarrassed of you brother, you are mine, as much as any other film of mine.’ So, in that moment, I felt a strange melancholy, ek ajeeb sa dard mehsoos hua, that oh this was an unsuccessful film, which I didn’t feel it in this manner back then.
“But I could feel at this point. Back then, calculations were happening, I was reading people’s faces, I could sense disappointment. I had dengue, so I was also bed ridden for a month,” he recalled.
Imtiaz Ali talks about Jab Harry Met Sejal. (Photo: IMDb)
Imtiaz Ali said he “processed the pain over a period of time” and added that one can’t let failures “disturb” a person. “You have to let it go… I feel lucky about all my failures. Now Jab Harry Met Sejal didn’t work, still I felt there was something good happening. I am not perturbed by it. You shouldn’t be so bothered with success or failure.”
The filmmaker, who enjoys a loyal fan following, said his attempt with Jab Harry Met Sejal was to break his own mould and take a risk with an “experiment”. Imtiaz said, unlike many of his previous films, the movie wasn’t trying to be philosophically rich.
“The process is different with each film, but the approach was similar. I was trying to make a light film with Jab Harry Met Sejal, an easy film, in which there is no ‘funda’, no obvious depth, no philosophical depth. I was trying to make a light film, which was also an experiment. The films of mine that were doing well were not like that. But I didn’t want to make the same kind of film, in fact I wanted to be different and so I went into that direction. That was a pure thought. Some experiments won’t work,” he added.
Imtiaz Ali recently directed the acclaimed Amar Singh Chamkila, which starred Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra. The Netflix film, released in April, emerged as one of Imtiaz’s most celebrated work in recent times.
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