A Q&A with “The Romantics” filmmaker Smriti Mundhra on chronicling Bollywood history
The “Indian Matchmaking” creator has a new documentary series on Netflix sharing the Hindi film industry’s nuanced story.
This post originally appeared on Red, White and Brown’s newsletter on Substack (Issue #56 sent on March 9, 2023).
Growing up in a South Indian household in the U.S., we would watch several Tamil-language films each month, following the 1990s- and 2000s-era hits, starring everyone from Kamal Haasan to Jyothika to R. Madhavan to Simran. In the early days, we’d get VHS copies from a family friend’s house, later moving on to DVDs from the local Bombay Bazaar, or finding questionably legal VCD discs during trips to Asia.
Over the years, I have also seen a few dozen Hindi movies. But, compared to Kollywood, I’ve admittedly always been less familiar with the hits of Shah Rukh Khan or Kareena Kapoor or name-your-favorite-Hindi-star. I would never win Bollywood trivia.
But that’s why I found Indian American filmmaker Smriti Mundhra’s latest project, “The Romantics,” so interesting. Mundhra, the creator behind the Netflix hit reality show “Indian Matchmaking,” chronicles the Hindi film industry’s history in her latest Netflix project. It’s full of nostalgia, awe and fascinating facts about a film industry that produces more movies than Hollywood each year. And it showcases how the Hindi film industry is far more nuanced than the tired stereotypes of three-hours of song, dance and love stories.
The documentary series is a timely watch to learn more about Indian cinematic history, as Hollywood hosts the Oscars this weekend — and a popular song from Telugu-language movie “RRR” is performed there.
Below is my conversation with Mundhra, where we discuss “The Romantics” — and even what to expect from the next season of every Brown person’s secretly favorite dating show.
Q&A with “The Romantics” filmmaker Smriti Mundhra
The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Vignesh: For many South Asians in the diaspora, a series like “The Romantics” might evoke nostalgia. For others, there might be an outsider perception of what Bollywood was or is. So in launching this series on a platform with such a wide reach — Netflix — what did you want to convey to the wider world about Hindi film and Bollywood?
Smriti Mundhra: The Hindi film industry, or Indian cinema even more broadly, is a major contributor to global cinema — not just in terms of the number of movies being made, but also in terms of the craft, style and cinematic language that’s been cultivated through decades and decades of Indian cinema culture.
There’s a perception sometimes that Hindi cinema is just facsimiles of Hollywood movies with some song and dance thrown in and some color. I think that’s really condescending and dismissive of what our movies are about. We have our own auteurs. We have our own cinematic style and language. I really wanted to show that.
Vignesh: To tell that story, you got the who’s who of the Hindi movie industry to agree to sit for interviews, including producer and director Aditya Chopra (who famously stays out of the public eye), the elder son of legendary filmmaker Yash Chopra, who is central figure in the documentary. What was that like getting several Bollywood leaders and stars to participate?
Mundhra: It wasn’t a challenge to get people to agree to participate, mainly because there’s just a lot of respect for Yash Chopra as an auteur whose work spanned many decades, many generations of stars. So many people’s careers have been shaped and influenced by Yash Chopra.
The best thing was I was able to talk to these big stars, these icons, not in the context of them trying to promote a film or with any other agenda. It was really just space to talk about their love for movies, the influence and impact of Yash Chopra on them personally, but also on larger cinema culture and about their insights on a changing and evolving India. There’s been so much change in India, especially in the last 30 years or so, and to really understand that from people who have witnessed it, not only as citizens but as members of the film industry — people who have been part of accelerating that change. I just got to speak to them as film fans and historians in their own right.
Vignesh: In your series, actor Abhishek Bachchan (another son of Bollywood royalty) talks about how Hindi movies are like thalis — there’s a little bit of everything. He also talks about the idea that the films don’t try to be like anywhere else. But your series also shares the history of Hollywood studios attempting to take over Yash Raj Films (one of the biggest Indian film studios), and it discusses American imperialism and movies. Do you think there has been a sort of American cultural imperialism on Bollywood content and storytelling?
Mundhra: There was a time when India became the land of opportunity, and the West took notice. We started seeing multinational corporations, Western corporations — whether they were American or European — come in and essentially take over entire [Indian] sectors. When a big American corporation buys over or starts to control the sector — whether it’s banking, consumer goods, pharmaceuticals or whatever it is — then they start implementing their ethos, their style of working into that system.
It’s really telling, though, that it didn’t work in the entertainment industry. I think that was partially because of visionaries like Aditya Chopra, who consciously pushed back against that. But also just because storytelling is so intimate — it’s so unique to each individual culture. And while there can be a beautiful sort of exchange of influence and ideas between cultures, I think it’s interesting that Hollywood was never really able to take over India in the way that it hoped.
Platforms like Netflix, what I think they’ve become very sensitive to and realize is that you can’t take it over. You have to understand that you have to engage with the storytellers from that region. You can’t just export your way of working and your style of storytelling and expect everyone to fall in line, because we look for different things in our stories. I think that’s really telling in terms of the fortitude of our own culture, the great influence of our sort of cinematic style and cinematic traditions.
I don’t think that anyone is saying that they don’t want any influence or any involvement from Hollywood or any other film industry in India, it’s just that … you have to come in and adapt to our style of storytelling, our way of working and treat us like partners — not just take over.
Vignesh: What has the reaction been to “The Romantics”?
Mundhra: I sort of expected that people would find it and enjoy it — there are 35 celebrities [throughout the series] … But what I didn’t expect was that people were going to connect to it so emotionally — just reading everyday tweets, comments and people saying, like: ‘Oh my God, I’m crying watching this, because it’s reminding me of my childhood, or it’s taking me back.’
One of the most moving messages that I got was from somebody I didn’t even know saying they’ve been watching the series with their father who has Alzheimer’s — and it’s like his whole demeanor changes. … Those images and music trigger something. I think that’s really speaking to the power of cinema — that collective experience that we’ve all shared of certain movies and how they’ve impacted our lives and shaped our view of the world around us.
It’s also really fun and interesting to see people who are learning new things in terms of a business story. Probably the greatest review or compliment or feedback I’ll ever get in my entire career is [Netflix co-CEO] Ted Sarandos was talking about the series and said: I’m going to make [“The Romantics”] mandatory viewing for all 10,000 employees at Netflix, because I learned more in those four hours of watching “The Romantics” about the way that Indian cinema, and particularly Hindi cinema, works — and the storytelling and the business culture … than I have in 20 years of trying to figure out the Indian market.
That was a peak of my career.
Vignesh: The series also discusses the term “Bollywood,” with a montage of what stars think about it. (“Bollywood” is derived from Bombay, now Mumbai, the epicenter of Hindi film.) Actor Shah Rukh Khan said that term doesn’t necessarily include the rest of Indian cinema outside of Bombay/Mumbai. What do you think about the term “Bollywood”?
Mundhra: I think it’s catchy. [But] I don’t use it as much anymore, especially after making “The Romantics” and hearing how disfavored the term has become. I really do understand why people are resistant to that term because who wants to be framed as a derivative of another industry: We are our own thing, and we don’t want to be contextualized in light of another industry. So I totally understand why there’s resistance to that term. But I would like to think in some way, we’ve kind of reclaimed it a little bit.
Vignesh: Are there other stories about film industries across India that you want to tell?
Mundhra: “The Romantics” was a first entry point for me to telling the stories of our very rich, cinematic history in India. There are many more filmmakers to tell stories about. There are many more regional industries to tell stories about. I would love to do something on South Indian cinema, Tamil cinema. My dream would be to do a docu-series on [Tamil actor] Rajinikanth and his influence.
There are many more avenues to try to tell those stories. I just started with the one that was most familiar and most accessible to me. But the hope is that now that we’ve done one and it’s gone over well — and there’s clearly an appetite for it — there’ll be opportunities to tell even more, whether it’s me telling those stories or other filmmakers.
It’s so important for us to preserve and contextualize our rich, cinematic history from India.
Vignesh: On another note, what can you tell us about producing the upcoming season 3 of “Indian Matchmaking” and what we can expect?
Mundhra: Season 3 will be out soon in the next few months. It’s going to be a really fun season: There’ll be some surprises, some new types of characters. There may be a happily-ever-after or two. I think it’s going to deliver on all the fronts that people love about “Indian Matchmaking,” but with a new location, new cast of characters, new circumstances, new bad dates, new great dates — all of that. If you’ve loved the first two seasons of the show, you will love the third season as well.
“The Romantics” is now streaming on Netflix.
Vignesh Ramachandran is co-founder of Red, White and Brown Media, which facilitates substantive conversations through the lens of South Asian American race and identity — via journalism, social media and events. He’s on Twitter and Instagram via @VigneshR.
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