Rangeela

1995 144’ col/scope Hindi d/p/s Ram Gopal Varma pc Varma Creations dial Neeraj Vora, Sanjay Chhel lyr Mehboob c W.B. Rao m A.R. Rehman lp Urmila Matondkar, Aamir Khan, Jackie Shroff, Gulshan Grover, Avtar Gill, Achyut Potdar, Reema, Shammi, Rajesh Joshi

Varma’s first Hindi venture is remembered mainly as the sensational introduction of former child actress Matondkar (e.g. Shekhar Kapur’s Masoom, 1982) as the Hindi cinema’s most recent sex symbol. Playing an out-ofwork movie actress, she is discovered by a major star (Shroff) who introduces her into the film industry. This leads to problems when her boyfriend (Khan), a lower-class Bombay youth who sells movie tickets in the black market, finds it difficult to cope with her success. The film is dominated by its several Rehmancomposed song hits, amongst the biggest in the ’90s in Hindi, e.g. Aayi re (sung by Asha Bhosle) and Tanha tanha, shot with considerable energy and inventiveness.

Film