6 iconic elements you’d find only in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film!

Sanjay Leela Bhansali films are a genre of their own and here’s why we keep going back to them without ever growing tired of watching them on-screen!

The magnum opus that Sanjay Leela Bhansali creates in his movies are something that does not come our way often but when they do, it’s always a good idea to make the most of it! Majority of his filmography is period dramas or set in a place that inevitably has a charm of its own and hence it gives him the liberty to draw you into a world that he creates with his characters. Over the years, not through his words or interviews, but through movies he has created an identity for himself that has a fanbase of its own. You know when you’re entering a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, you can blindly trust the attention to detail and the aesthetics being taken care of to the T! His involvement in his films does not just start and end in direction, it expands to music composing, set designing and sometimes even making sure the choreography is exactly how he envisioned it in his head! He is an absolute perfectionist when it comes to his films and there are certain elements that you’ll find nowhere else but in his movies!

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Aesthetic larger than life sets

Leave it to Mr. Bhansali to completely immerse you into the world of his films. From the grandeur of his sets that feel as though the movie was shot in a real life palace to every corner serving visually pleasing aesthetics we’d never find anywhere else, his films are known for their sets! The jhoomar, the beautiful use of lighting, all beautifully come together in the final piece that we see on-screen!

Colours being a character of their own in his films

Be it Gangu waala safed in Gangubai Kathiawadi, laal ishq in Ram-Leela or the blues of Saawariya, there’s no one who plays with colours the way Bhansali does! He uses colour palettes as a way to express what his protagonists are feeling and helps connect with the audiences better too!

Tragic and incomplete love stories 

There’s yet to come a Bhansali love story that does not have us sobbing by the end of it. Almost all of his films are inspired by a Romeo-Julietesque type of love that remains adhoora and tragic. Be it Gangubai not being able to marry Afsaan, Ram and Leela succumbing to the politics of their families, Devdas and Paro being separated due to the class system and lastly, Nandini giving into an arranged marriage she never asked for, his movies celebrate heartbreak and pain in a way that no other Hindi film will ever be able to recreate!

Classical dances being a beautiful center piece for his films 

The first visual that comes to anyone’s mind when one talks about a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film is a room full of women doing Kathak in ethereal Anarkalis. The chakkars bringing out the flair of their outfit and the ghungaroos tapping right on the beat of the song has become a staple for his films. His love for Kathak and Garba comes out so well in the story that we’d want to be a part of that world and feel like a main character as well!

How Indian festivals become a pivotal part of his plot

Indian festivals, especially Navratri has become synonymous with a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film! The way he seamlessly weaves the festival into his plot where either there’s romance blooming in the middle of a Garba field or the protagonist is having a major introspection, it’s all portrayed through a desi festival which also serves as the perfect introduction to our culture for anyone watching his films globally!

His movies are a matriarchal society through and through! 

While all of Bollywood banks on the heroes to bring in the big bucks, Sanjay Leela Bhansali banked on the women in his films to carry the story from start to finish. And this was way before ‘female centric’ films were a term or a genre of their own. His movies had a very matriarchal world and the women led the story fiercely and head on. The film was told through their POV which also made it a lot more poetic and relatable to the women in this country who avidly watch his films!

Here’s wishing a very Happy Birthday to the living legend! May his movies always be the escape from reality we crave for!

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