Bollywood loves to play with fire.
In Amazon Prime Video’s upcoming original movie, Agni, directed by Rahul Dholakia, a firefighter investigates the rising frequency of mysterious fires in the city.
Causing mishaps, evoking fear, underlining danger or daredevilry, a symbol of fiery passions and pain, inspiring titles like Aag, Aag Hi Aag, Aag Ka Gola, Aag Se Khelenge Hum, Fire, Mashaal, Agnee, Agneepath and Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag, fire enjoys a significant presence in our movies.
Sukanya Verma recaps Bollywood’s fiery moments.
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As the bearer of ‘the one’ prophesied to take down all evil in Nag Ashwin’s Hollywood dystopia meets Hindu mythology concoction, Deepika Padukone’s mother supreme, literally, walks down the path of fire and proves herself worthy of the foresight against a blast of blaze.
Brahmastra Part One: Shiva
Fire dominates most frames of Brahmastra.
‘Kuch rishta hai mera aag se,’ explains Ranbir Kapoor only to learn he’s an ‘Agni Astra’ as part of Ayan Mukerji’s sprawling superhero universe boasting of a wildfire of a climax.
Dabangg 3
Bollywood doesn’t need fire-breathing dragons when it has Bhai.
Agneepath
Speaking of climax, Amitabh Bachchan lives up the title to the hilt amidst raging explosions in the fire torn Mandwa, his hometown where it all started, as he reconciles with his mother and recites the titular poem.
1942: A Love Story
Rebelling against the British Raj brutality, Jackie Shroff’s freedom fighter kicks off the movement once he sets the clock tower on fire and charges through it amid burning flames and bullet shots in a one thrilling moment.
Kalank
The visual of Ravan’s effigy burned is a striking symbol of Dussehra celebration and numerous Bollywood movies have used it to intense effect. Few though can boast of Kalank‘s lyrical quality, doomed fate at the box office, notwithstanding.
Parinda
Nana Patekar’s pyrophobia is key to his character’s dark past and destruction.
The dread that is born out of the guilt from burning down his wife and child alive comes to a full circle when Jackie Shroff gives him a dose of his own medicine in the blazing, brutal finale.
Mother India
During the dramatic sequence when incensed villagers set a field full of haystacks on fire, Sunil Dutt and Nargis endangered their lives on screen as well as off it.
Of course, the latter was famously rescued by her co-star and the rest is history.
Om Shanti Om
Fire at its most furious plays a recurring role in Farah Khan’s reincarnation drama.
Be it Shah Rukh Khan saving Deepika Padukone, a la Sunil Dutt and Nargis in Mother India, to their tragic deaths in a studio fire set by Arjun Rampal, setting the stage for fiery retribution in its thrilling climax.
The Burning Train
The title of B R Chopra’s big-budget disaster movie says it all.
Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Jeetendra, Hema Malini, Neetu Singh, Parveen Babi headline the multi-starrer about a bomb going off in a bullet train full of passengers.
Aag
In Raj Kapoor’s directorial debut, the actor plays a man recalling the events from his childhood, adolescence and youth, until the fateful moment his face was disfigured in a fire, to his bride on their wedding night.
Padmaavat
Deepika Padukone’s much talked about ‘jauhar‘ scene — the act of self-immolation performed by Rani Padmavati and her fellow women to protect their honour against the lustful Khilji and his army — forms the focus of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s opulent yet controversial climax.
RRR
Where NTR Jr embodies water, Ram Charan Teja is fire.
Their clashing, contrasting elements of nature powers RRR‘s over-the-top imagery to the hilt.
Bahu Begum
In classic Muslim social tradition, no soon Ashok Kumar learns his feelings for Meena Kumari are one-sided and she has only space for Pradeep Kumar in her heart, his Nawab burns the palace down to ashes, leaving no trace of his memory behind.
Roja
Though his hands are tied, Arvind Swamy leaps without a thought to save the national flag from the wrath of ruthless terrorists eager to set it on fire in an emotionally-charged moment of Roja.
Aatish
What happens when shola and aatish collide? Sanjay Dutt and Aditya Pancholi give us a hunky demonstration as they race fire in Sanjay Gupta’s slick action masala.
Tridev
When baddies try to burn him alive but fail, he retaliates by burning down their warehouse in flames.
That’s Sunny Deol for ‘it’s not personal, it’s strictly business.’
Koyla
Koyla didn’t set the box office on fire but the image of Shah Rukh Khan, playing a mute after Amrish Puri shoves hot coal down his throat as a kid, running in an overlay in flames (a stunt he performed on his own) certainly caught eyeballs.
Dil Se..
With passion that burns as potently as fire, SRK seldom wore his King of Romance title lightly.
Balwaan
Suniel Shetty in a silver bunker suit accepting the deadly Aag Ka Kua challenge made a lasting impression in his debut Balwaan, a sight that ’90s kids will enthusiastically remember.
Hit: The First Case
Pyrophobia is often a PTSD trope in our movies.
Quite like Parinda, Rajkummar Rao’s horrific memories of watching a loved one burn before his eyes makes him uneasy around the fire.
Hum
Danny Denzongpa displays some anxiety around fire for the exact same reasons after his home, family are set to flames — a tragedy he holds Amitabh Bachchan responsible for in Mukul Anand’s crowd-pleaser, Hum.
Krrish
What better spectacle to highlight Hrithik Roshan’s heroics than him playing saviour amidst a circus on fire?
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam
Portrait of a lady on fire, Bhansali style.
Tumbbad
Among Tumbbad‘s several striking images is the use of light and fire turning its most dangerous creatures and dim-lit spaces a source of ferocious action.
Masaan
In Neeraj Ghaywan’s sublime drama, a young man working at the cremation ghats of Varanasi is left devastated when he discovers his ladylove’s body is destined for the same horrific fire and fate.
Junoon
Rahul Roy’s luck runs out as soon as the fire keeps a man-eating tiger at bay and transforms him into a beastly predator in Mahesh Bhatt’s tawdry horror film.
Aradhana
There is no smoke, correction, sex without fire.
That’s how Bollywood did it anyway when campfires played scorching spectators to all the sizzling action between the hero and heroine.
Dil
Broken furniture, check, matchbox, check, seven pheras check.
Back when the ‘agni ko sakshi maan ke‘ brand of rebellious, spontaneous shaadis used to be commonplace in Bollywood movies.
Baahubali: The Beginning
Katappa stabbing Baahubali in the back against a gigantic fire and the staggering ‘why’ it led to is the single most greatest visual and movie question of the last decade.
