Sonali Says Sarfarosh ‘Changed The Course’ Of Hindi Cinema: Felt Like We Were Making Documentary

Sonali Bendre headlined the 2000 film Sarfarosh alongside Aamir Khan. The film emerged as a massive hit at the box office and was labelled as a ‘game-changer’. The actress recollected the time she spent on the film set and one memory in particular where she felt like they were making a documentary. 

‘Sarfarosh is a very special film’, says Sonali Bendre as the film completes 25 years 

In conversation with IANS, Sonali Bendre recalls her fondest memory from the shoot of Sarfarosh. The actress said, “Sarfarosh’ is a very special film, more so because of the director John Matthew Matthan. I and John had worked extensively in ad films.” She further mentioned that throughout the shooting of the film, she thought they were making a documentary. 

She said, “There were times when we felt like, ‘Are we making a documentary or what?’. But, it was the music and the dynamics between my and Aamir Khan’s characters in the film that cemented our belief that we are making a commercial Bollywood film.” The actress also credited Sarfarosh for changing the landscapes of Indian cinema. She asserted, “At a time when Hindi films were just about getting it right in the face of logistics and time constraints, Sarfarosh stands as a film that changed the course of cinema in terms of how films are made and the stories are told on the celluloid.” 

Sonali Bendre shares she enjoyed working as a Telugu actress more 

Sonali Bendre boasts an illustrious career of over 30 years in which she has featured in movies in more than 4 languages. Reflecting on her experience of working across the film industries of India, the actress told IANS: “We didn’t say pan-India in the 1990s, we just did different cinema from across states. I have done one film in Marathi cinema, Anahat. It was a fabulous story. I have done a wonderful Tamil film, it was a love story on the Internet, the time when people used to visit cyber cafes. I have Kannada films as well and of course, Telugu films. Out of all, I enjoyed working in Telugu cinema and I did more of it. They’re very gentle people.”

Although the actress feels that the fun part of the similarity between different film sets of different industries is that it’s a film set, she does feel that if the language barrier wasn’t there, things would have been more dynamic for her as an artiste while working on films in different languages.