Aamir now B’wood’s King of Khans – ‘Little Crusader’ tops at Karlovy fest

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MUMBAI, July 9, (Agencies): Three Indian actors sharing a surname have ruled Bollywood box offices across three decades, but the success of wrestling blockbuster “Dangal” means it’s Aamir who’s currently king of the Khans.

Known as the “Khans of Bollywood”, Aamir, Shah Rukh, and Salman have been the undoubted superstars of the Hindi film industry since the mid-1990s, taking it in turns to reign supreme.

But with “Dangal” smashing records, Salman suffering a rare flop and Shah Rukh without a major hit in four years, the crown for now is firmly placed on Aamir’s head.

“The Khans used to be on a par but Aamir has moved ahead and Shah Rukh is kind of lagging behind recently”, film trade analyst Ramesh Bala said of the trio who all turn 52 this year and who are not related.

“Dangal” has set new and previously unimaginable parameters for the box office potential of a Bollywood movie since it was first released in India in December last year.

It quickly became the highest-grossing Bollywood film ever, knocking another of Aamir’s movies off the top spot, and has made close to 20 billion rupees ($310 million) worldwide.

Khan plays the role of wrestling coach Mahavir Singh Phogat who defies the odds by raising his daughters Geeta and Babita Phogat to become champion wrestlers. Geeta won gold for India at the 2010 Commonwealth Games while Babita topped the podium at the 2014 edition.

Critics say the movie resonated because it was a patriotic story about a triumphant underdog that dealt with India’s skewed attitude towards girls, and credit a large part of Aamir’s success to his careful choosing of movies with a message.

“Aamir is one person who really puts a lot of thought and effort into selecting films that are relevant to an Indian audience. There are very few actors who really do enough of that”, film distributor Akshaye Rathi told AFP.

Audiences lapped up Aamir’s 2014 satirical science fiction comedy “PK”, number two on the all-time Bollywood grossing list, for its questioning of religious superstitions.

His 2009 hit “3 Idiots” appealed for its coming of age tale about students struggling to deal with the pressure of becoming engineers.

“Aamir has been very consistent for a very long time. He doesn’t do as many films as Shah Rukh or Salman and the more films you do the higher the chance that one misses”, Rathi explained.

Salman’s annual Eid holiday release is usually a blockbuster shoo-in, but the latest, “Tubelight” bombed.

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Critics panned the script and said the star’s portrayal of a “village idiot” failed to resonate with his largely young Indian male fan base.

Bala blames Shah Rukh’s failure to register a hit since “Chennai Express” in 2013 on “experimenting with different genres”, including romance, action and drama.

Aamir is lauded for taking on challenging roles. For “Dangal” he gained and then lost again 25 kgs (55 pounds) in weight while cinemagoers adored his portrayal of a humanoid alien stranded on Earth in “PK”.

“As a star he doesn’t enjoy so much of a fan following as he enjoys the trust of the audience for his craft. People believe at the back of their minds that if Aamir appears in a film there will be something, different, something novel in it”, said Rathi.

“Dangal” has made around $180 million more than “PK” in global sales thanks to a record-breaking run in the hugely profitable Chinese market, where Aamir has worked hard at building his brand, becoming the biggest Indian star there.

“Aamir has time and again proven his marketing genius and his genius when it comes to choosing the right script, delivering a terrific performance and enthralling the audience”, said Rathi.

“Little Crusader”, a Czech-Slovak medieval quest film by Vaclav Kadrnka, won the Crystal Globe for best film at the Czech Republic’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival, Central and Eastern Europe’s leading movie event, on Saturday. It is the first time in 15 years that a local film has won the top prize at the festival.

The film, starring Karel Roden, typifies the kind of emergent voices the fest relishes in discovering, made by a Czech emigre educated in the UK whose first film in 2011, “Eighty Letters”, examined daily life under communism.

Jeremy Renner, who was feted with the fest president’s prize during the gala closing at the 1970s-era Hotel Thermal, said “I love you” to fest prexy Jiri Bartoska, calling him “this bearded babushka” who keeps the seven-decade old event going. Bartoska, in exchange, held up Renner’s weighty crystal orb for him because Renner’s arms were both recently broken while filming a stunt. The actor presented “Wind River” at the fest, which took the audience prize.

“Men Don’t Cry”, a Bosnian film that takes on the emotional aftermath of the Balkan War, won a special jury prize, while Peter Bebjak won director honors for “The Line”, a Slovakia/Ukraine story of modern-day smugglers operating across their countries’ border.

Jowita Budnik and Eliane Umuhire were jointly awarded actress honors for their portrayals of women grappling with the Rwandan genocide in Joanna Kos-Krauze’s Polish film “Birds Are Singing in Kigali”. Alexander Yatsenko won the actor nod for his portrayal of a damaged ambulance driver in Russian film “Arrhythmia” by Boris Khlebnikov.

“Keep the Change”, a New York-set autism love story by Rachel Israel, won a special mention, prompting lead actor Brandon Polansky to say, “This goes out to all those teachers who told me I’d never amount to nothing”.

Russian crime story “How Viktor ‘the Garlic’ Took Alexey ‘the Stud’ to the Nursing Home” by Alexander Hant scored the East of the West prize, with Georgian film “Dede” taking the section’s special jury honors.

Docu honors went to a quirky Spanish account of an eccentric family, “Lots of Kids, a Monkey and a Castle” by Gustavo Salmeron, while Bernhard Braunstein’s “Atelier de Conversation”, an Austria-France film about hidden meaning in language, won the docu jury prize.

Czech fairy-tale master Vaclav Vorlicek, whose decades of work is still cherished by Czechs, was honored with the fest president’s award for contribution to Czech cinematography.

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