100 Filmfare Days: 70- Lamhe

Lamhe

Year: 1991
Director: Yash Chopra
Producer: Yash Chopra
Cast: Anil Kapoor, Sridevi, Waheeda Rehman, Anupam Kher
Music: Shiv-Hari

Yash Chopra's favourite film, Lamhe was a widely misunderstood but critically appreciated. It was one film ahead of its times. Lamhe was a complex love story about a woman loving a man who loved her mother. What made matters further perplexing for most Indian audiences was that the woman and her mother looked the same (they were played by Sridevi). Yash Chopra knew his film was a little too complicated and he even wanted a new actor to play the hero to avoid scarring his hero's image. But he eventually cast the bold Anil Kapoor who went a step ahead and featured without his trademark moustache for the first time in a film. Foreign audiences who saw the film under the title Indian Summer lapped it up and that gave Yash Chopra some respite. It also piqued the curiosity of Indian audiences, who then revisited this classic and gave it, its now-cult status. Sridevi won the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her livewire double act.

Did You Know?
1. The song Kabhi main kahoon was made from melody used as background music in Yash Chopra's previous movie Chandni, also scored by Shiv-Hari.
2. Lamhe is one of the few films that picked up the Filmfare Award for Best Movie despite its lacklustre business.