The earlier Hindi film industry, or as we all fondly call it, Bollywood, was not very keen on OTT movies or shows. A few years ago it was not possible to produce a decent documentary where the actors would come forward and speak about their journey. In the last two decades, there has been only one major documentary that stood out for the right reasons, Madness in the Desert, which chronicled the making of Ashutosh Gowariker’s magnum opus Lagaan. However, in the last one-year, Modern Masters: SS Rajamouli has emerged as a documentary that has spoken nothing but the truth about how the great visionary Telugu director and his family made it into the film industry. The reason Modern Masters: SS Rajamouli worked is because it felt personal, and all of us got a peek into the lives of this family who walk, talk, and breathe cinema.
Adding to that, Angry Young Men on Amazon Prime Video was a documentary released just a few months ago in 2024 about Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, popularly known as Salim-Javed, the powerful and influential screenwriters who changed the landscape of Hindi cinema by writing bold male-centric films that focused on the angst of the people of the 1970s and 1980s. Salim and Javed, along with their family members, presented a nostalgic trip down the lane, as the documentary series turned out to be insightful. Sadly, you can’t say the same thing about The Roshans, the brand-new documentary on Netflix India. The Roshans is a four-part documentary on the famous music director Roshan Lal Nagrath, popularly known as Roshan. The music director’s legacy is well known, especially since Rajesh Roshan, Rakesh Roshan, and Hrithik Roshan established themselves as great artists in the Hindi film industry over the course of the next few decades. This four-part documentary starts by chronicling the life of Roshan, who has delivered some beautiful melodies as well as Qawali songs that are still revered as among the best ever produced. This was at a time when songs were composed, recorded and produced in unison. There was no separate post production or adding or mixing. It is interesting to watch the doyens of the industry come forward to speak about Roshan and his finesse as a musician, which included the likes of music royalty Asha Bhonsale herself, Anandji of the Kalyanji-Anandji duo, and Pyarelal of the Laxmikant-Pyarelal duo. It is interesting to watch Rakesh Roshan and Rajesh Roshan speaking wholeheartedly about their father and sharing anecdotes from a time when nothing much was photographed or documented.
The Roshans stopped being interesting after the first episode, past which point there is no clarity on what the makers wanted to convey. The Rajesh Roshan episode has insightful takes on his work, and the ups and downs he faced in the professional and personal fields. Rajesh Roshan clearly has a lot of stories to share, yet that did not come out well during the process of this documentary, which felt like it was staged rather than a peek into their lives. Documentaries are uncomfortable and personal, especially if they’re about celebrities. They get to be vulnerable for real and not be actors or characters for once. The Roshans felt far from real in its execution, especially when Hrithik Roshan talked about his work, his relationship with his father, and the life he led as an assistant director before becoming a full-fledged actor. Hrithik is more rehearsed and not talking from his heart, which is why his parts in the documentary feels fake and not heartfelt. None of his words made sense, especially by the end of the four-part show. It is interesting how The Roshans only discussed details that are already out in the public domain for people to know. The makers of the documentary did not add anything extra to make the audience believe how the family of artists have sustained themselves in the industry for two generations after Roshan.
Rakesh Roshan has an interesting arc to share, and his struggles seemed legit, for he had to bring back some stability into his life. It is interesting to learn about the choices of scripts Rakesh Roshan chose over the years, and thankfully a lot of them have aged well. But the documentary refuses to go beyond the surface level with these three legendary artists, which is sad. It is convenient of the makers to have not touched upon the controversial parts of their career, which include the plagiarizing of songs from the West, the failure of the film Kites that had Hrithik Roshan recalibrate his career. It is almost 20% of the film industry that comes forward to talk about the Roshan family, but sadly none of it evoked the kind of emotion that is required for a documentary to do. The Roshans lacks a sense of connection, and it is hard to relate to any of their struggles, which are only discussed on the surface level. Personally speaking, there needs to be a documentary on the Kapoor family, the OGs who have contributed much to the Hindi film industry like no other. The Roshans could have been a lot more personal without making us feel like voyeurs. This show is a no-no.