Thousands of new films are released each year vying for audience interest, but one cinema in India has been showing the same film for nearly three decades.

Every morning, locals line up at the Maratha Mandir cinema in Mumbai to watch the film, which premiered 27 years ago in 1995.

The film has left such a strong mark on local culture that it is screened daily in a 1,100-seat cinema. The only “break” in the program was the start of the pandemic, which put a mandatory “lock” on cinemas.

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ), which translates to “A Big Heart Will Take a Bride”, is a typical love story between a couple, set at a historic moment of great change in India. “In many ways, today’s India is similar to the one depicted in the film,” commented the New York Times.

“The country’s economy is still booming and is about 10 times larger today than it was in the mid-1990s. The technological revolution, this time digital, has opened up new horizons. Women are looking for more freedom in a male-dominated society. The forces of modernism and conservatism remain in suspense as the rising right wing in politics declares itself to be the bearer of conventional values. However, the sense of limitless opportunity receded as economic disparity deepened and mobility expectations decreased.

“For those left behind, the world of DDLJ — its story and main characters, its music and dialogue — is the way out. For those who are still struggling, this is an inspiration. And for those who have done it, it is a time capsule, the starting point of India’s transformation.”

“A lot of people tell me, ‘We made our kids watch DDLJ, our grandchildren,'” says actress Kajol, 48, who plays the female lead as Simran. He bursts into laughter: “I don’t have problems with children, but with grandchildren?”

When the pandemic forced theaters to close for a year, many assumed DDLJ’s record-breaking run was coming to an end. But the film was shown again shortly after the opening of theaters and continues until now, at 11:30. at the Maratha Mandir, often attracting more viewers than evening screenings of new films.

Some of the viewers have watched the film here so many times that they have lost count – 50, 100, hundreds.

When the film was released in 1995, Kajol was a young actress and became one of the most successful.

At that time, only 50 million households in India had a television set. It is now estimated that television has penetrated over 200 million homes in the country. Many times more people can pay for a movie ticket, and India, which recently became the world’s fifth-largest economy, is expected to have a billion smartphone users by 2026. Actors who once starred in different films in the same clothes are now making huge fortunes.

At the Maratha Mandir cinema, the logic behind showing this old film in sequence is purely financial: DDLJ has a solid audience. “This film is evergreen because it tells the story of true love. Because love never ends,” says Manoj Desai, the 72-year-old cinema executive.

The location of the cinema next to two transport hubs ensures constant traffic. It also helps that tickets are cheap: 30 rupees for seats downstairs and 40 upstairs, a quarter of the price of a ticket for new editions.

New York Times source