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Reflecting countries and cultures and crossing cultures in movies
I had the pleasure of seeing a couple of movies at the Mumbai Film Festival organised by MAMI at the weekend.
Well, I say pleasure….in fact, one film was atrocious and the other was groundbreaking and amazing.
The atrocious film was Life Goes On by Sangeeta Dutta. This was this particular film’s world premiere and let’s hope it is it’s first and last screening, and it is binned. It was the most clichéd film full of stereotypes about British Asians and Brits in the UK that I have ever seen.
I went to see it because it had a lot of hype around the fact it was starring Sharmila Tagore and Soha Ali Khan. What possessed these two luminaries to act in this flick is beyond me. (Neither of their acting was particularly up to the mark either - but that can probably be put down to the script they had to deal with.) The film, in English, was set in the UK about a British Asian family living there. The first generation immigrants or the ‘parents’ were portrayed as more Indian than English; set in their Indian ways, despite having lived in the UK decades, and not integrated. The father was a doctor who’s reputation in the community was paramount (yawn).
The mother was a housewife who stood in the kitchen and cooked Indian food. She dies early on and the rest of the film is about how “important” she was in everyone’s lives. She keeps reappearing as a ghost in scenes, like sitting on a swing next to her brother-in-law and singing songs with lyrics such as ‘What is love? Love is pain’. It was so cheesy you wanted to vomit. The film aimed to make out that an Indian mother was the ultimate linking force in Indian families, that tied families together, which true or untrue, is not scintillating subject matter for a film in the year 2009.
Moreover any mother does that in all families across the world, not just Indian ones and it was so OTT (and reminiscent of a cheesy sentimental birthday card) the way the film appeared to ‘worshipped’ the mother figure at all. Cliché no. 2 was that all the children in this British Asian family had ‘gone off the rails’ as a result, obviously of living in the UK (which the film – yawn - portrays as immoral.) So, in this film, one British Asian daughter was a lesbian dating a French lesbian (because all French are lesbian, of course).
The other daughter was dating a Muslim (who was in a rock band that was close to having terrorist links – of course!)
The third daughter had equally ‘strayed’ and married a white guy. Disgrace.
Of course, their relationship was strained, and her father kept telling her she ‘shouldn’t have married him’ because he was white.
The white guy, meanwhile was a ‘bad husband’ who spent too long a work leaving his Indian wife left alone with the baby. The second daughter gets herself ‘up the duff’ with the Muslim (because of course that is what British and British Asian girls do in the UK – get pregnant prior to marriage). Her mother nearly faints upon hearing this (before dying) and her Dad, when he finds out later, goes mad.
It was Sangeeta Dutta’s first feature film, so I can let her off somewhat. She is a Bengali Indian who I believe now lives in London . Perhaps she didn’t know these subjects have a) been done to death on soap operas, films, books, you name it and b) no longer reflect the reality of the lives of British Asian or British people in the UK (who in fact are completely integrated with each other, inter-marrying happily and not stuck in cultural time warps.)
Why can’t one of these crossover filmmakers come up with something innovative and seminal to say than trashing about out the same old rubbish in the same old themes?
And Soha Alia Khan’s scenes when she was dancing around a tree were laughable.
The other film I saw at the festival, which I really enjoyed, was The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela. This Filipino movie by an Icelandic director was about a Filipino transsexual and her dreadful life in the Philippines. What I liked about this movies was it was about a subject few of us in Mumbai knew anything about; it covered the subject in a documentary investigative journalistic manner. Can you imagine how difficult it would be to win the confidence of a transsexual to do these interviews with?
The film was a series of interviews with the transssexual (or Ladyboy) and her family members as well as a fly-on-the-wall style piece trailing her walking the streets and taking part in a web cam business. . It showed the gritty horridness of life in the Phillipines, without trying to elevate it to something it is not. The film had no shame in portraying the trap these transsexuals are in. The title of the film refers to someone, a Queen Raquela, who had been born in a country as ancestor to a throne and then got lost and grew up in a slum in another country and always felt like she didn’t fit into slum life because somewhere else she had a kingdom. Well, the transsexual in this film also feels she deserves a better life. Finally she escapes to Iceland where she is forced to work in a fish factory and there the exploitation of foreign labour in Iceland is portrayed.
It is no surprise the flick has won three awards so far. When it ended, the Mumbai auditorium, which was packed, erupted into spontaneous applause. It would be nice to see more Indian and British filmmakers attempt something like this.
Anyway all is not lost as I went to see London Dreams last night and really liked it. For the first time ever a Bollywood film did not portray London biasedly (eg as an immoral place) but portrayed it for what it was: a multicultural city, of rich and poor, where, yes, in Soho there is a red light district but, otherwise it is a melting pot of people where an Indian rock band would be accepted by the public, as much as any other.
Of course, the scene when Ajay Devgan says “I want Wembley. I dream of Wembley” is OTT, cheesy, unrealistic and ridiculous and the second half of the film lacks direction and needs better editing.
Yes, the way the Punjab was presented was hysterical (country bumpkins bouncing around, consisting of women in red sequined saris and men in dhoti) – but this was funny – and done in a deliberate self-mocking manner, which was at the end of the day intelligent. (Everyone knows the Punjab isn’t like that. I’ve been to Chandigarh which is posher than Mumbai and even Gerrard’s Cross.) And in the end (if my Hindi was good enough to understand it) there was a great deal of warmth and fondness for the Punjab expressed. This film was in my view seminal. It elevated ways of presenting the west in Bollywood and also did not have some kind of superiority complex throughout it, as many Bollywood films do There was something fresh and global about it. Anyway my views may be all wrong as I watched it in Hindi. But I thought it was as good as Rang de Basanti and Fashion; and better than Rock On..It is on my list of top Bollywood films….Await your views…
(7 votes, average: 2.71 out of 5)
Loading ...Posted by Naomi Canton on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Filed under Mumbai · Tagged British Asian, British people, hindustan times, MAMI, Mumbai Film Festiva
If you really want to see a great Bollywood movie steer clear of the mainstream and try “Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi” by Sudhir Mishra. Its the greatest Bollywood movie in 2 decades and should be one of the greatest movie on its topic from anywhere. It has Shiney Ahuja, Kaykay Menon and Chitrangada Singh as the main leads and its mostly in English.
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Naomi Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Have you seen London Dreams? if you haven’t, please go and see it. It is truly groundbreaking and I would love to hear your views. In any case I need to discuss it with someone who speaks fluent Hindi as I’m not sure if I understood it fully. I think I did. Salma Khan plays a hammed up role as some bumpkin from a Punjab village. It’s really funny. Ajay Devgan is gorgeous and Asin plays a Bollywood heroine very well.
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Naomi Reply:
November 4th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
But thanks for the tip….where do I get it? On DVD. ..?Incidentally in the west Satyajit Ray is highly revered and the National Film Institute and Barbican are constantly holding film festivals and restrospectives about his work….Is he as respected in India?
Also on a separate note I was told that London Dreams is the complete reverse of Namastey London in that the latter was one of those films that romanticises life in the Punjab to extreme; and trashes London and English culture to the extreme. London Dreams is in a way the reverse of this - although it doesnt trash or romanticise either but it gives a realistic view of London (often focusing more on the positives) and slightly mocks the Punjab - but in a funny, hammed up way so you don’t take it seriously…..I haven’t seen Namastey London, but this is what I was told.
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Deb Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
Yes, Naomi. Ray is hugely respected in India, but by people who know his work and cinema in general. He is regarded by far the best, with Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak (among Bengali filmmakers) perhaps closely following. What I know Ray perhaps best for is (a) the authenticity he brought in, into period pieces as well as contemporary works, and (b) the technical finesse, even with the kind of instruments he was working with then.
For someone from Bengal (or knowing the Bangla language), Ray’s genius extends beyond filmmaking. He was a prolific writer of detective (Feluda) & mad scientist (Prof. Shanku) stories, besides other prose, and I believe also composed music. He also ran the Sandesh magazine for children, reputedly started by his father the admired satirist Sukumar Ray (son of 19th century litterateur Upendrakishore Roychowdhury) whose ‘Abol Tabol’ and other ‘nonsense’ genre prose & poetry are still enjoyed by the discerning.
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Ambuj Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Well….I could just go on and on about Ray….He is in fact the last fruit of the great Bengal renaissance which began with the British conquest of Bengal in the 18th century and the subsequent exposure of Indians to Western rationalist thought. He more than holds his own among such personalities as Rabindra Nath Tagore, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Satyendra Nath Bose et al.
You should be able to get Hazaron… at most DVD shop. Its a famous enough movie…
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suresh Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 8:22 am
How come Hazar………………. is a good Indian movie, its a nonsense movie about rich kids who are hell bent on bringing student movement of France and other countries to India. Point to note is that all these rich kids quickly left India for foreign locales when heat became unbearable. Any movie is a good movie as long as it has a good story to tell and does not meanders its way to the end with nonsensical songs…………..
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Ambuj Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
@suresh
Hazaron Khwaishen AIsi will qualify as an excellent movie by your own definition of a good movie. Firstly it hasn’t got any song and dance routine as found in mainstream Hindi movies and more importantly, its one of the very few Indian movies (barring Satyajit Ray’s movies) which have got a fresh and non-hackneyed plot.
The opinion with which you have expressed here shows your ignorance on 3 issues
1) The movie,
2) The May, 1968 French student movement and
3) The Marxist leaning student politics of JNU, new Delhi.
The movie isn’t at all about hypocritical rich kids spouting Leftist jargon to keep up appearences and look cool. Its about 3 people drawn from 3 of the most different backgrounds India has to offer. One, played by Kaykay Menon is from a rich elite family who has enough strength in his convictions to give up a life of roses which was his for taking to take up arms against Caste oppression in one of the most backward, feudal, medieval parts of India.
The girl played by Chitrangada is from a middle class south Indian family who’s drawn towards the firebrand Kaykay but could not break off so compltel from the limits her family and the society at large place on her to follow him.
The 3rd guy in the troika, played to perfection by Shiney Ahuja (who in my opinion succeeds in making the film his own), is from a lower middle class North Indian family. He’s very critical of idealists in any of their shades anywhere (his own father was a Gandhian Idealist). He wants to succeed within the system by hook or crook. He too has a love interest in the girl which isn’t returned.
All their lives are beautifully played out in the background of the imposition of emergency by Indira Gandhi which allows the film to make political statements without losing its human touch.
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Ambuj Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
FYI the french student movement of May 1968 was more of a reaction to conservative values like patriotism, respect for parental authority and religion than a Marxist movement to which one of the protagonists in the movie adheres.
Naomi Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Ambuj, I am shocked. This movie sounds AMAZING. Can I tell you, if India were to make movies like this on a regular basis, they would win Oscars every year and not have to suffer the humiliation of going overboard in hysteria about A R Rahman and Resul Pookutty get Oscars from what was, in fact an English movie, shot by an English director and English producer (namely Slumdog Millionaire) and watching India’s Oscar entries get rejected.
With the richness of culture, diversity of lifestyyles, juxtaposition of traditional and modern beliefs, jobs, ways of life, beautiful natural landscape here, India could be making so many amazing films like this that would make the world stand up in shock. There is SO much happening in India that is film-worthy….(more than there is in the US or the UK). Can you imaigine all the stories that emanate from little villages as well as the conflicts withing families and rich people in metros…and yet we get films like Dostana, which while funny, are completely made-up and don’t have any bearing on any thing happening in India right now at all (it doesn’t even have any bearing on the gay community and is complete fiction). I would love to see a film, for example, on call centre life - revealing all the goings on behind the scenee, the dating, the bullying, the boss culture etc..Now to be fair Anuvab Pal did attempt this in his play 1-800 India. I
I certainly like the sound of the film you describe as it sounds deep, reflects different ideological beliefs in India, and draws on history.
Naomi how ever you want to try to say that the first film in your blog is wrong it isn’t in it’s main theme, I quote the mother of one of the 7/7 bombers shortly after he was identified she was answering questions about his faith and upbringing, I will try to be as near to her words as possible, “After he left school he didn’t do much so we sent him HOME to Pakistan, to be educated properly” I think she herself was a first generation Pakistani. I think it was aimed not really at India and not Hindu’s because there is much more open dissent sown by mobs of Muslim youths in Yorkshire towns also in leicestershire, this is played down and often associated with the emergence of the ELD which is the English Defence League basically the armed wing of the BNP. But when these 20-30yr olds who are English and want to be are faced with racists telling them to go home to Pakistan and grandparents who are revered tell them that Pakistan is home. About two years ago we had 4-5 car loads of Asian/Pakistani/English youths from Nottingham I think who’s behaviour in their really nice souped up cars at home had led to a policing initiative that drove them in to Norfolk, and our area with its reputation was their target. The police sorted it after about 10 days of them driving round and round staring at people and shouting at teenagers. I can’t say I have ever seen groups of Hindu youths acting like this.
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viksdes Reply:
November 5th, 2009 at 9:53 am
Hi Mick
I have lived in London and now working in Mumbai. I am Asian Indian, I do agree that in the UK people from Asia who have long settled there are much more conservative than even folks back in India. It seems living away from their country they try to hold as tightly as possible to their own culture, often even blaming the culture of the country they chose to make home. Personally I feel UK is the worlds foremost multicultural society. Saying that I did get checked several times in London underground (I am a Hindu) since they thought I am a Pakistani.These things happen and they are for safety of people in general but to the person who goes through this , it really alientaes him with his/her country of living! Its a catch 22 really, I am sure UK will lead the way in making integration even deeper.
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Mick Reply:
November 5th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Viksdes Hi
It seems the only way to go because we are a small island but the worrying thing is the BNP leader making comments on the BBC question time programme that London is no long the capital of England because it is totally occupied by asylum seeking foreigners or illegal immigrants filling all the jobs (Menial ones that is) but any European capital is like this some much worse. The other worrying thing is the growth of the English Defence League the first pics of the first time these people appeared on the street they looked as if they had all been cast from the same mould but then squeezed slightly out of shape. This org appeared after a demonstration against some of our troops returning home from Iraq/Afghanistan by some radical Muslims holding up placards calling for the beheading of infidels and that these soldiers were murders of innocent Muslims. The Troops were marching through the county town of their regiment watched by families and friends when this mob of second and third generation English Muslims did this and all I can say is they were extremely lucky to get away alive the police had to protect them. Within 48hrs of this the EDL had announced it’s existence and association to the BNP. Who because they won seats in the Euro parliament have to be given air time by the BBC.
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viksdes Reply:
November 5th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Yes Mick we live in difficult times. As professionals in our domains we ( foreigners) can contribute a lot to UK , most professionals anywehre across the globe would perhaps aspire to work in NY or London or such world capitals. BNP or MNS (in Mumbai) defend locals which gets balance in society. Lots of class professionals may just get shunned away from the UK if they dont get fair treatment. Already work visas like HSMP are very hard to get from places like India. It should be this way for sure. My Indian friend got stabbed in Wembley and I too was once caught up by a black guy asking some money ( got away since I wasnt carrying my wallet). So my point is even we symptahise, but also not all of us are coming there to take away your jobs , some might just be opening new opportunities for the UK. Sorry to naomi I think we are diverging from your original topic.
Mick Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 1:04 am
Hi Viksdes
I don’t think Naomi minds if we deviate a bit, you see there is the problem in a multi cultural society you get multi cultural criminals, blacks tend to hit on any one as do some east European. You usually find out when the police have a huge raid against whatever racial group but it has to be done so carefully under our laws, but in a way I think both films portraying London are sort of right. But i can’t comment about the acting.
Naomi Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Hi, It would be great if you could watch London Dreams and then share your views on it with us.
As for jobs, I and most British people I know (apart from the lower class uneductaed ones) don’t have a problem with Indians or any immigrants working in the UK. The UK is already full of them anyway. It makes no difference to us and the UK is to me a multi cultural place, not a “white” place.
I am not there so I can’t comment on what Mick is talking about vis a vis the radical Muslims and the radical right …
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May i add some more to the above. Naomi very few of the people who the makers of the first film in your blog aimed at are not as intelligent or as critical as you, also given how long you have been away from England and for the time getting your job there so you have missed lots of things to complicated to go into here. But the inclusion of a Pakistani family in Eastenders and a Hindu shopkeeper/womaniser in Coronation St both soaps regularly top viewing figures so the govt has used this to show Pakistani families generally to be just like us, in fact I would say that the daughter in Eastenders is no more religious than Naomi it was just part of her up bringing, but she didn’t want to stay at home mum was to much. The Hindu shop keeper has as many shops as he has ex women who have had his children, each runs one of his shops he owns the shops but the business is the ex wife/woman’s to keep her and said kids, but one who was living with him but who has now gone to a London uni, she has a white boy friend and to all intents and purpose’s she is English in Everything. Now I know that lots of racist watch these shows so some of this goes in not the main stream BNP whose leaders main bodyguard is from Norwich Naomi. But the guy these people want on their side so some times it does appear just a little cringe making, but it is an attempt at helping integration that I think works, but this is England and integration should be our second name. When I traveled down to the Indian High commission in London by coach, going through the Mile End Rd both ways but4-5 hours apart was absolutely eye opening there were restaurants from just about every part of India Bangladesh and Pakistan, along side Chinese, Thai everywhere and there seemed to be the about normal ethnic mix I associate with London going to work and school it was 8.45ish. I came back at about 1.30ish, there along the Mile End Rd was a busy market the stalls appeared to be almost entirely Muslim of many nations. The restaurants and Asian shop had the odd dusty dark shop with old gold leaf signs saying ” Solly Goldberg Tailors” that told of other diaspora. To me this was just fine I couldn’t care less unfortunately the first waves of whatever people tend to ghettoize themselves bringing up their kids in this nice ghetto who quite likely inherit said parents house and have their kids who reach teenage and are English and want to be, but are under pressure from parents and so on. Whatever the reason the Asian population of English prisons is rapidly over taking the English west Indian blacks percentage wise and the vast majority are Muslim and the prison org and Home Office etc are worried ****less about radicalisation in prison. So if the film appears to portray a confused culture then it is a bit I think.
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I’ve look at the subject of the other film in your blog, and I couldn’t possibly comment!
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Naomi, I thought I saw you come into the auditorium to watch the ladyboy film but wasn’t sure. Anyway, there are quite a few Indian films and docus on transgenders. One you should try and watch is ‘Gulabi Aaina’ - http://www.solarispictures.com It’s fairly entertaining, especially if you get all the vernacular slang…. It has subtitles, btw. How’s our friend Zubair A?
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Naomi Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Wow, that’s useful to know. Shame such films are not being screened at the Mumbai Film Festival….if they were, I would be the first tin the queue to watch them..Zubair is fine…Bumped into him in a Bandra coffee shop last night. He’s busy with the PhD.
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Nitin Karani Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 1:51 am
yes, but such films are screened regularly at other venues, such as Bombay Dost’s Sunday High… Please see http://www.bombay-dost.pbworks.com
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Punjab is not merely Chandigarh
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Naomi Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Please see my response to Naren below…Also you may find the article pasted below that of interest…
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Maybe after I come back from the gym I WILL relate a story about an English trans sexual that in 1982 became the most wanted man in London so much so that this man was ordered to be shot on sight, and the police shot an innocent man by mistake on Dec 7th 1982 in full view of the pubilc at a set of traffic lights in central in broad daylight. All this man had done was to escape from prison.
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Visiting chandigarh and thinking that it represents the whole punjab is like looking at mumbai and imagining thats how the whole of india is.
I respect your attempts to know about india and its people but often your efforts just fall short. You talk to neo-rich, partying, drinking men in mumbai and think all indian men are like that, you see chandigarh and picture a posh state of punjab and so on and so forth.
Do yourself a favour, take out your dusty backpack and get moving. I think you need to check up with the travel editor of your publication(neha dara who incidentally writes the blog named “footloose” here in HT) maybe she can put you on her staff and you get paid to travel around the country.. now that will be real nice.. wont it
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Naomi Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Naren, while I in your view might be a typical westerner who “knows nothing about India” you are portraying yourself as a “typical Indian who doesn’t understand a western sense of humour.”
Of course Chnadigarh is not posher than Gerrard’s Cross in the UK. It was an exaggeration. Gerrards Cross is way posher than Chandigarh - Gerrad’s Cross is one of the most expensive and poshest places in the Uk. However Gerrards Cross could be in the UK what Chandigarh is in India - ie one of the poshest places in the country. Equally Chandiarh is a bit posher than Mumbai; same applies Gerrards Cross is a bit posher than Mumbai. But Gerrards Cross does not reflect the whole of the south east as Chandigarg doesnt reflect the whole of the Punjab. of course I know that. It was HUMOUR. In the UK we have rough council estates, poor neighbourhoods everywhere so no one place in the UK could ever represent the UK. You think I thought the villages portrayed in London Dreams were like Chandigarg? (You have seen the film?) No. Of course not. They were worlds apart. You don’t thini I have a dozen British asian friends that I grew up with in the Uk who spend hours telling me about their trips back to India and how they had to stay in mud huts in villages in the Punjab with no electricity and hated it…..(And I would then defend India as I was frequently travelling here and going to places like Mumbai and Delhi, which they were not, as they were forced to come here on two month vacations with their parents and only visit their relatives…and I would tell them how much I loved India and they would say to me : ‘Why don’t you visit Paris?’ and I woujld have to defend to my British Asian friends why I was coming to India on holiday.)
And, no thanks,. I don’t need to join Nera’s team or travel around the country at her or anyone’s expense. I have visited Kashmir, Ladakh, Rajasthan, Ahmedabad, Goa, Kerala, Delhi, Chennai. Pondicherry. Madurai. the Himalayas, Manali, Ive been to the Pushkar Camel fair , Ive hiked in the mountains, I have cycled and canooed in the backwaters and I was the first tourist ever to stay in the tribal village of Kohane. I think I have seen more of India than most expats and probably more than some Indians.
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Mick Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I thought that by now you would have had a handle on how you translate English everyday humour the sort of aside joke you would share with a shopkeeper or other person you came into contact with. I can see it is difficult from the reaction to some of the things I write here. I do try to make it understandable as humour and as a valid comment as you would here, but sometimes it seems to get lost in the translation. I can see an Indian affect on some of your written English but perhaps this is something that is to subtle, after all a sense of humour is formed as you grow therefore something almost impossible to change.
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Sharat Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:25 am
I think as long as the people who love your blogs are more than the number of people who hate or criticize your blog like Naren without any reason , you should not care and continue your good work.
I really like your blogs because you always present the true picture.
viksdes Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Well Said..There are people like Naren who will criticize everyone and everything that’s western … they somehow think it’s their moral right and their own complexes further egg them on. I am Indian and come across plenty of such narrow minded people in here. You keep writing about what you feel and see in Mumbai.
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Mick Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Hi Viksdes
One of the problems I have with the term “The West” is it a name for a group of countries or a philosophy. Because sometimes the West is mentioned and then a single country picked out as an example. Further down a comment by Chinz says he /she was overwhelmed by the number of Asian in England. All European countries have about the same mix, the most coming from ex colonial countries. As you may know we recently had a big campaign to let the ex Gurkka soldiers live here, which shows just how difficult it is to come and live, after all these people from Nepal quite prepared to die for this country couldn’t live here. So the govt was made to see sense.
But few commentators compare European countries, here’s a small example of the difference between cultures. Holland has a large Asian population who seen to live in dormitory towns and commute to the cities for the menial jobs. In Amsterdam last time there I went into an Indian restaurant which was dingy and seemed to employ almost every race but Indians, I was served by a half dutch half Indian waitress, who was rude and I had a Thali meal (think I spelt Thali right). Yesterday printed in my paper was a list of what is considered the 10 best Curry houses in England, The average price per head for a meal in 6 of these was just about the same as I paid for the Thali meal which was rubbish and small rubbish at that and then the fawning when the bill came was cut short by my comment that the last time i had had a Thali meal it had been on a square one in Varanasi things changed. But the attitude there is so much different to England, yes we do have nasty racists but they do seem to be a dieing dread. Got to go cause it’s a busy day for me
Naomi Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
The problem is that to many Indians I am just a “foreigner.” They view me as a tourist passing through India on a round-the-world trip or similar so they expect me to talk and write how a tourist does…..that is say that I enjoyed Dal Makhani, Ihow liked going on a horse and carriage ride round the Gateway of India; that I am here to do a sitar course and how I bought some punjabi suits in a shop last weekend…The problem is that being a tourist somewhere and living and working in a country and paying taxes are two different things. Moreoever I am not just working here, I am a journalist here, which means it is my duty or at least prerogative to look at Indian society critically, plus I am exposed to aspects of India that say someone working here as a diplomat or accountant would not be…. It is the very nature of my job that I have to visit slums and so on. Hence I cannot simply hold a rose-coloured view of India. To some Indians this is upsetting as they like the idea of the westerner coming here, having a magical experience or riding elephants and drinking chai and then leaving. Unfortunately I don’t fit that mould. I am beyond the stage of writing a travelogue about my trip to, say Rajasthan, owing to all these facts, and in any case this blog is about Mumbai. It is difficult to understand I know, because the concept of a foreigner living in India is still hardly understood…and Indians still prefer to think of us as just passing through….I think it was the same in the UK at one point as well. Anyway that is not to say there are many aspects of India I like a lot - it’s just that they have evolved and changed from what they were when I came here as a backpacker..(and from what a tourist finds and says….).And of course most of mu current impressions come from Mumbai as that is where I am based and work, which does not reflect Indian society at large.
May the debates long continue
Mick Reply:
November 7th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
A little something you may have overlooked in the above reply Babe is that you, yourself have/has evolved so you have had a chance to workout all the things that puzzled you about India little everyday things, I bet there are numerous times a little voice has said “That’s why they do that” just some small thing. You have been able to do that by living there, me I had to plough through as many travel books about peoples journey’s there as I could find so sometimes 10-15yrs went by and then that little voice popped up and one more part of the Indian jigsaw fell into place. But I think I wouldn’t be far wrong in saying that if the span of human life was twice as long it wouldn’t help.
Right I know that the “Ladyboy” culture in The Philippines and Thai is about sex as much as about wishing to change sexual identity and simply being someone who thinks they are the wrong sex in the wrong body must be tough. These people quite often find themselves on the wrong end of the law usually for ripping of sex punters. But not all ways the person in this story was a robber of banks and things like that. Well he got caught and was looking at doing a long sentence. Surprisingly these people are treated OK in English prison mainly cause by the time they have got there they have had to be hard. Well the police shot an innocent women I think it was in a car without any warning mistaking her for this guy. This was the day i flew to Sri Lanka from Heathrow and just caught it on the news before i left for the airport. I kept up with it as best i could in English language papers but as will all things like this in England there follows an inquiry, this goes on for a long time and quite often if the news from these sort of inquiries is bad then they are held back until something has grabbed the headlines. I think the police said they had information that this escaped convict was armed and going to carry out another robbery. Many apologies to the shot women who had been hit many times but NO real reason for the shoot on sight business. This wasn’t made public for around about 12-15yrs later when his cellmate at this time was released and went to the Guardian paper with the truth. Also the news that the transvestite had killed himself shortly after being sentenced to a very long sentence and restrictions put on him in prison because of his escape and method of escape.
This man is the only known person to have taken a lock out of a door in an English prison and made an impression of the inside of this lock and smuggled the impression out and had a key made to escape with. Don’t sound much does it but it is quite probable that he was killed by warders who made it look like suicide for doing this because it was done over a long period of time with him taking the same lock out and putting it back. It was a lock that was on all connecting doors in ALL prisons in England, Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland. The door he removed it from was in full view of warders if they looked up not only was this transsexual very brave he was also extremely clever. His cell mate had been his lookout and had to be in on it. i think he turned down the chance to escape when this guy let himself into a part of the prison he could get out of and get over the wall. So you must never underestimate people like this the way they live makes them strong, but i suppose the explotation was the story. One final thing that this guys escape cause was the changing of all these locks in every prison in the British Isles.
Then there was a chef I knew who didn’t turn up for work one day, why not well his wife found him dead having strangled himself will getting off dress in his wife’s underwear. There’s just no rhyme or reason all normal people can do is be understanding I think anyway, but a film of one persons struggle is sometimes difficult to see as all of these peoples struggle cause sometimes it’s just a way of making money.
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Oh I forgot somewhere on youtube about a month ago there’s footage of two guys going home from clubbing dress as women who are attacked by some gay hating drunk yobs. Well what these two guys were was Mixed marshal Arts cage fighters and these skinheads for want of a better word really did get a suprise and they were quite badly hurt but I think the police said ” So what, we didn’t see anything” so these sort of nasty people who prey on what they of a vunerable targets do get their come uppence don’t they.
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Really good article. Bang on. You keep writing and I’ll keep reading.
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http://www.hindustantimes.com/Politics-of-popcorn/H1-Article1-473126.aspx
Please check out the above link. It is a superbly written article by Soumitro Das in today’s Hindustan Times main paper on the comment page page 10. It explains exactly what I was trying to say - in a far more articulate manner. I am also pasting it below:
There are two reasons why Karan Johar apologised last month to Raj Thackeray after Maharashtra Navnirman Sena members forcibly stopped the screening of Johar’s new film, Wake Up Sid: 1) A lot of money was involved in the movie, 2) It doesn’t really matter in aesthetic terms or in terms of value or belief systems whether people say Mumbai or Bombay. A Bollywood film is artistically meaningless. Which is why I am always surprised when I hear someone calling a Bollywood film ‘good’ or ‘bad’. They are neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad’. The limited sense of beauty that a Bollywood film might convey comes from the physical beauty of the actors and the ‘beauty’ of the sentiments expressed in the film.
There is no such thing as the beauty of the image or of the narrative in the Bollywood trope. They are about defending Indian culture, or, to be more precise, upper caste Punjabi Hindu culture taken as representing Indian culture as a whole. They are about defending arranged marriage, correctly understood as the fulcrum or foundation of the value systems and the belief systems that make up the Hindu world. They are, ultimately, about defending caste society, even though — and that is the wonder of it — the word ‘caste’ never finds any mention in Bollywood films.
The enemy is sexual freedom, especially for women. If a woman is free to choose anyone she likes as a sexual partner or husband, it is possible that she might choose a Dalit or a Muslim. Sexual freedom for women in Bollywood films is the purveyor of anarchy. Also, the enemy is the West that is the source of the sexual emancipation of women.
So, to rephrase our basic proposition: Bollywood films are about defending the institution of arranged marriage against westernised sexual freedom. To take it a little further, it is about defending caste society against the values of freedom and equality that come to us from the West. It is about defending the indefensible.
If you ask a Bollywood filmmaker whether this is actually what he is defending, he will be surprised. He believes that the values he is defending in his film are universal — love, family, country, religion… The word ‘caste’ would never cross his mind. Then how do we say that Bollywood films defend caste society?
The arranged marriage or marriage with parental sanction is an institution that supports, that takes the load of caste society through absolute parental authority when it comes to marriage or any other kind of relationship with the opposite sex. This parental authority is taken for granted in Bollywood films. There is no need to even explain it. The world of Bollywood cinema is so cleansed of caste and religion that one is almost tempted to believe that one is dealing with a bunch of ultra-liberals for whom caste and religion do not define the human personality. But the real reason for this absence is that women must not make the wrong sexual choice that could lead to the collapse of society as we know it. So, the world of Bollywood cinema is shown to be a ‘natural’ world, where upper caste Punjabi men are linked up with upper caste Punjabi women without the problematic obstacle of caste ever coming in the way of their union. Whereas, in reality, especially for the middle-class, caste is an overriding factor in marriage in particular and sexual relations in general.
Even if the West is the ‘enemy’, it is never designated as such. This is partly because Bollywood films work in an implicit way, taking things for granted that explicitly stated would sound absurd. Besides, the West cannot be totally rejected, unless one wants to live in a fundamentalist society. The West is fabulously wealthy, powerful and culturally mighty. This last proposition is the one that is most consistently challenged in Bollywood films.
There are two aspects to Bollywood films’ response to the West. A certain degree of freedom of social intercourse between boys and girls, such as that which takes place in colleges, has to be accepted. But having granted this limited freedom of social interaction, this is brought under an intense scrutiny in order to drain it of all sexual content. In any confrontation between Indian social values (read upper caste Punjabi Hindu values) and Western values, it is the former that invariably triumphs.
If you put the question in so many words: how is an arranged marriage with full parental and social sanction — therefore, suppressing the individual to a lesser or greater extent, and affirming conformity with all existing social hierarchy a superiority to love — it is one to which Bollywood films have no rational answer. Western values are immoral and bring misery whereas Indian values bring happiness and social cohesion. The manner in which this proposition is affirmed would be the equivalent of judging the entire edifice of Hindu thought through the narrow prism of the institution of sati. It is impossible for Bollywood filmmakers to shake off the suspicion that there is an organic link between Western values and Western achievements, just as there is a connection between Indian values and Indian under-achievement. So Hindi filmmakers have to constantly ask themselves: to what extent is westernisation safe?
Bollywood cinema ultimately deals in fantasies, in wish-fulfilment. And the wish that it wants fulfilled is one of wealth, power, sexual pleasure and, above all, cultural harmony. The questions to ask about a Bollywood film are not whether they are aesthetically good or bad, but how effective they are socially and politically. Do they add strength to caste society and its institutions? Or do they promote sexual freedom and social anarchy? Artistically, Bollywood films are meaningless.
Soumitro Das is a Kolkata-based writer. The views expressed by the author are personal.
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Deb Reply:
November 6th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
It was not always so. If you delve into how Amitabh Bachchan came to be known as the Angry Young Man, you may find that many of his films showed rebellion against set structure, be they feudal, rich-poor, caste, city vs. village, or any other. This trend in Indian movies continued probably till mid 80s, after which it seemed lose steam. And after a few years of directionless cinema, the Indian ‘new cinema’ (not to be confused with the Art Cinema movement of 70s & 80s) emerged.
And this ‘new cinema’ has been insidiously propagating the kind of values which Soumitro comments on so succintly. The earlier ones in this genre like Maine Pyar Kiya (and a few later ones like Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum) showed a ‘little bit’ of rebellion, usually of the rich-poor variety - but left alone the caste/sex rebellion angle. From the early to mid-90s, the Indian mainstream commercial cinema has switched wholly to this sugary treatment of issues, glossing over ‘real’ issues to show only the glossy icing. Watching most Indian movies these days, you’d think that even issues of money (which are STILL an issue with the majority of population, unfortunately), which many a times inspired the original Angry Young Man characters on screen, simply do not exist.
The trends highlighted by Soumitro are part of a larger trend of Indian cinema (except for some boutique productions featuring small time actors) just moving away from the real issues at hand, doling out gloss (’opium of the masses’, with due apology to Marx) in an effort to make the viewers just ‘feel good’ for some moments and not be forced to think of the real issues while in the darkness of the cinema hall/multiplex.
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Mick Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
I think I agree with what you say there Naomi, but as a “Westener” who can’t understand a word of it, it is a spectacle, the colour, the clean Indians don’t take that wrong the dance that often goes with some of the best music I have ever heard. Looked at from that point of view it wouldn’t matter if the dialogue was written by Marx himself. Perhaps things have changed or perhaps you are being just a tad too critical but when I was there if you wanted a word to sum up Indian films and this was before Bollywood as a name for it was invent that would have been ESCAPISM. I think the queues were the proof of that.
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Nik Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Naomi, I don’t think you or your Bengali communist friend understand that Indians DON’T want western values or ways of life. We have seen how your so-called ‘culture’ works. The result of it is the loss of family structure, support and teenage pregnancy. The west is in decline because of the extremely liberal cultural movement that is currently engulfing it. I think you should really lay off the whole enlightened-white-woman educating the ignorant Indian masses thing. It may fly with the statistical outliers that post in support of you, but most of India probably finds your ideas and values somewhat repulsive.
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Sharat Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 6:09 am
May I ask “Nik”, why have you put your comments using a “Western” name. I don’t understand, if you are so Indian, then why did n’t you use your original name (Nikhil I suppose or something else). The points mentioned in the blog are true. It is bound to happen with a country who was suppressed for decades then started growing vigorously and having people of diverse culture and opinion. I think our country has most number of hypocrites who like to accept a foreign “stuff” which suits them and criticise others.
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Nik Reply:
November 19th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Yes that is my name. I live in the United States, was born here and interact with Western people on a daily basis. I don’t think you really understand how MOST western people live. They talk a big game but have very few morals, don’t care about their families and have sex like its a hobby. Now there is probably 30-40 percent of western society that is well balanced and lives by the values they preach, but most do not.
I do not understand what you mean by Indians are hypocrites when it comes to foreign stuff. If you mean that we accept technology and use it from western sources but not cultural ideas that is ridiculous. The free flow of ideas has been around since ancient times and India has contributed greatly to this.
Surely India requires a lot of work, but Naomi and other female western leftists think that progress in India will come from women having a lot of sex with whoever they want. Real progress in India will come when women are educated and given opportunities in the workplace and home life and this is already happening, albeit at a slow pace. I hope that India never adopts the bad parts of Western culture.
So bollywood is doing the opposite of what the Asian family parts in soap opera’s here is doing. it’s keeping values alive that are holding India back globally. It does this subliminally in the way it presents it’s self?
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Hi naomi
I have been reading ur blogs for quite sometime and m surprised that u have made quite an effort to understand what india is all about..and i saw the list of places u visited in ur comment above..i m 100% sure there r many indians who havent visited india as much as u have!
regd western society Vs Indian Society..I am quite a livin example..coz i was born in south india..but brought up completely in north india (they r almst like 2 diffrnt countries! :D) have lived a mjor portion of my life in africa and then in london for few yrs.
My experience in africa was great..but comin to london..i was amazed at the tolerance that the natives have shown for people from other countries coming & settling in there! london is full of asians..and still i havent seen any much resentment from the native english ppl..which amazed me..coz honestly speakin..if there r as many westerners coming n settling n working here..i m sure indians wud have thrown a major fit! for this reason, i have major respect for UK! i dont knw abt other ppl..but i have travelled far n wide in entire UK and i did not exprnc a single incident of racism!
as for the movie..i havent seen london dreams but do plan to..but yeah lemme talk abt namaste london..i saw this movie when i was in UK..and i found it to be the most convulted picture that one could have painted abt west..and i actually had an argument with frnds that this is not true and what is this holier than thou picture that india tries to show in its movies! as if they r all good and west stands for everything immoral! i feel sad that might b many indians who would actually b blving such movies n thinking thats what west is abt! since my return..i have been questioned so many times by ppl here in india..that isnt west too corrupt n arent all blacks scary n isnt africa all abt dirty ppl/sickness /poverty! my answer is a strong NO!
its sad that ppl who do not get to go c these countries have such an image …thanks to bollywood! i wait to c indian cinema grow up and show facts as it is!
as for me..i wud simply say i totally loved the open hearted nature that london has..i wud vouch that its the most multi cultured society over there!
also..for ppl who go work there , make money and ***** abt racism n other issues and still continue to stay there n work n make some more money..i find it a case of double standards!
Also..i liked the article by soumitro das which u pasted in the comments section!
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crisisofid Reply:
November 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
This problem exists even with Hollywood. Just like whole western society is not immoral similarly no one in India eat monkey (from Indiana Jones). These are just movies made to make money. Do not expect more out of it and get over it.
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Naomi Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
I’m not a big fan of Hollywood, either. Did I say I was?
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Naomi you should watch the carry-on series,monty python movies,or lil britain just in case you feel homesick or get bugged in bandra.they are pretty funny I reckon,and best of all you would be able to understand and comprehend them.
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Hrithik
I doubt if Naomi would find Little Britain funny, it is an example of how far the latest bunch of so called comedians would go with innuendo or plain filth sorry I’m broadminded but seriously it is sick. Nothing wrong with gays at all but Little Britain is ****. She grew up with the other two and probably doesn’t find them funny either. Monty Python is so dated and unfunny now as to be cringe making. The problem with the comedians of today when they have become unfunny they reinvent themselves as something else in the public eye. Then we have to put up with them appearing over and over. the latest is Steven Fry those twitters amongst you will know all about that piece of poo.
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hrithik Reply:
November 9th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
yes I beleive I have seen stephen fry,he was one of the speakers on the bbc intelligence squared debate along with christopher hitchens arguing about the catholic church and the good it does around the world,they both spoke fabulously.
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Mick Reply:
November 10th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Have you seen Stephen Fry as a presenter of a programme about a journey across America in a London taxis, or a Lighthearted political quiz show, or how about a sort of detective come country bumpkin set in rural Norfolk and while he was filming that we had him driving around Norwich in a car beyond the reach of the average person and would you believe he was grinning at anybody who looked at him. This is the fault of the cult of personality that the plethora of television channels has produced. We had a problem earlier this year with a couple of presenters who had gotten above themselves and were using television to be really rather rude to another actor. They were censored one stayed with the BBC the other flounced off to another channel. I expect the good that the catholic church does that they where arguing about is putting right the harm that their policy on birth control does to the world.
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Naomi,
Seriously, can you please spell out exactly what do you expect in a film as viewer and as a journalist? I have read Soumitro Das’s article in the paper itself. Since I can not talk to him and ask him the same question, so I am asking you with hope you will respond.
I will keep visiting your blog!
KJSS
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Well the Indian film industry is phenomenally large and not restricted to the Bollywood movies, but brand bollywood has been trying to hijack the rights to represent Indian films.
We have an incredible variety of films as an independent country, and in numerous languages. Once upon a time, Bollywood was pure masala, and the touch of class came from regional contributors from Bengal, Kerala, Tamilnadu, or Marathi industries.
Of late, the art / parallel / multiplex / mass genre of movies are merging and there is a good synergy in the Hindi film industry. The last decade or so has thrown up some of my personal favorites amongst Hindi movies such as Rang De Basanti, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Omkaara, Gangajaal, Kaminey, Swades, Chak De India, Page 3, Lagaan, Sarfarosh, Dil Chahta Hai, Mr & Mrs. Iyer.
Though you, and most readers may be aware of the movies made by Ray (which I honestly considered them a little slow and boring, but it is scandalous to say that!), there is much more to our repertoire than Bengali film makers.
I thought I would name some key contributors based on my personal opinion. It is by no means exhaustive, but its just a collection of movie makers whose works I have admired:
Film makers with a social impact: Guru Dutt, V. Shantaram, Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand.
Parallel cinema of 70s, 80s: Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Amrish Puri, Smita Patil, Shabana Azmi
Regional film makers / actors: Bengali: Aparna Sen, Mrinal Sen. Tamil: Kamal Hassan, K. Balachander, Mani Ratnam, Telugu: K. Viswanath, Ram Gopal Verma (if you hate the sight of him now, watch his first ever movie: Shiva).Malayalam: Adoor Gopalakrishnan, M.T Vasudevan Nair, Mamootty, Mohan lal. Kannada: Girish Karnad, Girish Kasaravalli.
Light hearted mainstream Hindi movie makers: Hrishikeh Mukherjee, Amol Palekar, Basu Bhattacharya.
Google the names above and see if you can get your hands on some incredible movies they have made! Trust me, its worth the effort!
But I also see areas where our films are collectively lagging behind an international benchmark:
1.Stereotyping communities / cultures / religions: Apart from what Noemi mentioned above, look at any bollywood movie of the past and how a Bengali or a Tamilian would be portrayed. Muslims were always portrayed as do gooders, and in South Indian movies all North Indians were loud, pompous and stupid. Now that some of the old clichés are dying, new clichés are emerging, and that is of bashing the west. Watch out for how Europeans / Brits / Americans / Aussies are portrayed in Chak De India, Lagaan, Kal Ho a Ho, And oh yeah according to the Johars, Chopras, and SRKs of the world all of India is a beautiful village in Punjab. We are far away from being culturally sensitive and understanding of other cultures in our movies
2.Originality: If I go to any city mall, pick up a nice Italian / French / Japanese / German movie with subtitles, I feel a sense of Déjà vu: which Indian movies have I seen the same scene in before? A huge percent of our successful movies over last many decades have been lifted without any credits from movies which the bulk of India would not have watched. We have perfected the art of smart copying! The first step would be to rename Bollywood, Kollywood, Tollywood as Hindi, Tamil, Telugu cinema industries….come on guys, show some originality!
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Sorry, point 3 got cut! Well researched and hard hitting movies on our modern history / wars / politics: There have been very few good films attempted to be made in this genre, fewer still make it beyond the censors, fewer still hit the mainstream cinemas, and fewer still are popular hits. If the Germans can make WWII, Communist regime movies, Americans can watch Vietnam war movies, and Japanese can make WWII movies, why cant we watch good movies on our wars with Pakistan & China (the only good Indian war movie I enjoyed is Lakshya, and it was a huge flop and panend by critics), the unification of our states by Sardar Patel, the emergency imposition, operation blue star and aftermath, Babri masjid and Mumbai riots (Bombay was a rare good movie on this topic), Insurgency in the north east, Maoism and naxal issues (I watched a film called Akrosh made in 1980, by Govind Nihalani, it is an incredible portrayal of this topic, and is as relevant today, but I don’t know too many Indians who have watched this film), Godhra, Terrorism, Sri Lankan conflict etc. I mean there is no shortage of topics! The challenge is the heavy political censorship. It’s a shame that the proposed film on Nehru – Edwina Mountbatten affair had to be shelved. As long as Congress is in power, we will never watch an unbiased movie on the Nehru - Gandhi family, and as long as the BJP is a strong opposition party, we will never see a well balanced film on the Godhra riots. This is such a collective shame!
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Naomi Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
Hey, I really liked your points. They really contributed to the discussion. Many thanks.
The problem today is that some Indian filmmakers don’t seem to care at all about what they make: it is just a money making machine, hence artistic quality is lost. Some don’t even bother having a script, and make the scipt up as they are shooting. Several of them haven’t got the inclination to research Indian politics/history and make meaningful cinema as you suggest..They probably are not even personally interested in it..For them, it is mere glamour being in the industry and if they can make money by fooling a load of people to watch their films (via marketing), then they will.I think there must be a lot of young talent out there that does have the inclination to make such films, but they are probably being held back by the ‘closed doors’ of the industry. Since this industry is pretty much monopolised by a few players.
One way to help the situation would be if the Indian Governemnt appointed a minister in charge of say ‘the arts’ and the Government offered grants to talented Indian directors and scriptwriters for example to make their own films - and these films were guaranteed to be screend in multiplexes (some deal could be struck with distributors…) Of course, the films would have to be good and a panel of judges could be set up to judge that. But it would be great if somehow we could harness the talent and energy of young creative Indians , especially intelligent ones, and get them to make a new set of films on India, that relfect India and make moving cinema, that could be entered into the Oscars. This could then (in say 20 years time) be described as “new wave Bollywood cinema) and referred to in history books as a cinematic revolution.
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Hmmm the picture is not as bleak as you perceive. Of late Bollywood has started some movies that are commercially successful and also of the highest artistic benchmark. This is something the Southern, Bengali, and Marathi films have been doing for decades. So the problem is not in the dearth of film makers / actors / technicians (even in Bollywood mainstream it is heartening to note the success of Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj, Rahul Bose, Konkona Sen etc just to take a few names). The problem is an attempt by some camps such as SRK - Karan Johan - Chopra, or Abhi - Ash, to sort of hijack the centre stage and claim that we truly represent Indian film industry. I am sorry, but Ash is a lousy actress, and I would rather be proud if Konkona Sen represents India at Cannes. But it’s the glamour, the corporate sponsorship (e.g. L’Oreal), and the family name that counts in the industry!
A government controlled body as you said is irrelevant to me. If: 1 The audiences in the country mature enough to make a film like “A Wednesday” bigger hits than Garama Masala or Dostaana, or Rab ne bana di jodi, and 2. The Government has a censorship policy that is dated 2009 and not 1809, than there are enough movie makers that can give you the most incredible socio cultural / political films anywhere in the world. I see 1 happening already, but we have along way to go, and as far as 2 is concerned, it would take a few decades at least!
And things are changing. Watch this news clip on how the Southern film industry is joining forces to demand an equal status with Bollywood to represent India: http://movies.ndtv.com/video.aspx?id=nn1174401f
When some of these changes kick in, a supremely talented, but commercial slave like SRK would be forced to make more of Swades, Chak De, and less of his K movies.
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Vasu Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
P.S. Its incredile to see the variety and quality of flms mentoned by some other people in this blog. I have’nt seen all of them, but its nice to know so many people attempt to make and watch such films. But this is an online wolrd where you find mostly well to do and educated people. The masses are also intelligent enough to appreciate a good movie, but such movies hardly make it beyond the film festivals and multiplexes. And for a large section of the poor, bollywood is a huge escapaism from the reality, and I think that is somewhat right, as long as we dont consider these escapist movies to be the sole representatives of Indian films.
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Mick Reply:
November 15th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Hi Vasu
No I didn’t mean all Bollywood but that very name conjures up escapism to me, 30yrs ago perhaps the average uneducated people who needed it, they looked like rickshaw peddlers etc, and really I think that’s what I would want in that position. For sure there must be more better educated people today, looking for ideas putting ideas on film, the size of the film industry means there must be a place for more thought provoking.
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Well Mick, things are changing across Indian films industries for the better.
I’ve listed just a small personal list of thought provoking movies made recently. There are many more that I have’nt seen, and probably you have’nt seen as well.
The mainstream media tends to play a huge emphasis to the escapist pop corn movies vis a vis some of the better movies we have…that’s primairly becuase its easy and shallow journalism, and also because of the corporate tie ups. (A Dharma productions or UTV would have tie ups with HT, or TOI, or NDTV). While a media strategy is not a bad thing in itself, and some of these films are entertaining, many are neither entertaining nor culturally sensitive
If we look beyond, there are enough rich films that would make the cut at any international level.
Cheers!
Vasu
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