Less bump and grind in Indian
cinema By Keya Acharya
BANGALORE - The voluptuous heroine playing
a coy hide-and-seek game of love around a tree in
Indian cinema has produced derisive scoffs from
Western audiences and sophisticated film buffs at
home and abroad.
But equally, the
bump-and-grind routines accompanied by catchy
tunes have fascinated a host of foreigners, from
leaders like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser to
ordinary Arabs, Malays and non-Asians. The
southern movie idol, Rajnikant, known for his
impossible stunts and dialogue
deliveries in the Tamil language, has a fan
following in, of all places, Japan.
But
India's celebrated director, Shimit Amin, believes
Indian audiences are ready for change. He blames
Indians, specifically affluent expatriates and
those of Indian origin who reside all over the
world, for stifling the industry's creativity.
"Non-resident Indians are the worst
audience for Indian cinema," says Amin, director
of the film Chake de! India. "They want
Indian cinema to look as it was when they left;
they encourage the garish part of our industry.
Meanwhile, the rest of India has grown and wants
change," he said.
Chake de! India
is about the members of an all-women's field
hockey team pulling themselves together from
grassroots scratch to international success under
the motivation of their coach played by Indian
superstar Shahrukh Khan.
The film, which
has none of Indian cinema's usually loud and
mawkish song-and-dance numbers and features 90
Australian players and over 9,000 Australian
extras, unexpectedly won an Australian Best Film
award at Sydney in October 2007.
International awards are unusual for
Indian films because, despite being produced by
the world's most prolific movie industry, they are
generally not taken seriously by international
film juries.
But India's new crop of film
directors are "different". Young, talented,
passionate and committed, resembling unsung
writers instead of wealthy "filmies", money has
not been their motivating force.
"I don't
own a car, I don't own a house," says Anurag
Kashyap, director of more banned than screened
films, including the banned Black Friday,
on the Mumbai terror bomb blasts of 1993. "But I
own the largest personal library in the country,"
he says.
Indian television, on the other
hand, has more money in its hands than it knows
what to do with. With 463 different channels, many
with collaboration from foreign television
channels, India's TV industry, in its bid to
compete with each other, is sometimes sensational,
outrageous, flauntingly rich.
"Don't worry
about the money at first," Rohit Jaisingh Vaid,
chief creative officer of Contiloe Pictures which
produces popular national television serials, told
an audience of media students from the
Bangalore-based Convergence Institute of Media,
Management and Information Technology (COMMIT).
"It will come in truckloads in time; you
won't know how to spend it. We have, you won't
believe it, over 300,000 vacancies in the
television industry today, and we're able to fill
just 30,000 of these currently," Vaid told Inter
Press Service (IPS).
But while Indian TV
seems to compete within itself by sensationalism,
Indian cinema is curiously turning closer to
reality. "People living their lives and making
movies on them is now a part of Indian cinema,"
says Amin. "There is a sizeable segment of Indian
society that is snobbish about the garishness of
Indian cinema, but will go to see a good movie if
we can give it to them."
Anurag Kashyap's
films seem to get banned for dealing honestly with
sensitive current issues in India, driving India's
Censor Board into nervous tizzies and the young
director into debt. "I have almost cleared my
debts," Kashyap told IPS. "I write scripts for
regular movies and charge a 'packet' for them," he
grins.
Kashyap, a zoology graduate whose
latest film Hanuman Returns is an
intelligent animated feature on the Hindu mythical
monkey god which also deals with global warming,
told IPS that Indian cinema has "absolutely no
idea" about environmental awareness.
But
nevertheless, Kashyap, like Amin, believes that
realistic and well-made Indian cinema holds great
potential. "We're moving into a golden period," he
says. "There is now a space in India for art-house
theaters to come up. These need to be tax-free
with government incentives for encouraging
audiences."
"We are gods in waiting,"
Rohit Vaid told the COMMIT students in Bangalore.
"Just step out with that belief and it will work."
Amin though, had a parting shot: "If you think you
can become a superstar, it's terrifically
impossible."
Meanwhile, it's debatable
whether Egyptian, Arab and Asian audiences will
take to the new incarnation of Indian cinema.
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