Asia Times: Britain wakes up to Indian cinema


	January 06, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Britain wakes up to Indian cinema
By Sanjay Suri

LONDON - It was more than a matter of wax when Indian film star Amitabh Bachchan unveiled a figure of himself at Madame Tussaud's in London earlier this month. It was another step on Indian cinema's journey into Britain.

"This is a tribute not just to me, but to Indian cinema," Bachchan said. It wasn't just the star waxing eloquent; the larger story has begun to speak for itself.

India produces more than two films every day on average, and that's too much to keep to itself forever. Many of the films are made in the south, but popular cinema comes from the western Indian city of Mumbai, or Bollywood as it is called in a light, if not entirely respectful, reference to Hollywood.

The cinema has been prime entertainment for a billion people in India and hundreds of millions more in South Asia, West Asia and Africa for generations. It is the cinema of fantasy - what it projects is your likely romantic dream. Boy meets girl, good beats evil, tradition overrides change, love finds marriage - and money. And now those fantasies are being shown in Britain.

Britain woke up to Bollywood when the film Dil Se broke records to make it to the top in Britain three years ago. Now Mohabbatein, starring Bachchan, is in Britain's top 10.

Another Indian film, Taal, which made it into Britain's top 10, raked in a quarter of a million pounds in the first week of its release in 24 cinemas across Britain. That success is riding the new wealth of the 2 million South Asians living in Britain. The days of watching videos at home are long gone. Cinema is somewhere to go to in that dressy dress.

White British people aren't queuing for Bollywood tickets yet, but there could be few in Britain now who have not heard of Bollywood. And some Indians at least are optimistic that Bollywood can do to the Royal Shakespeare Company what chicken tikka masala did to fish and chips.

The immigrant market is big enough in itself to have got the status of a separate distribution zone. "It's the conversion factor," Yash Chopra, one of the biggest producers of Bollywood films told IPS in London. "What a distributor gets per ticket in the foreign market is much more than what you get for a ticket in India." A ticket sells for eight pounds at present, which converts to 550 or so rupees. That could be worth a hundred tickets in India.

"It means money in foreign currency available for shooting here, and it means earnings in foreign exchange for stars, and everyone wants that," Harish Patel, who assists Bollywood producers in Britain, told IPS.

That kind of success is building Britain up as almost an alternative locale for Bollywood. Laxmi Mittal, Britain's richest Asian, and the Hindujas, the second richest, turned up for the launch of the film Yaadein near London's Tower Bridge. So did Britain's Minister for Europe Keith Vaz, who is of Indian origin. With that kind of support these become films to watch out for, even if they do not ever become watchable films.

The audience is Asian but the impact of these films goes beyond the Asian circuit. The British Tourist Authority is sending teams to convince producers to shoot their films in Britain - it's a business bringing in money that Britain needs.

Earlier this summer Plas Newydd, the 18th century estate of the Marquess of Anglesey in North Wales, was turned into a film set for the New Punjab Tours Company which brought four stars and 30 technicians for a Bollywood shoot. Several Indian films are being made in Scotland now. Such is the new rush to Britain that by some estimates more than 1,000 Indian stars and technicians will have visited Britain by the end of this year. With them will come also jobs for British film technicians.

It just might become the case that Bollywood comes to the rescue of a British film industry overwhelmed by the sheer size of Hollywood and the withdrawal of some big budget Hollywood projects. Among the projects Britain has lost are the two sequels to Star Wars and Mission Impossible.

Even the Indian equivalent of the Oscar awards was held earlier this year at the Millennium Dome in London.

And now exhibiting films is big business too. A 30-screen multiplex Warner Village complex opened in Birmingham in July with six of its screens reserved exclusively for Indian films. The cinema complex in Feltham in west London reserves four halls for Indian films daily.

Indian stars are shining in Britain. Few believe that the mainstream British filmgoer will ever take to Indian films. But the few may, in the long, be right. Andrew Lloyd Weber, the most successful man by far in the world of British theater, has teamed up with Indian music composer A R Rahman to compose a West End musical. Anything could come next.

(Inter Press Service)