Saturday 22 August 2009

Bollywood

Why? How?

Someone please explain to me what it is that makes an industry structured around the core tenets of poor acting and embarrassingly cheesy choreography so popular?

No, in fact don’t bother, here comes my own Kangaroo court on the matter.

You honour the case for the prosecution……

Exhibit A:
Funding.
Until quite recently, Indian banks were forbidden to lend money to finance movie productions. From a monetary viewpoint the industry is exceptionally lightly regulated and this has historically allowed for funding to be received from questionable sources. Even during this millenium the Central Bureau of Investigation, India's national police agency, seized all prints of the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke after the movie was seen to be funded by members of the Mumbai underworld.

Mumbai gangsters have produced films, patronized stars, and used muscle to get their way in cinematic deals.

In January of 2000, Mumbai mafia hitmen shot at Rakesh Roshan, film director and father of top star Hrithik Roshan. Roshan Snr had stood up to underworld involvement in the distribution of his films and of course the “Goondas” and moneymen didn’t like that.

To go clean you go abroad. Anil Ambani’s Reliance Big Entertainment recently announced a $825-million deal with Spielbergs LA-based production house “Dreamworks” to make six films a year for global audiences.

I fancy the chances of them being almost watchable.

Exhibit B
Piracy

Bollywood has a huge piracy problem. Then again, this is a country where respect for another persons property is often revealed to be an alien concept.

Even though a film seen may seen by over 500 million people, it could still quite easily return a loss. If everyone paid to see the film legally the industry would consistently make serious profits, but that’s not going to happen as any entrepreneurial pirate would quote simply slip a few rupees in the direction of the offended authority and a blind eye would inevitably be turned.

Corruption is once again the cancer eating away at this society.

There is little incentive to invest in better quality productions when your returns remain unprotected by a pathetically inept legal system.

Exhibit C
Masala


Bollywood films are nearly all musicals. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number and boy do Indian audiences expect full value for their money.

Movies which follow this predictable formula are known as “masala movies”, after the spice mixture masala.

If it doesn’t have an overly melodramatic love interest, a charicature of evil, slapstick comedy and OTT thrills all thrown in to a spicy mélange of song and dance routines, then it ain’t gonna cut the mustard with the locals in small town Andhra Pradesh.

Like the Indian taste for masala, these movies have must everything heavily accentuated.

They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.

Exhibit D
Talent


In Bollywood, people often become superstars just by having a pretty face or a powerful lineage.

Bollywood is home to a series of dynastic families who hold court with producers, funders and fans alike. The Bachchans, The Khans, the Dutts and the Kapoors may provide funders with a better chance of a positive return, but their prodigy usually offer no guarantee of a talent in the thespian or dance spheres.

It is par for the course for movies to feature stars with so little rhythm that it makes pre-ecstacy honkies look like they had soul. Idolised lead actors who are often entering, if not already comfortably entrenched in middle age, gyrate and step to camp choreography whilst inevitably being styled like George Michael circa “faith”.

Dance routines which try and add some "pop" influence to traditional styles usually result in the execution of "drunk uncle at wedding" moves except the leads are supported by a huge cast of hoe-down extras mimicking their every step.

The change the light bulb, the cross-the-heart, the thriller zombie, the wiggly hands. These are all popular moves which I have tagged for my own reference. All equally naff in their own camp way, all equally common.

What disturbs me is that the locals truly think this looks good.


And as for the acting? Just think “Summer Holiday” starring Cliff Richard with less double decker buses.

Bad, bad, bad.


Summary for the prosecution:

I feel no more evidence is required than a quick scan of the following 1* IMDB review for “Fight Club”:

Not the much lauded US adaptation of the Chuck Palnuik novel, but the attempted Bollywood lift of that original idea.

“My God such a film. Copy the title FIGHT CLUB and half the script and add Bollywood nonsense and a film is ready. The film starts off interestingly but then you are thrown into some good fight scenes in the fight club and then to romance, comedy, and music as the boredom sets in”

Thankfully a younger generation of urban Indians, quite probably influenced by travel abroad, are waking up to the realisation that their film industry churns out utter crap.

They are now searching for movies which reflect real life and don't involve dance troupes choreographed before a backdrop of a waterfall or a Swiss meadow.

There is hope, oh yes, but just don’t expect change to happen too soon.

Friday 14 August 2009

One flu over the Makta Pot

Today is Dahi Handi, the national day of celebration of Janmashtami, and birth of the much worshipped Lord Krishna.

Take away the big 3 of Lord Brahma, Lord Vishnu, and Lord Shiva and Lord Krishna is right up there with the top boys of Hindu Gods.

Along with Ganesh the multi-limbed Elephant headed idol of millions he is a popular, well supported God but without the might of the aforementioned triumvirate. In football parlance he’s kind of an Everton of the Hindu world, always in with a shout of the UEFA cup and often a good each-way long shot for an FA cup final.

You see, Krishna was a bit of a problem child or so the story goes. He had a rather unusual love of butter and was constantly on the nick for his favourite dairy products. Dahi Handi is a reenactment of Krishna's much fabled efforts to steal butter from earthen pots.

These earthenware pots, known as Makta , contain prizes in cash or kind and are suspended from a high point perhaps 10m high. Teams of local youths, form a distinctly unsafe human pyramid by standing one on top of each others shoulder until they are high enough to reach and break the pot.

Of course, building a human pyramid would be to simple a task so onlookers throw water on the human pyramid to stop them breaking the pot.

Breaking of the pot is followed by prize distribution. Devotees believe that the broken pieces of earthen pot will keep away mice and negative powers from their homes.

What breaking the pot doesn’t claim to do is prevent the participants from contracting swine flu.

Now, this I quite ironic given that Schools, Malls, Cinemas, Gymnasiums etc are all closed through a panic bordering upon hysteria yet everyone is happy to gather en masse, in close proximity, clambering over each other in order to break the pots.

What I find particularly intriguing is the high incidence of dacoit impersonators who have appeared upon the streets since Wednesday. These individuals, and not only from the less educated classes I might add, walk about with their mouths covered by a loosely tied handkerchief, their fearful eyes twitching this way and that, alert to any signs of viral infection floating in the miasma.

And what, pray tell, is this going to do to protect you? You are breathing in the same air only now from beneath your handkie. Does a disrupted airflow prevent contagion? Not to my knowledge.

The TV News channels (and believe me, there are plenty enough of them) seem to have a singular aim to stir the hysteria with their over animated reporting, their lack of assessment of “facts” and opinion, and their willingness to allow the ill-informed public to present their thoughts to the wider world without any questioning of their beliefs.

Even the Hindi radio channels interject their annoying 10-song playlist with “blah blah unintelligible blah, Swine Flu hai, blah blah blah”.

People are cancelling plans for the forthcoming holiday weekend in fear of picking up the virus in the countryside. Why???

My MBA educated underlings have both cancelled weekend travel plans, though one of them had little fear in shipping his parents off to London earlier this week for a holiday in the Swine Flu Capital of Europe where the rate of infection is something like 300x higher than in Mumbai.

Captain, this is illogical.

I mean what ever happened to intelligent enquiry and rational calculation of risk?

Oh yes, I forgot, T.I.I.

This Is India