Indian Enough For You? Bollywood and the Oscars

Following on Siddhartha’s discussion of the “Desi Angle” question, there’s an insightful piece in the Indian Express by Shubhra Gupta (thanks, SP) on a related question: is it possible that the only foreign films that have a chance at getting nominated for the Oscars are those that register as completely “other” to the West? This year, India’s official choice, Rang de Basanti, didn’t make the top 10, while the Canadian-financed Deepa Mehta film Water, did. (The final nominees will be announced next week.)

But Paint It Yellow/Saffron (that’s what its English-subtitled version [of Rang de Basanti] is called . . . didn’t travel too far down the road to the Oscars for that exact same reason: confused, contemporary youth exist all over the world. To a foreign viewer, the film is not ‘Indian’ enough, not in the same way as, say, a Water is: it is also, and this is not a well-known fact, very strongly reminiscent of Canadian film Jesus Of Montreal, in which a group of actors’ lives change drastically as they put on a passion play.

Incarcerated widows in a pre-Independence Indian ‘ashram’. Oooh, that’s Indian. Where else would you find little girls and beautiful young women and old crones with tragic backstories and cruelly shaven heads? It’s another matter that even today, Vrindavan’s widows lead lives of quiet desperation. It’s also another matter that major portions of the film had to be shot in Sri Lanka, which masquerades as Varanasi. But Water has the backdrop of the British ‘raj’, the horror of child marriage and ‘sati’, and brutal oppression. Can’t get better, can it? (link)

Gupta is right on many counts here. Rang de Basanti does have urban, middle-class kids speaking liberal amounts of English (as well as a white girl, speaking Hindi). What she’s overlooking, of course, is that while Rang de Basanti is a lot of fun, it just isn’t that serious a film. It doesn’t have the sense of gravity or “prestige” that makes a film a plausible Oscar contender. A much better choice, by far, would have been Omkara — which has the three A’s: it’s Arty, “Authentic” (though still legible to western audiences, via Othello), and most importantly, Adult. (I often feel that NRIs or ABDs should pick India’s official Oscar selections, since the Board that currently makes this selection clearly has no idea what it’s doing. Paheli?)

Still, I fear that the three Indian films that have reached the nomination phase over the years — Mother India, Salaam, Bombay, and Lagaan — do all fit a pattern: they focus on desperate poverty. While this is undeniably an important (and continuing) part of Indian society, it’s sad that only the exotic, impoverished India of street urchins or rural desperation is likely to make an Oscar-worthy film.

Someone might object: why should Indians care about the Oscars? No Satyajit Ray film was ever nominated (though I must admit I don’t know how many of his films were officially submitted). And isn’t this is the same Academy that gave Best Picture to A Terrible Bore A Beautiful Mind? But, whether or not it’s justified, there always seems to be a great deal of interest in the Indian media about the Oscars — despite rampant evidence that Americans simply don’t get Indian cinema.

Perhaps we should start our own awards? The Mutinies?

223 thoughts on “Indian Enough For You? Bollywood and the Oscars

  1. I agree that the Indian film board doesn’t know how to pick films to nominate…it nominates many horrid films like “Paheli”….but I have another beef now with Bollywood films…why are all the Indian background dancers replaced with goras???? Its sad that Indian people can’t even get extra parts in Indian movies! All the song sequences now have next to no Indian women in the background. Its great that its becoming more international…well i should say Eurpoean, because most of the background singers are European models who couldn’t find work elsewhere…

  2. My, my what an interesting thread.

    To pick up on the what-Indian-stuff-do-phoreners-expect-in-Indian-movies question, I just interviewed several non-Indians (based in the US and Europe) for an article about their interest in Bollywood movies and one interesting element that I hadn’t expected was to hear several people say that what appealed to them was the absence of all the nudity and explicit hooking up that takes place in so many Hollywood movies nowadays.

  3. Neha, 13 Tzameti should get a special Oscar for best trailer. The film was OK, but the trailer’s a killer. Literally. I’d call it one of the best 2 minute films out there, certainly rivaling any of David Lynch’s shorts.

    Added to the netflix queue. The dvd doesn’t come out until Feb 13th

  4. Omkara seriously rocked. But I thought Water was very good too: my only complaint is Lisa Ray, who was too pretty for the role. The amazing Nandita Das would have demolished the part.

    Nandita Das is very pretty too. I thought Lisa Ray looked a little too Polish for the role.

    Like Vi, I too liked RDB and Water. Both were much closer to reality than Omkara (OK, subtract the songs etc and other elements of the rather stylized medium). Omkara was terribly pointless despite fantastic work by almost everyone in it (except Kareena Ka-bore). I had a lot of trouble staying awake. The language was fun. Elements of the story were really incongruous culturally, though. In other words, a perfect ten on form, a 4 on content.

  5. Amardeep,

    You seriously need to do a post on your personal favorite Indian movies of all time. I would totally love a guide so I don’t end up wasting money on renting/buying the ones that suck. ~SDM

  6. Nandita Das is very pretty too.

    Yo, no arguments here, Kurma. She’s one of my favorite actresses for every conceivable reason.

    I meant Lisa Ray was too “pretty pretty,” like a L’Oreal ad or something. It was just incongruous given the setting. John Abraham was arguably too pretty for his role, too. Seema Biswas was a genius piece of casting; Deepa Mehta could hardly have done better in the regrettable absence of Shabana Azmi.

    The film, having already attracted a lot of controversy, could only have been funded with Azmi or Mehta involved, not both. Two lightning rods for fundamentalists would have killed the film. Nandita Das was originally cast in the younger widow’s role, but was replaced for artistic reasons–something for which I question Mehta’s judgement.

  7. what with the french and number 13.

    hmmm you might have a point there. i’ve never thought about it, but now you’ve got me thinking about le jeu a treize. anyone know the history?

  8. Despite having the biggest film industry in the world in terms of number of movies produced and consumed, Indian cinema has only barely started (post-Dil Chahta Hai), if at all, to come of age.

    The big problem is the immaturity and downright inanity of the themes in Bollywood movies. Sadly, that’s also where most of the money is in Indian cinema. With the recent advances in media distribution methods, the dominance of Bollywood over regional Indian cinema is only getting worse.

    The only way to get Indian cinema to really arrive on the world stage is to have Bollywood learn a thing or two from South Indian and other regional cinema. I wrote a blog post a while back about what Bollywood can learn from South Indian cinema.

  9. Omkara was terribly pointless despite fantastic work by almost everyone in it (except Kareena Ka-bore).

    Bore, bore, bore ..just like Vishal’s previous movie Maqbool, all the actors were fantastic esp. Pankaj Kapur as Abbaji.

  10. The big problem is the immaturity and downright inanity of the themes in Bollywood movies. Sadly, that’s also where most of the money is in Indian cinema.

    being classist hampers your ability to make movies that don’t suck?

  11. I meant Lisa Ray was too “pretty pretty,” like a L’Oreal ad or something

    Snort – totally.

    Someone mentioned RBD was more realistic than Omkara – I have to disagree. I mean, they used the Habitat Centre in Delhi as a “campus dorm,” and the violence toward the end was very melodramatic.

    Thinking about it, though, there have been some good desi films in the last few years that could have been nominated – I loved Pinjar, then Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi, also Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Khamosh Paani (Indo-Pak collaboration, extra points), and of course Omkara.

    One film that everyone liked that I really didn’t was Chandni Bar – it was almost…dare I say, exploitative? Couldn’t sit through more than ten minutes of it, even though I had heard such good things about it.

  12. How about instead of worrying about the next big crossover film that everyone including the artists are waiting for (its not going to be me, so I might as well not try and pass the buck), how about making a really damn good film and then worry about a nomination?

  13. I hit enter too soon.

    This is like Salman Rushdie or VS Naipaul sitting around talking to the Indian press and bitching about how they couldn’t get into the gora awards without having written any of the books that made them famous around the world. …except there are no directors of that calibre in India, and they still love to whine to the press about how they deserve to be in the all exclusive club.

  14. Banlieue 13

    I’d rather have the parkour and the banlieue separately…

    that what appealed to them was the absence of all the nudity and explicit hooking up that takes place in so many Hollywood movies nowadays.

    How long before the hindi movies “catch up” (as if it was a good thing…) in terms of nudity and explicit scenes? It seems to me that directors are getting bolder and bolder. But I agree with this, the lack of nudity is definitely a factor. Here in France, hindi movies are particularly popular among immigrants from north africa, who are looking for movies more compatible with their values – and it helped spread the interest to other populations!

    .why are all the Indian background dancers replaced with goras???? Its sad that Indian people can’t even get extra parts in Indian movies!

    I also wondered why all those “gorettes” in the background… I always thought that they were tourist happening to visit the studios (or who knew the right people) and who were ready to dance for nothing except for the fun of it. Some of them couldn’t possibly be models…

    Anyway I mentioned Amelie and Les Choristes because these are two perfect examples of movies that look absolutely innocuous to foreign viewers, but who are typical of a questionable nostalgia for the “happier old days” and a disdain for social/technological progress. These could almost be the equivalent of Hindi movies deliberately taking place in an idealized India where all traditions and values are happily respected by everybody (think “Vivah”).

    Now back to indian cinema please, I promise I won’t go OT again – if i wanted to read about french movies I wouldn’t be reading this blog 🙂

  15. ” I hadn’t expected was to hear several people say that what appealed to them was the absence of all the nudity and explicit hooking up that takes place in so many Hollywood movies nowadays.”

    at the risk of sounding like an old-fashioned fuddy-duddy, i agree. there is little charm and romance left in movies today and why bollywood wants to ape this is beyond me. nudity and sex have their place in movies, but so much of it seems gratuitous and leaves you unmoved. there was more realistic sexual tension and romance in many older hollywood movies than there is today’s show-all, tell-all.

  16. I gather from the granddaughter of a man who once bought one for his GF that Oscars are often bought.

    This year, IndiaÂ’s official choice, Rang de Basanti, didnÂ’t make the top 10, while the Canadian-financed Deepa Mehta film Water, did.

    Of course! Water is proscriptive, and maintains the position that there things wrong with India that are just begging to be fixed by foreigners. It ends with an announcement about about widows in India, as if there aren’t any poor ones plus divorcees living under bridges here and perhaps elsewhere in the Western world. I do think the treatment of poor widows is a serious problem, but it’s not unique to India– I’ve been waiting for a cue to blog about this, now I have one. I did think Water was very pretty, if completely implausible. It’s main virtue, AFAIK, was that it ran for so long and twice at the Paris Cinema in NYC.

    Janeofalltrades, we are certainly taught in writing classes in America that overcoming difficulties is the theme that must underlie all stories (which I don’t think is quite correct but never mind that for now), so yes indeed, it’s not surprising that this could be a requirement for an Oscar, but here’s the qualifier– so long as the difficulties aren’t British! –what you’re calling “deep cultural roots” is also an opportunity to mark people as Other.

    Hollywood is not altogether as Left as it seems when Barbra Streisand puts in a plug for a Clinton or Sean Penn delivers an anti-Iraq War speech. I’m reading a book called Mothers on Trial by Phyllis Chesler, in which she points out that Rhett Butler kidnapped his child, attempted to alienate her from her mother and caused the child to die in an attempt to impress him, and we still think he’s a hero. There’s more in the book that brings it up to date, which I can’t duplicate here…

    Indian resistance to British rule is fashionable now for movies made in India , whether it’s cute like Lagaan or forceful like The Rising, or more nuanced like RDB. It’s not the stuff of Oscars though(as oppposed to one made by Richard Attenborough)– my guess is that that committee would sooner give a prize to colonio-porn like Zoolry in the Crown if it were a movie. There is some limited, quasi-political obligation to Britain, although you could see Helen Mirren’s disappointment at getting the Golden Globe instead, and Jude Law has never won anything, nanny or no nanny. I think India should stop putting up movies.

    When another girl found out that my dad is Indian, she asked me if he was a guru and could he levitate

    When I was very small I was taken back from England to Desh in a Lloyd-Trestino ship. My mother was summoned to the children’s playroom because there was a little girl who was petrified of me and refusing to stay there. Apparently she had asked me if my father was very black (possibly, in hindsight, because I’m darker than my mother and grandmother and her elders were gossiping about that). Well! I gather I had told her, yes, he was very big and very black and when we docked in Bombay, he was gong to come on board and eat her up…..

  17. I often feel that NRIs or ABDs should pick IndiaÂ’s official Oscar selections, since the Board that currently makes this selection clearly has no idea what itÂ’s doing. Paheli?”

    I found this bit highly patronizing and offensive in an otherwise thought-provoking blog post. Obviously the Board that picks the Oscar nominations represents the entire spectrum of Indian film criticism whereas anyone who grew up in the U.S. by virtue of this accident of birth is a better film critic or better-positioned to understand the politics of Oscar nominations.

  18. Rang De basanti was not worthy of an Oscar nomination. I don’t know if Water was either, but it was thought-provoking and dramatic.

    ANd if you think Hollywood is only interested in steroetypical and ultimately negative films about India, which I agree they are, they seem to apply this standard toward their own film as well. Watch Children of Men or V for Vendetta . . . westerners have a subconscious fantasy about Western countries turning into dictatorships, but are largely uninterested in combatting the exact sort of governments that exist well . . . everyone else in the world, more exactly, the Middle East.

  19. Yes, that is what amardeep is saying. The oscars are all about politics, or did you think Shakespeare in Love won on its merits? That major league a-hole (don’t hate the playa hate the game) started the whole “for your consideration” thing, whored out his film to everyone in the right places, and robbed Spielberg of Best Picture. If you want your shitty “Epic (now in vibrant color) India” film to be nominated, your best chance would be NRIs or ABCDs. That or hire the right people in LA.

    I don’t want Indian movies to “catch up” to anything. I’d rather the sex and nudity be relevant to the plot and to the film, and not because there’s a market for it or because you’re trying to impress some non-existent arthouse crowd. I don’t want to see pseudo-literary softcore “Oh..apparently Indian people have sex and not just with their spouses” Jhumpa Lahiri type films.

  20. Oscar ki maa ki aankh!! Aesthetics, art ko maaro pattar!! We only like to see Madhuri Dixit shaking her gaand!!

    The Indian imagination lives in another dimension. I don’t see the need to castrate this imagination to suit some nitwit’s idea of an “oscar worthy” movie ( leave that to folks like dee-pah mehta). Besides, the oscars are little more than public masturbation of an incestuous movie industry. oscar ki kaali aankh.

    Bharathiya Bhai log should get over this morbid fascination for the oscars. This sahib veneration syndrome and the need for recognition is a sign of enslaved minds. Sab saale dakkan ….

  21. I must have smoked some bad patchouli, I keep messing up my diction.

    By major league a-hole I meant of course Harvey “Suge Knight” Weinstein.

  22. Preston, I beg to differ on this:

    The more serious side of Indian commercial cinema doesn’t get that much play–“Swades” would have been a good contender, as would anything by Mani Ratnam (“Bombay” and “Dil Se” especially).

    You call Mani Ratnam’s films “serious”!?! Mani Ratnam is a hack. Several of my friends from Kashmir were quite discomfitted by Roja. I thought they were being oversensitive, until I watched Dil Se. I am Assamese and I must say that, this time, I was offended. The “Assam” portrayed in Dil Se must have existed solely in Mani Ratnam’s imagination! The Assamese characters did not behave like the Assamese and, what’s worse, the analysis of the unrest in Assam was almost offensively simplistic.

    These kinds of problems, by the way, plague almost all of Indian commercial cinema. Exoticization or not, I could at least watch Water till the end (although it’s not a great film). In contrast, I got sick of the prolonged suspension of disbelief that Rang de Basanti required. I am moved, thus, to second the comment of Mistress of Spices @ #20.

  23. Coach asked:

    I know Crash didn’t really rock a lot of people’s worlds, but any thoughts on it’s win?

    I loved “Crash”. It was better than most recent movies that won best picture.

  24. I often feel that NRIs or ABDs should pick IndiaÂ’s official Oscar selections, since the Board that currently makes this selection clearly has no idea what itÂ’s doing. Paheli?)

    Amardeep, i am not sure if you are the author of this statement. No, really what are you even implying by this. And please, don’t label A Beautiful Mind as a terrible bore! RDB was crap, but i don’t rate Water any better, what with non-actors like Lisa Ray filling the frames. I haven’t watched Paheli, but have read the book by Vijay Dandetha, and the book is very good.

  25. Bollywood’s best years are yet to come and the reasons have less to do with the improved technical virtuosity of Indian filmmakers and more to do with the changing distribution and consumption patterns of entertainment products in India.

    As the number of TV channels in India mutiply, the increased disposable income makes travel, eating out and other forms of entertainment more available, movies will no longer be the mass staple. There will be different types of movies for different target groups, as there are here. The multiplexes in India are the market’s response to the niches forming in the Indian market. As an analogy, imagine an America without multiplexes. Instead there are still those huge movie palaces, and very few of them. Will that distribution model support a genius like Woody Allen?

    Do the Oscar judges favor international films that fit their preconceived notions of the country? I am sure they do. I can name 10 other Naseeruddin Shah movies far superior to Salaam Bombay, but the problem is that they could pass for good movies made anywhere. They are about human beings, not the slums of Mumbai, even though many of them might use poverty as a backdrop.

  26. Sahej:

    The big problem is the immaturity and downright inanity of the themes in Bollywood movies. Sadly, that’s also where most of the money is in Indian cinema.
    being classist hampers your ability to make movies that don’t suck?

    Not sure exactly what you mean. My point is that the escapist, extended wedding video meme that has flowed through Indian cinema since Hum Aapke Hai through Vivaah (with a few father-is-always-right movies like DDLJ and K3G along the way) hardly casts any light on the human condition or social issues in India. Thankfully, recent movies like Dor are changing that, but even Dor was inspired by a Malayalam movie.

  27. “The oscars are all about politics, or did you think Shakespeare in Love won on its merits? That major league a-hole (don’t hate the playa hate the game) started the whole “for your consideration” thing, whored out his film to everyone in the right places, and robbed Spielberg of Best Picture. “

    Shakespeare in Love may have taken it to new heights, but that sort of thing has always gone on in hollywood at every level. (and i maybe the only one, but i thought Saving Private Ryan was hugely overrated. yes it had realistic blood and gore scenes, but its plotline was weak and i can barely remember the movie. Schindler’s List, now that was a far superior Spielberg film – one for which i thought ralph fiennes unfortunately lost a well-deserved Oscar to Tommy Lee Jones for The Fugitive).

    there’s the story of anne baxter refusing to be nominated for the best supporting actress category (and she probably had every right to do so) for “all about eve” and lobbying the studio to get her into the best actress category with bette davis (for the same movie). many think this split the vote and caused davis to lose out on an oscar. so this sort of politicking and lobbying has probably existed from day one of these awards. and the word “incestuous” is a good one for any film industry, especially hollywood and bollywood.

  28. Not sure exactly what you mean. My point is that the escapist, extended wedding video meme that has flowed through Indian cinema since Hum Aapke Hai through Vivaah (with a few father-is-always-right movies like DDLJ and K3G along the way) hardly casts any light on the human condition or social issues in India. Thankfully, recent movies like Dor are changing that, but even Dor was inspired by a Malayalam movie.

    Yes I mean this, the expectation that the characters be rich, and the celebration of being rich makes it hard to realistically allow us insight into the human condition. One can rarely serve two masters?

  29. I liked the post…except

    I often feel that NRIs or ABDs should pick IndiaÂ’s official Oscar selections, since the Board that currently makes this selection clearly has no idea what itÂ’s doing. Paheli?)

    Didn’t make any sense to me. How about India’s ambassador to the US…NRIs or ABDs could do a good job in choosing him too !

  30. forgot to add that Miss India should be chosen by people of Indian origin (not living in India)…’cos she has to represent the country to the outside world.

  31. Not sure exactly what you mean. My point is that the escapist, extended wedding video meme that has flowed through Indian cinema since Hum Aapke Hai through Vivaah (with a few father-is-always-right movies like DDLJ and K3G along the way) hardly casts any light on the human condition or social issues in India. Thankfully, recent movies like Dor are changing that, but even Dor was inspired by a Malayalam movie.
    Yes I mean this, the expectation that the characters be rich, and the celebration of being rich makes it hard to realistically allow us insight into the human condition. One can rarely serve two masters?

    Indeed, and this is really symptomatic of the extent to which the Indian middle class has effectively seceded from India’s institutions. It has become a de facto plutocracy that has a proclivity for self-congratulation because it has seen marginal improvements in its condition over the last 15 years. That institutions fundamental to a sustainable, economically mobile society are in decay (education chiefly comes to mind) doesn’t bode too well for its future, the frequent ‘India Shining’ news items notwithstanding.

  32. “My point is that the escapist, extended wedding video meme that has flowed through Indian cinema since Hum Aapke Hai through Vivaah (with a few father-is-always-right movies like DDLJ and K3G along the way) hardly casts any light on the human condition or social issues in India.”

    Shri Bholaram-ji Bhai-ji, Escapism is the root of Imagination. And, As you sure well know, Imagination is the foundation of all genius.

    Imagination cannot be critiqued for it stands on it’s own. What can be guaged is it’s appeal. My fellow villagers love DDLJ and K3G. To them it represents the pinnacle of quality. They don’t give a rat’s gaand for the light strewn on the “social” and “human” condition in the movie. They might seem a lesser lot to you. But hey, to each his own. Bottom line: There is not a need for Indian movies to be serious, artsy or even to contain social messages. Jai Ramji ki, Gaunwallah

  33. Brown fob, see Anangbhai’s comment #72 for a good explanation of what I meant by that — it’s not that I think that NRIs have better taste or something. I just think that people situated in the U.S. have better access to what floats & sinks in Hollywood. And being totally removed from Bollywood power players & loyalties could also help get more user-friendly art movies (i.e., Aparna Sen) through. The article that was linked to in Comment #28 is also worth keeping in mind.

    I think Anangbhai’s point about marketing and promotion is also important. If they want to have a chance, they need to appoint some people to push these films in the right channels.

  34. Gaunwallah,

    The views you express seem as much a caricature as anything, and as such, they appear to contain trollish tendencies

  35. I often feel that NRIs or ABDs should pick IndiaÂ’s official Oscar selections, since the Board that currently makes this selection clearly has no idea what itÂ’s doing.

    I agree the above could be worded better… but work with me here. Here’s my thought process, circa 1995 – an homage to the wonderfully spockisch desi mindset

    1. Winning an oscar is very important –> So the FFI must nominate films.

    2. Films that the academy considers good win the prize –> the FFI must consider the tastes of the academy.

    3. Films that are marketed well and lobbied among the academy win the prize –> the FFI must lobby and invest in marketing.

    In words, if winning an oscar is important then not only does the FFI have to be attuned to the academy’s tastes but also have to aggressively market to them.

    Now, in context of the link posted by brown in #28…

    The submissions also indicate that the judges seem to have little idea of what might appeal to an international audience. “My thought was that we should present our Indian culture abroad,” says Shiromanee, “so a film like HSSH or Mohabbatein would be appropriate.” Actually, the opposite is true-India’s song-and-dance narrative is largely seen as exotic kitsch by the West. Says Uma d’Cunha, official programme consultant, Toronto Film Festival: “Our preference is for commercial films which the FFI is familiar with. But the perceptions of an Oscar committee are very different from ours.”

    … Amardeeps comment doesnt seem that far a reach now, does it.

  36. GaunWallah:

    Imagination cannot be critiqued for it stands on it’s own. What can be guaged is it’s appeal. My fellow villagers love DDLJ and K3G. To them it represents the pinnacle of quality. They don’t give a rat’s gaand for the light strewn on the “social” and “human” condition in the movie. They might seem a lesser lot to you. But hey, to each his own. Bottom line: There is not a need for Indian movies to be serious, artsy or even to contain social messages.

    I couldn’t agree more, GaunWallah. I am merely calling for more balance. While I do think of purely escapist cinema as belonging to a lesser lot, I am a stronger believer in the to-each-his-own principle. A lot of Hollywood cinema is also not serious or artsy, but for every few movies like What Women Want, you still see one Forrest Gump. In any case, good ones pop up a lot more often than in Bollywood cinema, which appears to me to be more homogenously escapist, jhinchak and flashy (think D2, Salaam Namaste — pure masala, the cinema equivalent of empty calories) in its themes.

  37. Hey, GB. If you watch “Dil Se” again, you’ll notice that no specific states are mentioned. “Assam” really does exist in MR’s imagination. It’s not a movie set against a real (but fictionalized) backdrop, like the Kashmir of “Roja.” There’s no analysis of the unrest in Assam. “Dil Se” is just about unnamed separatists.

    Ratnam is an astounding visual storyteller–such is the birthright, it seems, of Indian directors, who have three hours of celluloid to work with and an audience that a western director would consider unsophisticated. Many of Ratnam’s song-and-dance bits are integrated into the plot and are not just flights of fancy (yes, there are those, too, like the “Chaaiya Chaaiya” number). In “Dil Se,” the title number with SRK and Manisha dodging explosions in a burned-out village is breathtaking. In “Bombay,” Ratnam turns some of the mob violence at the end into its own song-and-dance number. Parts of the melee are acted out in slow motion, choreographed and stylized like a dance. You’ll see a guy taking a mallet to car, slowly, over and over, always hitting the same place with out damaging it. It’s as if he is a dancer in the background.

    To the larger point of this thread, I don’t think the uber-sophisticated film-consuming crowd in the US has any appreciation of the visual aspects of Indian cinema. We just don’t see them or we don’t value them. American movies that make more of the visual over the verbal tend to do so in exactly the same ways. In “Traffic,” “Crash,” “Babel,” “Pulp Fiction,” “Syriana,” and many others, the narrative is just chopped up and reassembled, and sometimes there is a visual clue to tell you where you are (the sepia shots in “Traffic”). We Westerners like linear time and imagine great significance when that time is disrupted. (Ratnam chopped up and reassembled linear time in “Alay Payuthey.”) We like aesthetically dazzling shots (Spielberg) or hand-held realism (Ridley Scott) or no self-conscious use of the camera at all (Ron Howard). Indian cinema’s visual vocabulary is different.

    The first 2/3 of “Rang de Basanti” are dazzling cinema, for Indian and American eyes–plots within plots, nearly every visual effect you can think of, smart acting. Then the whole thing just collapses with the assassination plot. “Water” is a pretty western movie; it’s just not very good despite the sympathy it elicits for the widows. John Abraham’s father, whom he idolizes for having instilled in him the great values that, writ large, define India’s freedom struggle, is revealed to be a whoremonger??? That’s just inane. Mehta’s movies are just too eager to launch themselves into the great sweep of Indian history. She should just tell her characters’ stories.

    India’s recent Oscar candidates have been very strange choices. The film board needs to hire better marketing and industry consultants, since the Oscars are just a beauty contest anyway. India just hasn’t learned to play this game.

  38. … Amardeeps comment doesnt seem that far a reach now, does it.

    my point being that if the FFI is really serious about winning an oscar (personally, i dont think they should care two flying mango pits for it) it should invite someone with an understanding of the Academy as well as desi movies into its board – a POI type is a logical selection.

    QED.

    phew! heavy lifting yaar. my mind is on the blink. i wish i should get up and fix myself a lassi.

  39. How about India’s ambassador to the US…NRIs or ABDs could do a good job in choosing him too !

    Aren’t we missing something? Haven’t we got the hang of this? Take Shashi Tharoor– the candidate that serves local political purpose wins.

  40. “And being totally removed from Bollywood power players & loyalties could also help get more user-friendly art movies (i.e., Aparna Sen) through. The article that was linked to in Comment #28 is also worth keeping in mind.”

    but how much access do abds and u.s.-based nris really have to non-bollywood movies? even commercial regional cinema is seen less in the u.s., much less more obscure art cinema, be it in hindi or other languages. even the artsy ones that make it to the u.s. tend to be of the more known people who have media attention and other biases working in their favor – aparna sen, nandita das, shabana azmi, rahul bose, naseerudin shah – good as they are, there are other great actors/directors in indian(not bollywood or hindi cinema) cinema who may make often times better movies who never get the same attention at foreign film festivals etc. i think the arthouse cinema circuit is also plagued with some of the same nepotism and incestuousness of the commercial circuit. this whole discussion seems to be (unintentionally) centering around which bollywood movies deserved to be nominated for the oscars, not which Indian movie, deserves to be nominated for the oscars, perpetuating to the outside world that bollywood movies (much as i enjoy watching a lot of them) equals indian movies/culture.

  41. SahejRam bhai, My comments are made with the utmost seriousness, brevity, sincerity, et alia. I do not think that films are a medium for any “light”. For “light” to be dispersed, the viewer should have time to absorb and chew some gaass. Visual imagery (still) might be good as in the case of photographs, But in a continuous medium like film, there is not enough time to think. Films are meant to titillate the senses,period. Jai Hind GaunWallah

  42. The first 2/3 of “Rang de Basanti” are dazzling cinema, for Indian and American eyes–plots within plots, nearly every visual effect you can think of, smart acting. Then the whole thing just collapses with the assassination plot.

    Thats preety close to how I reviewed “Rang De Basanti”. I felt the funeral scene in the movie and followed by the song “Lupa chhupi” was very powerful and very emotional without melodrama.

    As far as “Water” goes, one couldnt pay me enough to watch that crap. (figuratively, speaking)