Bollywood in the Panic Room

Ref Saminasha #10

[How much backing and support would a young S. Ray get nowadays?]

Satyajit Ray didn`t get much support when he made `Pather Panchali` either. In fact, a government official thought that the movie projected a very bad image of India and suggested that Ray should include scenes showing how various government projects were helping to improve the standard of living among the poor folks. Sort of make it into a PRC propaganda movie of the 50s.

By the way, I didn`t think the movie was about poverty. I came out of the theater struck by the portrayal of deep love among the members of Apu`s family.

It is no small measure of Ray`s greatness as a filmaker that the American Film Instritute at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, DC, conferred on him its lifetime achievement award and to this day his movies are screened in special retrospectives at International Film Festivals.

Don`t expect to see any such thing happening soon for any Bollywood director. The most they can do is to graduate from `Bandit Queen` to `Elizabeth`.

Harimau,

But indie films must exist in India, right?

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Ref Saminasha #18

[Harimau,

But indie films must exist in India, right?]

Yes, they do. Just the other day Doordarshan screened a movie but I missed the title sequence by about 2 minutes so I don`t know its name. It`s about two Parsi friends in Bombay and their lives. I could recognize Naseeruddin Shah and I am sure the other guy was Anupam Kher. I had to wait till the end of the movie for the credits and the wife was Shabana Azmi; I couldn`t recognize the early Shabana at all. The movie seems to have been funded by the Films Development Corporation of India. No songs, no dances, no running around trees or in exotic locales such as New Zealand. Just an ordinary tale of friendship between two cousins, interwoven with marital infidelity and the lives of ordinary middle-class Parsis in Bombay.

Is there new talent in India? Definitely yes. Will it be allowed to make award-winning movies? Not likely. Will we see a few good movies out of India? Yes, about 1% of the total production of nearly 1000 movies a year.

I am only sorry that movies in Malayalam, Bengali and Kannada are not accessible to you (Urdu/Hindustani speaker). Filmmakers in those regional languages make some terrific (non-formulaic) movies.

harimau...
i think the movie you`re referring to is pestonjee...it was a good film without all the gaana bajaana and the `exotic` locales!

Yeah, Pestonjee`s a really good film; one of the best I`ve seen.

Yup ! Very true indeed.

Bollywood must pull up their act & refrain from `inspired version` of flicks. The writing on the wall is - do something that excites the audience or else say goodbye to your money !

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