Bollywood: The Show Must Grow On

Re: # 20 hi there,

yaar i`v been searching ``Marhi da diva`` for last 2 years but couldn`t find.
could u please tell me any source where i can get it.
where have u seen thin movie?
please.......reply. i shell be really thankfull.

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plats,

Yes, I`ve heard good things about Ismat Apa ke Naam; not too sure we`ll ever get to see it here. I`ve seen Govind Nihalani`s film but I don`t like them very much. Yes, they may be very real and true to life but they`re also hopelessly bleak. If I want to experience real life, well then I`ll just go down to the local katchi abaadi and spend a day there. I don`t need to watch a movie to be depressed.

I`m sure you`ve seen some of Sai Paranjpye`s films. Sparsh, Dishaa, Katha, Saaz, Chashme Buddoor. She`s a film-maker who also pays a great deal of attention to detail but doesn`t forget to include a healthy dose of hope and humor. Do watch Dishaa if you get the chance. It`s about the Bombay`s immigrant workers who come in from the villages to people its industries. Though the story is basically a grim one, the kindness with which Paranjpye tells it is extraordinary.

Shyam Benegal`s another film-maker in the same mould. Manthan, Mammo, Hari Bhari are all good films.

Ansari #44,

Interesting. I was about to mention the restaurant/chipkali-wali scene in Satya as one
of the more memorable ones. Anyway, you may want to watch ``dil pe mat le yaar`` -
Bajpai is quite convincing in that film and there are scenes where him and Tabu feed
off of each other nicely.

Om Puri was in Ardh Satya. One of Nihalani`s best, I`d say. By the way, have you
seen his ``Rukmavati ki haveli`` ? I never had a chance, and stores tend to not carry it.
Nihalani has a very discerning eye for detail, much like the Bengali director Gautam
Ghosh - they both started their careers in cinematography.

About Naseer, perhaps he is bored by the roles he keeps getting. People who have
seen him recently in the play ``Ismat Apa ke Naam`` say he was fabulous. The man
just needs a competent vehicle for him to shine in. I watched one of his old ones -
Paar, a few months ago. He is beyond convincing in that.

Anuradha/Ansari,

Gulzar is surely different. I just find his pots and pans references a bit jarring
at times, that`s all.

rsridhar #47,

Serious Indian movies are taken seriously in the west, or anywhere else in the world
for that matter. Most of Bollywood is not supposed to be serious - it is there to provide
some sort of ``wholesome family entertainment``, if you wish. Fantasy is an integral part
of it.

re:#41 by Brat
I saw Chalte chalte, Jhankar beats, Bhoot recently. I see Indian movies when someone assures me they are good. Sometimes i see them just for the heck of it. I am in US and this is my way of connecting with India.
I thought chalte chalte was good with good performances by both SRK and Rani Mukherjee. But the plot is the same. Boy falls in love, chases the girl all the way to Greece. You can see similar plot in DWDL, Pardes and so on.
Bhoot is better than any Ramsay movies i had seen in the past. I thought Jhankar beats was good. Its theme was off-beat and music was good. Songs were there for a reason. Rahul Bose is a good actor. Juhi Chawla has matured from her hip-gyrating days.
Sridhar

re:#40 by Brat
We are talking about common culture. Hollywood movies show a man and woman kissing. Most bollywood movies do not (some do; again a copy of hollywood theme; do men and women kiss in public in India? May be in some places they do but that is not a common practice).
We are talking of what is common practice. Some part of India has always been westernised. For eg parts of Bombay, Goa etc. If a bollywood movie is showing western value system, the story should appropriately match it. It was pathetic to see Urmila Matondkar walking the bylanes of Bombay in skimpy clothes in a movie where she is trying to get into a movie business (had Jackie Shroff, Amir Khan among others). She is shown to be from a middle class family with conservative values and yet there she was, going around doing her belly-dancing and rubbing shoulders with street urchins.
Bollywood has never reflected the true value system, the true society that India is. It always went for spinning a web of dreams and fantasy. Remember Helen gyrating her hips to Asha`s music 40 years ago in a number of movies? Good ones with good songs but again, do not represent India. That is why they are not taken seriously in the west.
Sridhar
P.S: All the songs in Teesri Manzil are my personal favourite. The one with Helen and Shammi (O Haseena Zulfon wali...) was spectacular with great music by Laxmi Pyare.

re:#39 by kabuliwallah
Thanks for the info.
There was a marathi play i believe on that subject. In the movie Agnivarsha, they changed the original plot taken from Mahabharat. They introduced this love angle between Arvasu and the tribal girl, which is not there in the original story. In the original story, sages Raibhya and Bharadwaja are neighbours and close friends. Latter`s son Yavakrida (changed to Yavvakri in the movie), on finding former`s daughter-in-law (Parvasu`s wife) alone, ravishes her. Raibhya on discovering this creates a demon by his spiritual powers. The demon kills Yavakrida. Bharadwaja, on hearing the news of his son`s death, is heart broken and kills himself but not before he has cursed Raibhya, his own friend. The curse is fulfilled when Parvasu kills his own father mistaking him for a wild beast one night when he is returning home from his Yagna (performed for bringing rain to the place on the orders of the king).

Still, Agnivarsha was a good attempt. It had its roots in Indian epic. Raveena Tandan was spectacular in that movie. There are umpteen number of such stories in Indian epics. South Indian movie makers have been regularly making mythological movies for a number of years now. But bollywood has kept away from religous/mythological themes (barring some here and there).
Sridhar

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plats:

yes, i remember that scene; she slaps him back if i remember correctly, after satya leaves. there was this other scene where they take satya and his girlfriend out for a meal and pyaari tells them about the ``chipkali`` waali film! the camaraderie between bhiku and pyaari was touching.

i saw ijaazat again a few months ago. i really liked it. i know what you`re saying about the lyrics seeming contrived and i can`t say i disagree with you sometimes but there are often times when he recovers something elemental even from among the pots and pans and ordinary things of daily existence and makes a poem of it. ``do naina ki hai yeh kahani, thorasa baadal, thorasa pani, aur ik kahani.`` (masoom)

gulzar`s also an excellent director. he brings a poet`s perspective to the films he makes, often leaving us a little beguiled for it. have you seen namkeen? each character in that film is a story in themselves and the way he`s brought them altogether and made a tale of it is wow.

naseer`s a great actor and the way he adapts himself to the character is often remarkable, though of late i don`t think he`s been trying too hard. i saw teen deewarein a while back and it seemed to me he was just going through the motions. i say this because i`ve seen naseer in films like katha and sparsh and ijaazat and manthan and pestonjee where he`s played completely different and independently convincing characters. even the ridiculously cool jalwa was better than teen deewarein.

on the other hand, om puri just seems to be getting better and better. bollywood calling was a riot. so was chachi 420. is this the same man who did ardh satya?

enough rambling . . . must get back to work!

#42 by ironman

`Another big blooper...apparently the bhoot needs a medium (urmila`s body) to express itself in this world (take revenge, etc). Ok, that`s resonable. But in the ending, the bhoot apparently decides to dispense with her services and take matters in hand directly and send fardeen khan flying hither and thither. `

yeah, that was completely ridiculous, wasn`t it? there was a lot of promise in the first half, but the second ruined it all. Bhoot wasn`t a patch on Kaun. A total disappointment.

Kabuliwalah -

you didn`t like Chupke Chupke!!?? are you talking about the dharmendra- amitabh- sharmila starrer??

Plats 8 -

what I like about Gulzar`s lyrics is that they are so different and original, completely avoiding cliches and run of the mill stuff...

Brat-

hey I`m glad to find someone else who liked One Two ka Four! I thought it was very slickly made and entertaining. Pity it flopped.

Fellows, my 2 cents:

In 1987, after watching dharmendra slaughter a million baddies with a never-emptying gun in `hukumat`, I vowed never to watch a hindi movie again. That was also the first time I walked out halfway thru a movie.


Recently there was a great hype of bollywood producing these wonderful horror movies. Ram Gopal Verma was everywhere. And so, with some hope, I picked up `Bhoot` from the local Indian groc.

While it certainly was better than the Ramsay brothers crap...bollywood has many miles to go it would seem.

Those stairs, that bed and urmila`s painted face...where did I see that before? The Exorcist...of course! Was Bhoot then a cheap copy of the Exorcist? Sadly, no...not even a cheap copy.

While in the big-E, a constant and wonderful tension is maintained between the believer and the rationalist in the viewer almost upto the very end...no such hope from bollywood. The rational psychiatrist (Victor bannerjee) is put in his place pretty early enough.

Another big blooper...apparently the bhoot needs a medium (urmila`s body) to express itself in this world (take revenge, etc). Ok, that`s resonable. But in the ending, the bhoot apparently decides to dispense with her services and take matters in hand directly and send fardeen khan flying hither and thither.

Couldn`t they have done at least the digital imaging with a modicum of finesse? The watchman`s twisted head on his shoulders looked like a cut-and-paste by a teenager, the edges clearly visible. Sheeesh!

just btw rsridhar, which movies from bollywood have you seen recently? and why did you choose to see those? If you choose to see your movies blindly, or try and judge what other people find entertaining obviously you will be disappointed. I`m sure you don`t go and watch every movie that comes of hollywood?

plats #37

Well said. The common criticism of bollywood is to find the most common and pathetic examples and say this is what you like, or people who like this are morons. Hello!! Not all movies made in Hollywood are good either, but like you said - they are technically far superior, therefore the shortcomings are not that glaringly apparent.

Hollywood lacks one major ingredient of Bollywood movies -- that is intense emotion and colour.

rsridhar: what I`m telling you is that it`s no longer valid to say that being Indian means one particular thing - that Indian college kids do not wear this, or do not do that -- none of that holds anymore. My counterparts who went to colleges in India told me of their life and my life here in North America seemed much tamer.

rsridhar #36

Sorry, but Ben Hur and Ten Commandments are both very poorly made movies.
There have been tons of Bollywood movies with tighter storylines, better direction
and infinitely better acting. Hollywood is as escapist as most Hindi films - it just has
a veneer of realism slapped on. Are you seriously implying that one does not need
to suspend disbelief to watch a random Hollywood flick ? Slick one-liners does not
a good movie make.

Most of Bollywood is a modern-day vaudeville and some. But it has always retained a
small set of directors trying to do something different - some of the movies discussed
in this thread testify to that.

re: sameerJB # 20

I too loved Marhi da Deeva...I thought Raj Babbar was superb...the scenery in the movie reminded me a lot of the fields around Jauharabad...among movies made in native languages, movies made by the malayalam director adoor gopalakrishnan are very good too...I was watching chupke chupke the other day...and my friends were telling me that the original Bengali version is awesome and much better...I didnt like chupke chupke much though...if possible, try to get your hands on movies directed by G.R. Vishwanath in Telugu...some of the old ones are very good...cheers

Kabuli

re: rsridhar # 13

the movie`s name is Agni Varsha...I found it a little contrived and long winded...but Milind Soman I thought acted well...I was more disappointed however with the ruins of Hampi...Hampi is variously described as being magnificent in the hey day of the Vijayanagara empire...granted that it is now in ruins, but still, they looked like an abandoned bollywood movie set...regards

Kabuli