Bollywood vs Hollywood

It's an endless debate that has always been at the forefront of many movie discussions among Indians and that's whether or not Bollywood (the name for India's Hindi movie industry in Bombay-now-Mumbai) is as good if not better than Hollywood. As a side note before I get into the rest of the discussion... shouldn't we now call Bollywood since Bombay is now referred to as Mumbai? How come Bal Thackeray and the rest of the pro-Marathi junta haven't hooked onto this message yet? Oh well. Perhaps sooner rather than later. But I digress. Is Bollywood as good or better than Hollywood? I think it depends on who you ask or what you see.

Now Bollywood proudly proclaims that it is the producer of the most movies per year than any other movie industry in the world and I can believe it. It's not surprising therefore to hear that some of Bollywood's top stars are starring in six movies simultaneously. Now that's an extreme case but not very far from the truth. Take a look at some of the television series that are on in India and you'll often see the same actors but in slightly different clothes. That's because they're working overtime there as well. So as far as volume of movies being put out there, I don't think Hollywood will ever compete with India as far as that level of comparison is concerned but is that necessarily a good thing?

Over the past few years, I can think of two films on India that have managed to generate a great deal of critical buzz and that's Deepa Mehtha's "Water" and Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire". The strange thing is that neither film was produced in Bollywood but rather by foreign movie producers. "Water" was the official Oscar entry from Canada (eh?) and I'm pretty sure "Slumdog Millionaire" will achieve some level of award recognition if not a place at the Oscar's in a few months. Is it deserved? Well I would leave it to the individual audience member to decide on their own but I often wonder why it is that Indian movies don't seem to do as well as other countries in terms of critical acclaim and I think a large part of it has to do with the target audience.

I know I've probably blogged on it before but I often feel that in the need for wanting to get the Indian audience their money's worth they will throw in needless songs and dances and balloon a movie that could finish in an hour and a half to a three hour epic. Why? Does the basic story line deserve that sort of treatment? No. But somewhat akin to Pavlov's dogs, audiences at Indian movies are conditioned to expect many cliches and that songs will suddenly come in at inopportune times. Now some directors seek to keep these songs in the background or as circumstansial (as in the movie "Thakshak" with Ajay Devgan where director Govind Nehlani took care of the songs by having scenes take place in a club) but more often as not they will suddenly depict the happy couple suddenly appearing in the Swiss Alps still dressed in Indian finery.

Now that's great for films that are supposed to be like that but do we really need this in films that are dealing with serious matters? In a film like "U, Me aur Hum" which deals with Alzheimers we suddenly see a woman struck with Alzheimers jumping up on a table and singing a love song to her husband. Is this what most Alzheimers patients do? Hell. Is this what most normal people do? When Bollywood usually depicts someone from the slums they'll still be buff or beautiful. If they are portrayed by someone like Dev Patel who portrays a slum-dweller in "Slumdog Millionaire" the movie will then flop. But of course if some 'foreign devil' chooses to show some level of reality then that's a problem too.

"Slumdog Millionaire" is currently the 'it' movie on many critical lists and many people who have been to Bombay and have seen the slums first hand or those who grew up there admit that the movie shows aspects of life in Bombay that are not exagerations but more often than not... the truth. Why shy away from it or why glamorize it? Show it for what it is. I don't think it degrades India in any way. The movie in fact shows that even in a large country like India, the common man can still rise above his circumstances. But many Indian viewers complain that it is the 'clean foreign' view of India. Or that foreigners want their cliches too or want to depict the negativity of India. I don't think that's the case. But I often think that Indian censors or movie critics are too taken with the illusions put up by Bollywood to truly be objective.

The outcry against "Water" when it was being produced led to the film being made outside of India because the religious fanatics in India didn't want a sad part of Indian culture to be depicted or filmed within India. Why? The treatment of widows like plague victims was a sad truth of India and the movie is set at a time when it was the norm not the exception. Why shy away from it? Similarly, I'm sure there will be many who object to many of the depictions within "Slumdog Millionaire" and they will protest the film vehemently but the truth is that sometimes it really does take a set of new eyes to show us ourselves before we truly see it. I think until there is a break in Bollywood and we see more investment in independent films that don't rely on typical Bollywood cliches then the only places where there is a chance of India... the real India... being shown is through foreign film companies.