Hooray for Bollywood!

Well, like everything else in Atlanta, the speed at which I have been soaking in new cultural experiences has been slow.  Which it probably good news for you fine folks, because it means I am going to go back and write about some more of experiences from India.  And while you might find the South interesting, I promise you the South of India is more so.

Since it has been so long since I was there (can it be over a month already?!?), I’ve decided to finally write this entry about the magical genre and ingenuity that is Bollywood.  And I must sincerely apologize that it has taken me so long to write about it.  I should have shared my new knowledge and understanding with you long ago, but I have been remiss.  It will be difficult to convey to you all you need to know about it in words, but if I do my job well, I will at least convince you to see a Bollywood film, and then you, too, will know the magic.  

It is hard to know where to begin.  I guess the first thing to understand is that Bollywood is India’s Hollywood.  It is their main movie industry.  And you, like me, in your America-centric minds might be thinking that Bollywood must be kind of silly, or small, or low budget.  Au contraire, my blog-reading friends!  You forget, as I have mentioned, that there are over a billion people in India!  That means that instead of a potential audience of 300,000,000 people, there is a potential audience of 1,100,000,000!  That’s more than three to one!  And not only that, but labor over there is cheap (again, see the numbers!), which means they can hire lots of people, without much cost.  

So the movies are a very serious business.  And when you mention a popular movie over there, everyone has seen it, probably more than once!  What’s really interesting, and I think draws from the extreme diversity of the economic classes, is that they buy movie tickets the way we buy theater (or theatre) tickets.  You have a seat, and the cost is by zone, with balconies, front row etc.  One of my big regrets is that I did not get to a show while I was there, I watched all my Bollywood on rented pirated DVD’s.  

What makes Bollywood so good?  I think it all boils down to this:  Movies in the US draw on limited themes.  There are action flicks, drama, romance, comedy etc.  And I’m not sure if you have noticed or not, but there have been a lot of remakes lately.  It is like we have run out of ideas and have started looping back around for another pass.  In India it is a whole other story.  They have thousands of years of culture and mythology to draw from.  Think about it:  Every god has many stories.  Many of them have been told time after time, year after year, until you can describe a movie by talking about what story about which god it tells the story of.  

And then there is the whole British influence that yielded endless stories to tell.  And just the very nature of India being rife with so many dichotomies and extremes, there are endless social situations to play on.  Religion, economic background, the cast system… and then of course there is no reason they can’t use all the same things we do over here:  comedy, sports, drama etc.

My first experience with Bollywood came with what I am convinced is the best and funniest movie of all time.  I must admit, part of why I find it funny is because of how different it is from what I am used to.  But it isn’t that I am laughing at Indian culture, but rather appreciating that it can be such a ridiculous story and yet make so much sense if you have the proper context.

Now before I go any further, I need you to understand one important thing about these films.  They are long.  Looooong.  And I’m not talking long-for-a-movie, I’m talking longer than Lord of the Rings, Titanic… you name it!  And that goes for all of them!  Some are as long as three and a half hours!  And don’t assume that that includes previews.

The first one I saw is called Om Shanti Om.  I was excited to see something new, but had no idea what I was in for.  Now, as I think back on the experience, I realize that there is no way I am going to be able to share with you what it was like.  It was our first pizza and beer night of ThoughtWorks University.  So we ordered pizza, poured some glasses, and sat down to watch.  Every minute of the incredibly long experience was filled with ridiculously entertaining, funny, and well thought out humor.  And the thing with long movies is that all the funny lines aren’t in the trailer.  And there isn’t just one plot line with one twist.  Something would happen, and then it would get resolved, and then another thing, and another, and then they would get resolved.  And sooner or later, you think:  oh, I bet the climax is right around the corner, because all the loose ends are tied up.  But then things unravel more, and you realize that there are still two hours left!  

And the great thing about it, is that things can happen in a Bollywood movie that could never credible happen in the US.  And not only is it credible in India, it actually makes perfect sense!

So I’ve decided that the following, while it is sort of a spoiler, certainly won’t wreck the movie for anyone watching it, and that you wouldn’t really understand what is going on without knowing this, and that I really want to tell you, and that most of you won’t see the movie anyway, even though you REALLY should, and I will make it one of my life-long goals to have you all watch it.  How’s that for a run-on sentence?  But, if you REALLY don’t want to know anything about the movie, scroll down till you see the end of the alert.

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One of the funniest things of the movie was that about half-way through, the main character dies.  I assumed that this meant the movie was over, or at the very least, almost over.  Au contraire.  What I neglected to remember was that I was in India, and this was a Bollywood film.  Hollywood rules need not apply.  What happened?  Well he was reincarnated, of course!  And the movie did not really focus on whether or not this was possible, it just accepted it as the truth, expected (and got) the same from the audience, and moved on.  Sure, some of the characters had trouble believing it, but not because it was impossible, just hard to believe.  

It was almost like a whole other movie started when the main character was reborn.  It was fascinating.

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You won’t hear the term ‘main character’ in India.  The proper term over there is ‘Hero,’ and it doesn’t matter if the movie is an action / adventure movie or not.  Whoever the main person is, is the Hero.  Even if they don’t do anything heroic.  

Another interesting thing is the music.  And this could take up a whole blog.  The music industry and the movie industry in India are almost synonymous.  If a song is popular, it is almost certainly from the popular movie that just came out.  And the movies’ soundtracks are full of the popular songs of the day.  There is about an 85% overlap, according to one of my friends.  

The songs are not in the background, like they are in the US.  They are sung in the movies; and danced to.  But the movies are not musicals.  Confused?  Of course!  Well you’ll be sitting there, watching the movie, in the middle of the plot, and every half-hour or so, some music will start, and people will gather around the main characters, and then they will start singing, and dancing, and before you know it, the whole town is dancing a mad frenzy and singing.  Then the scene ends and the dialog continues.  Then 25 minutes later… And it’s really entertaining music and dancing!  And some of it is in English, but mostly just a word or two.  And its kind of nice because you don’t really have to pay attention to the words, because they don’t really move the plot along so much as elaborate on the dramatic themes that are at play.  For instance, in a movie about reincarnation, a song might be about a god who was reincarnated.  But as an American, you don’t have to read the subtitles; you can just enjoy the singing and dancing.  

The themes are a very fascinating reflection on Indian society.  In Om Shanti Om, Om is incredibly close with his mother, and respectful of her wishes in an extreme way.  And it isn’t crazy, that’s just how it would be in an ideal story.  

One thing that made the movie all the more enjoyable, though I admit this one was laughing at the movie, not with it, was the subtitles.  Most of the movie was in Hindi, with a few words of English thrown in for color.  So there were English subtitles.  They were absurd.  I didn’t even need to speak a word of Hindi to know that what was being written in English on the screen was not what was being said by the characters.  It was so funny because there are plenty of people in India who speak very good English.  Probably a hundred million or so.  And yet the subtitles were barely comprehensible enough to get the gist of the lines across.  The most amusing was when there was a little dialog in English, and even that didn’t match the subtitles.  Really?  

What I found out later was that we were watching a bootleg version of the movie, because it hadn’t been released on DVD yet, which was part of the reason the subtitles were so bad.  

I guess I’ll leave it at that, but reiterate that it is one of the best and worst movies I have ever seen, and deeply encourage you to rent it when it eventually becomes available.  I myself had a friend bring me a copy back from India.  As a foreigner, it was too risky for me to buy a bootleg version, but I wanted one with the horrible subtitles that made it so bad it was good!  As soon as I get it, I’m happy to arrange viewings.

The next movie I saw was Lagaan.  With only one sentence, you could accurately describe Lagaan as a cricket movie, but that would totally miss the whole point.  In many ways it is a classic sports movie, where you see the team develop, the setbacks, the triumphs… think Hoosiers, or any of those others.  But it is really about so much more:  The Indians rebelling against the British, the inequality of the caste system, as well as a retelling of a story about two gods who love each other but cannot be together.

The title, Lagaan, is the name for the taxes the Indians pay to the British for ‘keeping the peace,’ which means defending the Indians from the other Indians, ignoring the fact that there would have been much more peace if they didn’t owe so much money to the British.  It takes place in (I think) what must be the mid-to-late 1800’s?  

The local British leader tells the Indians in the local village that they must begin to pay twice the (already high) Lagaan.  This at a time when there has been drought for three years, so the people don’t have any money to pay.  The hero confronts the evil British governor who offers him a wager:  If the Indians of the village can beat the British in a game of cricket, they won’t have to pay any Lagaan for three years.  But if they lose, they will owe triple Lagaan.  

He accepts the wager, as much to have a way to protest the unjust British invaders as to avoid the Lagaan.  The problem is that none of the Indians have ever played cricket.  Oops.  Fortunately, the evil British leader’s sister takes pity on them because she thinks her brother is being unfair.  

So we see the hero recruit a team and learn to play the game.  Just like any other sports movie.  But will they let the untouchable play with them?  Well you’ll just have to watch the movie.  

The trick comes when the actual game starts.  You think the movie must be almost over.  Silly American.  Don’t you know that cricket games can last for three days?  There are still hours left in the movie!  But don’t fret, it is worth the length and suspense for such a truly great movie.  

I ‘made’ Rachel watch it (Netflix), and while long, she admits that it really is a very good movie.  

The music and dancing is really great, and makes you feel the very strong emotions of the villagers.  

And yes, it is a sports movie, and you can predict much of what is going to happen, but there are so many themes that are new to us as foreigners, that it makes it fresh, interesting, and deeply moving.  

I’ll wrap up with one of the best lines of Om Shanti Om.  It occurs when the ‘hero’ is having a fake fight with a life-size stuffed animal tiger.  It is actually in English, which usually means there is some sort of double entendre or other slang connotations of the line.  “Bad pussy!”