« Design = Finalized and Purchased. Hurray! | Main | Lights, Solar Panel, Action »
August 03, 2009
Bollywood, Mollywood, Tollywood, and All The Rest of Them
My cousin Raksha just got back from watching a movie at the local theatre, and we discussed her whole movie experience today at lunch. After talking with her as well as my aunt and uncle about movies here, it became clear to me that the Indian concept of a "film" is far different from the American one.
The film Raksha went to see is in Telagu, the language of the neighboring state. It was pretty hyped up, though not anything like the bigger Hindi films, which seem to blow the whole country up in excitement. The movie opened last Friday, and she went to go see the 10:30 am showing on a Monday. The movie is only playing in one theatre in the village, but since its opening on Friday it has played 15 times already. Since she was going to a semi-popular movie showing on a Monday morning that had already played more than ten times, I assumed she would try to get there about twenty minutes before to get a good seat. Makes sense, right? Well, apparently not...
When I asked her about it this morning, she explained how in order to get a seat, she and her friends had reserved a ticket last night. But a ticket isn't the same as a seat, since the theatre would be trying to cram as many people into the 500-seat theatre as possible. Therefore, in order to make sure they got to sit down, they were going to get to the theatre at an hour in advance to get a place in line. She said that ordinarly, they would go even earlier than that, but since they know the theater owner's son well, they would get "special treatment." Harsha, who lives down the street, went to the opening showing on Friday three hours early, and had his shirt ripped all the way in half fighting for his ticket.
Then in the movie theatre, things were equally out of control. The theatre was completely sold out, and she said there was literally no room at all; in addition to people filling up the aisles, they were also stuffed in front of the first row and against the back wall. During the movie, the crowd would be cheering for the hero or booing the villain so loudly that she couldn't even hear the dialogue. And even though the movie was released only three days ago, many people in the crowd had already seen it enough times to memorize the words and were yelling them as loudly as they could, just in case the characters on-screen forgot what they were suppoed to say next.
I could understand all of it - the multiple hour long wait, the battle with the blood-thirsty line, the cramped and sweaty theatre, the obnoxious crowd - if the movies were good. But to me, they're not. They're not even alright; they are just plain bad. I've sat through two and a half of them, and watched tons of scenes on TV, and I'm still trying to figure out why you put yourself through it. The acting is on par with the stuff you see on Jerry Springer, every movie is a rehasing of one of three plots, and the films often look like they were made in the early 60's. The only redeeming quailty is that the songs and dances are entertaining, and every movie will have at least a couple of them.
But the weird thing is, EVERY movie will have four or five songs. Regardless of plot, mood, or genre, every movie will have the songs. I understand that music doesn't mean a movie can't be serious - I've seen Fiddler on The Roof and Les Miserables, and appreciated how music enhanced the story there. However, in those musicals, the music seemed to work with the plot and fit into the context of what was going on - here, that's not the case. A character will be facing his enemy at somewhere near the climax of the movie, then launch into a happy bubblegum-pop song about the power of love. Dreams are also good ways to introduce songs, because then there doesn't have to be any type of connection at all. And all popular music in India comes out of the movies; the music videos are all scenes from the movies where you can tell the actors and actresses are lipsynching to someone else's work.
On TV, there are always at least three movies getting played at any time, and there's a channel sort of like MTV that only plays the song and dance scenes from movies. My aunt and cousins will sit and watch these for hours on end, and it just blows my mind. And on TV, they don't even show high quality versions of the movies - it's clear that you're watching something off some person's video camera that was stationed in the back of a theatre.
And yet, the movies grip the whole nation. There's Bollywood, which pumps out the world famous Hindi movies from Mumbai (formerly Bombay), and those are pretty high end. There's also Sandalwood from the state of Karnataka, Mollywood from the state of Kerala, Tollywood for the movies in Telagu, and the list goes on. Each region of the country seems to have their own xxxx-wood, and often kids learn new languages to watch the movies - Raksha said that movies are the reason she learned Hindi. What's more, it seems to be a global phenomenon; I remember when we went on a family trip to Egypt, the street vendors would call my dad Amitab Bachan, the most famous actor of his generation, and I've heard about similar things in some of the Pacific Island countries.
Bollywood puts out the most movies each year, and in Raksha's opinion, the best. She says that although the actors are hotter in Mollywood or Tollywood films, the songs aren't as good, and the acting is way worse. In my opinion, garbage is garbage, no matter how bad it smells.
It's also funny because in the papers, there are sections of the paper devoted to tracing the careers of the actors and actresses. There are always quotes like "Director Patel really pushed me to my best in our last film, and I hope to continue stretching myself" and "Shakur gives a refined and sophisticated performance in his best film to date" or my favorite: "I turned to Demi Moore for inspiration; no one is as sexy as her, though I think I gave her a run for her money."
I try not to get too cynical when I watch the movies, but it's really difficult. I wish I could just enjoy them, because they are everyone's favorite form of entertainment, and clearly a really "cultural" thing. I guess I'm just too American.
Posted by avable at August 3, 2009 06:01 AM