Topnotch article. I especially agree with the para about Iran, China, Brazil etc. I have always banged on about these countries, along with Japan as countries that have immensely popular films which are popular because they are original. Sadly most high-profile Indian film and even TV are not original ideas:

British things like Second Generation (dire King Lear adaptation) or obviously B&P from Jane Austen. I hardly need to explain that the majority of Bollywood films are lifted hook line and sinker from Hollywood.

Indians as a global community need to re-address our creative thought processes. Bollywood's baffling success has tragically overshadowed other things we have to offer. Since Satyajit Ray's death, how many Indian films have been truly GREAT films, on a world scale?

I reckon I only need one hand to count them.

Surely you've missed the point about these kinds of East West collisions which everyone seems to want to happen - the message in this film is OK enough of this, lets nail it and move on.

OK the director / producers might do well out of it post all the hype and so on, but can anyone better what is already a heavily stereotyped genre ?

The answer is no, so don't bother, whether the source is so called Bollywood or Hollywood - this film knocks spots off the other recent contenders for best Bollywood riff - it succeeds in even spoofing itself & highlights the pointlessness of this exercise.

On another point, I'm heartily fed up with films which portray "reality" in all its gritty truth - cinema never was about "reality" and is the most artificial & contrived medium with its basis in illusion, it can only ever hope to point to truths and that's all (like all "Art") - at least B&P depicts the basic nobility that might exist within people rather than the grim relentless stuff we see on the news everyday.

I'm agree with Zucchini - there seem to be double standards here. We automatically excuse Bollywood films because they are so cack anyway, so when something even incorporates a bit of Bollywood, then its judged either by Bollywood standards or western standards, not on its own merit.

Do Indians want gritty reality? Seeing as 90% of the movies there are airy-fairy and the biggest blockbusters are mind-numbingly annoying pieces of fluff. Same with the UK audience - they want the glamour of Bollywood, not the dirt and grime of Calcutta.

Compare it to Mr and Mrs Iyer - great movie, made money but hardly a huge hit.

Sometimes entertainment should be appreciated just for the sake of it and judged on that marit rather than comparing it to reality.

As for original stories from India - any story that works anywhere has to have a universality to it that stands outside of specific cultural references, that's what marks out Rays work.

After all, stories are just stories - RK Narayans work has that universality -the point about B&P is that it's simply saying this, but also asking - why do we accept the universality of the original book, with all its specific cultural references to an era and country which is almost totally alien to what we know today ?

So when you ask, why don't Indian films ever achieve that greatness on a "world scale" - it's because they are hampered by that very localisation which stops them from being universal in their themes -in fact, and to use a horrible marketing term - this is their USP.

As I've said in other postings, cinema has the power to transport you out of your usual comfort zone to someplace else - it may be one that's boringly familiar to us as Asians but who are we to decide that its the same for everyone else ?

Great article, Priyanka Gill makes a very relevant point about the current typecasting of Indian cinema - elephants, infantile songs etc etc. It would be admirable if film-makers were able to see beyond the obvious in Indian cinema to make films that entertain, minus the cringe factor. Why are our standards for Bollywood films so low that we are willing to accept a mediocre attempt? B and P is mildly entertaining, but it is definately not the best Indian filmmaking has to offer.

It's not Indian film making per se, but a British Asian perspective on Hindi cinema.

There's lots of good cinema coming out of India, but no one ever sees it outside India because it's drowned out by the marketing juggernaut that is Bollywood.

Try listening to Beethoven when someone has Brittany Spears turned up full volume and you'll know what I mean...

Point taken, it is a British film, but its reduction of Indian cinema to the lowest possible common denominator shows that the British Asian perception of Hindi cinema is woefully limited. Also, I wonder if the western audience will see B and P as a British film or as a Bollywood attempt to woo an international audience?

hawk said:

{but its reduction of Indian cinema to the lowest possible common denominator shows that the British Asian perception of Hindi cinema is woefully limited}

I'm sorry hawk but I had to laugh at this :-)

Indian cinema (in its crass Bollywood formula) IS THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR

Oh how many more "ironic" "affectionate" spoofs of this stupid thing called the Hindi musical can we take?

But Jay, surely there is a more modern interpretation of Bollywood, look at Kal ho na ho, dil cahta hai, Hum Tum, Road, Company or even devdas, its a lavish musical but much more sophisticated than B and P. I dont remember a contemporary hindi film having a snake dance. B and P gives the wrong impression of what Bollywood is about. Sure there are the terribly cliched films, but then even Hollywood ahs them. It would have been nice if Gurinder Chadha had seen beyond the obvious and reinterpreted Bollywood in a much more positive, less farcical fashion

No way Hawk. Company might be different but B&P is in no way worse than usual Bollywood fare, specially the big ones, specially the weepy ones by Karan Joha. K3G was pure farce for example, no intelligence at all. Yet it was the biggest of recent times.

B&P was definitely better than most Bollywood movies, there's no comparison.

Whoa!

As someone said above, we are judging B&P by Bollywood standards as opposed to any other American-funded, British movie. It sucks. I don't really care if it is better or worse than standard Bollywood fare, but frankly I'm not concerned. The crux of my whole problem with British Asians' obsession with Bollywood is that we should expect as high a standard from any country's cinema.

Zucchini you mentioned that cinema is about transporting people to other places - fine - but whereas a villager in India will love to see sexy girls doing item numbers and hear daft jokes, I think those of us brought up in the West watching movies from around the globe should have a different perspective.

I don't think your point about B&P etc being the only alternative to 'gritty' films is valid - I never once suggested that films have to be depressing and serious to stand apart from others. Two of my favourite Bollywood films of recent times have been Dil Chahta Hai and Lagaan. Now neither were likely to be international hits as I think Indians will enjoy them most. But they both offered something that Bollywood rarely puts on screen, an original idea.

Mr & Mrs Iyer wasn't a huge hit globally because it wasn't a huge hit with Indians. The Bengali film industry rumbles on, making more intellectual films, irrespective of whether the rest of India pays attention. Tragically the Indian public just do not appreciate smart films. It did well on the festival circuit, but the average Indian was too busy rushing to see the usual crap coming out of Bollywood.

Aishwariya has been in a few films recently - two Bengali and one British. We're all talking about B&P (including me), but in fact Chokher Bali is one of the best Indian films I have seen for ages. I just think that's a sad state of affairs.

Sorry for writing so much

I don't think anyone was expecting anything other than a pastiche of the typical Bollywood romance when they heard G was to make B&P - the spin (now much copied eg Vanity Fair etc) being that its based on a bit of classical literature - does that suggest a lack of originality ?

Possibly, but then why not - after all, Bollywood is about archetypes - every story bar none is based on the Ramayana or some other classic of literature.

I enjoyed Lagaan too except for those squirm inducing sequences with the English actress, but there they inflated an original story to level where it was almost operatic in scale -is that realism ? - in fact it was mythic - that's why it worked, it was tapping into something innate within its audience.

Oh & by the way...going back to the original article by Ms Gill, I can only disagree that Rai looks worse in the film than on those heavily retouched posters - this is'nt reasoned criticism...it's bitchyness...MEIOW...PHTT..PHTTT !

Like I said, I don't need to see REALISM, as you pointed out Lagaan wasn't realism, but it was just a well-acted, well-scripted, well-produced, thoroughly likeable underdog story. The concept isn't novel per se, but it was (shockingly enough) the first big budget Indian film to be based around cricket. They didn't copy a Hollywood blockbuster scene for scene (50% of Bollywood films), or dress people in 'gorgeous' Abu Sandeep-esque clothes to woo white people into coming to see it. They took something uniquely important to Indians, cricket. The song and dance numbers were not lavish, they were far more authentic. Devdas was set a few years later and look at the utter disgrace that was. Oh and look what happened, it got nominated for an Oscar.

I don't agree that all Bollywood stories are based on classics like the Ramayana at all, that's ridiculous. Indian authors are winning awards around the world, have we seen any of their books adapted into films? I take it all back actually, Indians have a long legacy of ripping off other people's ideas, why stop now?

guptastar, i feel i have to correct you, or maybe i misunderstood. Lagaan is not about cricket. the cricket is used as a metaphor for the war of independance in 1947, now tell me you understood that yeh? that was what was important o the indian people, the cricket was just a perk!! o yeh and Devdas was an amazing film, with amazing music, but prehaps a too big budget!you can;t deny it was good, the only Bollywood film to have gone to Cnnes after all!!

Ginny, what the hell are you talking about? Dozens of Indian films have been shown at Cannes - plenty of them were from Bollywood. Even as far back as Mother India! Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Ritwik Ghatak - they were regulars. Come on, get your facts straight.

Secondly, Devdas and amazing film don't even deserve to be in the same sentence. You may have guessed that I'm Bengali and this film was nothing short of a complete butchering of one our classic novels. For God's sake watch Bimal Roy's version, THAT'S a good film.

Ah I give up.

PS - Independ-E-nce

At the risk of sounding repetitive, I couldn't help but compare B&P to:-

a) any a grade bollywood film
b) any mainstream hollywood film

with the result being that I half heartedly enjoyed it?

I think zucchini said in one of the posts above that bollywood cinema cannot really be appreciated on a GLOBAL scale due to it's "localistaion" principle.

I wholeheartedly agree with that, however, has anyone noticed that even in the windows media player, one of the options on "power up" is a chnace to see a snippet of a bollywood film?

Now that really is saying something, right?

Furthermore, there was a pretty intriguing article in last week's sunday times about the use of "hinglish" in everyday speech, which as we all know is indian interpretation of everyday words by us asians into some form of convenient shorthand for us. It wasn't patronising, but probably quite informative for many non asians, seeing as it included a brief list of words with translations, including the legendary GORA = white man ;-)

No matter how good or bad the films, in terms of zeitgeist, our cultural "swaad" is permeating into everyday life all over the place.

and i have to agree with gupstar that bimal roy's devdas, with dilip kumar, was better, and gave the original story the delicate touch it needed..in other words, subtlty not OVERBLOWN POMP

On a related note, the 1935 version of devdas had bimal roy involved as a principle cameraman...

I think when we talk about "standards" its important to understand by whose standards the quality of film is measured - is it "our own" or the "Wests" ?

Japanese manga is normally 3 hours long, as is the average Hindi film, which is intolerably long for the Western sensibility which is attuned to 90 minutes max - for marketing reasons.

B&P manages to squeeze a typical Hindi film into a slightly longer than 90 minute timeframe and you get a sense that its fast forwarding all the corniest conventions in a rather trite way - which isn't the intention.

Another casualty of trying to create a fusion of sensibilities...

There's no dount that Bengal has produced the finest writers and film makers in India - but its status in India has been eroded by the idea that the Bengalis were always more Western in their outlook since Calcutta was the seat of the Empire and they had first access to all the latest ideas & fads.

Nothing wrong with that, but it was always seen as at odds to the idea of a more "local" art & culture, which Bombay / Delhi took upon itself to try and define.

The same happened to South Indian cinema, which like that of Bengal has always been streets ahead of Bollywood in terms of trying to sidestep plebean & populist tastes in favour of thought provoking cinema.

You know, I'll always be happy to argue with people who can tell me trivia from 1935 and people who can chuck the word 'plebeian' into everyday speech!

I guess we'll just agree to disagree in this case. If I'm totally honest, perhaps I have such a problem with Bollywood because I am another Bong snob and don't like being tarred with the same brush. However I do have faith in the younger Indian filmmakers, both here and back home and I'm on a mission to publicise the best Indian films. So I'm looking forward to the future.

It's funny you mention manga - this is one genre that has had a huge impact on Western films, none more so than the Matrix (Ghost in the Shell). Many sci-fi movies in the West have copied anime style and camerawork. Japanese cinema has also influenced the West a lot - from Kirasawa to modern films (imdb just ran an article asking what you think of so many Japanese horror films being remade in America).

I can't see much of an Indian influence - yet. And don't nobody mention Moulin Rouge!

Perhaps at the end of the day , in a more holistic sense, all -if not most- forms of entertainment are formed by the current zeitgeist. However, I also feel that technological advances - ie roto camera, sfx, et al- haev also contributed to the way in which entertainment is not only delivered but PERCIEVED.

For instance, twenty years ago, you couldn't watch your fav film, et al at the flick of your remote control, and even the trip to the video shop meant "can i have the latest amitabh, etc". Now with the plethora of sattelite, dvd, piracy (?), and even online entertainment portals, we have become a more discerning audience who naturally want MORE or at least SOMETHING BETTER?

Think...What if you were able to edit a film to YOUR TASTE on the dvd version? In effect , removing superflouos scenes and having our own directors cut...it isn't that far away?

But..back to the original problem...until the new generation, and every successive generation "stick their neck out" so to speak, then we'll be watching- or avoiding massala formulaic stuff for another decade..or two!

Perhaps allowing some form of interaction will be the way forward...although that's next to impossible in your nearby warners or vue ;-) But on the home market...why not??

That way, even the rubbish you avoid at the cinema could be given a new lease of life a la' your own easy to use edit suite ?? ;-)

In fact, I have to admit that sometimes I get a great amount of satisfaction knowing the film is total cack beforehand...nothing beats a bit of unintentional humour ;-)

You know, me and a mate re-edited Matrix II and III into one pretty decent sequel to the first one. Consumer control! We call it...

The Matrix Re-edited.

None of that lame love scene and no frikkin rainbows at the end!

I'd like to get a copy of that!

Which sort of brings us back to the level of creative control directors have when they work on bigger & bigger budget films - the bottom line is if someone is giving you a few million quid to make a film - it has to make money, over and above any critical or creative criteria.

A lot of shots in B&P ended up on the cutting room floor after so called "interaction" by US test audiences - eg shots of Ealing Broadway etc, and the American lead actually comes off a better character purely as a result of editing following this "interaction" - (basically Mr Weinstein saying where the f**k is Southall & who cares anyway?)

The Wachowskis had carte blanche to do exactly what they wanted on the basis of a previous hit and the end result is actually a worse film - despite test screenings, which were probably made up of the films target demographic of computer geeks...

You gotta love Harvey.

Now zucchini, I've forgiven you for liking B&P - if you go cussing computer geeks you're really gonna be in my bad books!

Geek power.

does spending more than one hour working on a sound in my studio qualify me for geek status? ;-)

Ok already..I bow to the Great God Geek whose followers are many & whose shrine is Windows XP...

hahahahahahaha!!

whoa excuse me guptastar, couldn't help but laugh at your laugh to my reply on your take of Devdas,didn't know you were bengali, makes no difference, Devdas is wicked, period. oh and thanks for informing me of my S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G M-I-S-T-A-K-E, like you've never made a mistake on a keyboard before!haahaahaaheeheheehhaahheh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!