Help me with Bollywood and Indian cinema in general

Big scandal over new blockbuster Adipurush. Insufficiently reverentia towards Hinduism apparently, though none of the news items I read cite the specific passages (perhaps out of fear of being accused of blasphemy themselves?). Director under policd protection, has agreed to change the offending lines. As always I give my disclaimers of being a white outsider but this sure seems like some religious right fuckery to me.

Oh wow. Just saw that was showing, thought about going knowing nothing about it.

It got a battering from one of the Indian media critics I follow on Twitter.

wait Hanuman is in The Flash? huh

I watched FAN (2016) this evening, bringing my total for SRK films up to 36, making him now officially my most-watched actor (I think), beating out Michael Caine by two films.

Personal achievements aside, Fan is a pretty good film. It's not very Bollywood -- no songs, no overacting, no big SRK gestures, no love story, no jokes. Just a creepy thriller about a psychotic fan who looks eerily like his hero. It's a pretty solid film.

bringing my total for SRK films up to 36, making him now officially my most-watched actor (I think), beating out Michael Caine by two films.

ooh are you on letterboxd? or do you keep your own tally?

I just keep my own tally. I did join Letterboxd, but it's too much like work.

It's been invaluable to me in exploring different Indian cinema industries, though also the desi reviewers on there are merciless when it comes to Indian cinema.

It's probably a good idea, even if it does sometimes feel like homework. I guess I don't really have to rate and review everything, just log it.

oh yeah absolutely, I started enjoying it more once I dropped those expectations

https://letterboxd.com/beingprateek/lists/

This guy has best of lists for every regional style of Indian cinema. Are they good lists? No idea!

Mmm. He seems very thorough.

Maamannan (Tamil) - Keerthy Suresh plays an educator who provides free classes for disadvantaged youths, in a room that is littered with Che Guevara posters. This upsets the brother of political bigwig Fahadh Faasil, who runs a private college and doesn't appreciate the competition. She therefore reluctantly seeks out the help of Udhayanidhi Stalin, whose character is a trademark Indian Cinema Awesome Dude - runs a dojo, rides a sweet bike, works as a pig farmer despite his dad also being in politics (at one point he draws a hilarious picture of a winged piglet). From there things quickly escalate and Udhayanidhi has to bust some heads while his dad (Vadivelu) runs against the villain at the ballots.

It's a bit clumsy, to be honest, the action film and semi-pedagogical political drama bits of it failing to mesh. Suresh, who the film initially centres on quite a lot, becomes a background character pretty quickly, as if the film was saying "ok we've ticked the feminist thing off the list", though at least she gets to keep showing up in jeans and political t-shirts, and is never put into a damsel in distress position. There's also an unfortunate focus on violence against animals: villain raises racing dogs and is introduced beating one of them to death, later he sets them loose on the hero's pigs...all pretty fake and CGI but still, didn't need any of that. Will say though that the film's heart is in the right place, and it's cool to see commercial cinema that doesn't just hint at leftist social justice politics or try to package it into a defanged feel good product but engages with it directly and explicitly. At one point the villain summons the local caste counsel and has them ban his political opponent from certain villages, they are portrayed as absolute cunts.

Neeyat (Hindi) - Kind of the opposite of Maamannan in that this is total and absolute fluff but super slick. A murder mystery that pilfers liberally from the Knives Out films, both in design and "aren't the rich fucked up" messaging. Set on a Scottish island, though with an all desi cast (the only whites are voiceless staff, a neat inversion of western cinema's treatment of brown people), and with the interesting choice of making investigator Vidya Balan not a cock-of-the-walk monologuist like Benoit Blanc, Hercule Poirot and all the others, but rather an awkward woman who seems not to want to be there - in one of the funniest moments of the film, a suspect actually says "we'll go into the drawing room now and listen to what you have to say", as if prompting the character to go through her tropes. Better yet, this awkwardness is actually explained in one of the film's last twists. The politics of it are pretty shallow and the mystery ain't the strongest, but it's gorgeous people in gorgeous sorroundings and at 130min it's practically the Bollywood equivalent of a programmer.

villain raises racing dogs and is introduced beating one of them to death, later he sets them loose on the hero's pigs...all pretty fake and CGI but still, didn't need any of that.

I agree. No thanks to that, even in obvious CGI form.

Neeyat sounds pleasant, though. Might give that a go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8YiqM0Y-78

This looks like an absolute juggernaut of a film. I don't know if that's a good thing. I am worn out with slow-motion action.

"Jawan is about a soldier who sets out to avenge a personal vendetta against the government with the help of his gang of women."

Interested if the soldier's the good guy, not so much if not.

speaking of trailers/teasers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUR_FKt7Iso

Simple English!
Lion, cheetah, tiger, elephant - very dangerous.
But...
Not in Jurassic Park!

So many awesome guys. I'm exhausted.

Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Lahaani - Ranveer Singh plays the heir of a Punjabi candy empire and a S tier himbo who finds out his grandfather (Bollywood legend Dharmendra), who is wheelchair bound and sundowning, occasionally mentions the name of an old flame. This turns out to be fellow bwood legend Jaya Bachchan, playing the grandmother of a highly cultured Bengali family. Granddaughter Alia Bhatt, host of a serious news show and Singh team up to let the old couple meet in secret, as both families disapprove - and of course end up falling for each other as well. From there it becomes a movie about cultural differences, with the high concept of both lovers agreeing to live at the other family's house for three months in order to see if the differences are insurmountable.

I went into this having seen the trailer expecting, basically, the kind of film I thought Bollywood films were before I started watching Indian cinema. Big love story, a lot of melodrama, musical numbers in exotic locales. I'll admit I was dreading the 170min lenght a bit. And I guess it kind of IS what I just described, but it is also a lot funnier than I thought it would be, Singh is just a riot, boastful, kind hearted, totally thick in the most delightful ways - also just a succession of INSANE outfits, all designed to show off his impressive six pack. And Bhatt of course is awesome, feisty, breathtakingly beautiful. So by the time the movie switches a bit into more dramatic material you're invested in the relationship.

The culture clash stuff is interesting, doesn't really map directly onto anything we'd see in a Western comedy: Singh's family is ostentatious (but not necc nouveau riche, his grandmother built the empire), politically conservative, religious. Bhatt's is secular, highly cultured, politically progressive and a bit snobbish. So the film gets into a lot of progressive causes, overall feminist bent, casteism, fat shaming, gender stereotypes. Bhatt's father is a professional dancer for a style that I guess is mostly associated with female performers. It's frequently naive (Alia suggests they change a commercial to be gender progressive and sales go THROUGH THE ROOF), but less bothsidesish than you'd think - Bhatt basically learns nothing from Singh's family, and what Singh teaches hers amounts to "stop turning your nose up at people for being corny and for being less educated than you", which, you know, OTM. Felt very smug at the cultural references I got (Singh mistakes a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore as the family's grandfather, there's a Rajamouli ref because Bhatt was in RRR), but obviously there's bound to be way more that went over my head.

Oh also they go to Kashmir for like five minutes. Bhatt is covering a NGO there but it still feels a bit "yeah we own this now".

Anyway, trishyb, possibly a good antidote to your awesome guy fatigue!

Oh it's directed by the guy who did Citizen Khan and Khabi Khushi Kahbie Gham.

Oh yes, we went to this on Saturday. My first Bollywood film in the cinema! I'm really glad to see it playing multiple shows across a whole week in Dublin.

The culture clash stuff is interesting, doesn't really map directly onto anything we'd see in a Western comedy:

It's a bit like if the kids in The Birdcage swapped families (and everyone wasn't necessarily gay).

The big problem with this film that I had was that it really makes K3G look stiff and outdated by comparison, with its casteism, fat-shaming, patriarchal households, etc etc. It's also funny to see the actors who used to play mothers and fathers now playing grandparents, but the actors who used to play the leads (the men, anyway) are NOT aging gracefully into the dad roles and have instead taken a sidestep into doing action films.

Anyway, trishyb, possibly a good antidote to your awesome guy fatigue!]

Yeah, it was great. Just what I wanted. If I had time to go all the way to Dublin this week I think I'd go and see it again. And at the end I got to say to my husband, "see, aren't you glad I made you sit through Devdas now?"

And, in his glorious wisdom, our leader has bestowed on us the gift of a song from Jawan. Maybe he feels Ranveer has been getting too much attention this weekend.

The big problem with this film that I had was that it really makes K3G look stiff and outdated by comparison, with its casteism, fat-shaming, patriarchal households, etc etc.

tbf one thing about this one is, with all its progressivism the main villain is still an old woman

also the anti-casteist comments are nice but the darkest person in the film is still a security guard

anyway, obv not stuff I should get too judgemental and authorative about as a total outsider to the culture

I had a certain amount of sympathy for Rocky's gran. I'm not sure how delighted I'd be if my husband resumed a long-buried love affair right under my nose. And if my grandson's fiancee came into my sweet shop and started making sweets without washing her hands first.

Well the husband wasn't really all there anymore, it's as much palliative care as a love affair imo. Plus the fact that in the opening flashback we see she never liked him anyway, due to his distasteful enjoyment of POETRY.

Maybe she washed her hands offscreen!

Oh sure, take her side.

(Just kidding.)

I had no idea that being a sweetmaker was such a big thing. This is at least the fourth film I've seen where one of the main characters is a sweetmaker. (Queen, K3G, Chennai Express, Rocky aur Rani)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lagaan.jpg
What could be better, on a rainy Saturday afternoon in Ireland, than watching an almost four-hour film about villagers in India learning cricket in order to defeat the colonisers so they don't have to pay exorbitant taxes during a drought? Just a pity the DVD of Lagaan (2001) I bought isn't fantastic quality. It would be great to watch a 4K version of this. I laughed, I cried, I almost couldn't watch at one point because it was all so tense.

I don't know why the image didn't come out. Odd.

Watched Chak De India at the weekend, which was fine. Classic sports underdog film, very simple. SRK makes a very convincing coach for a sports team, and all the women were great. Sadly the songs are poor and the camera work is extremely questionable (maybe to cover up some subpar hockey skills?). Good times, though. Well done, everyone.

Also watched 1972 classic Pakeezah, which has amazing songs and beautiful dancing. Really poor quality DVD, though.

Jawan on Thursday! Very exciting!

How was Jawan? Thinking of going

It was an absolute blast, but I can't tell you how the last twenty minutes was because the projector broke in our cinema and we all got sent home. As one of the Indian lads said to us "If this had happened in a cinema anywhere in India on the opening night of an SRK movie..."

But yes, it's very loud and brash and propulsive and silly and socially conscious and fun.

We went back for Jawan round two yesterday. This time we were told that the cinema was extremely hot and if we felt like we were too hot we could come out and ask for a refund. Basically Dublin cinemas are not meant to cope with heat + capacity crowds, and nobody in the scheduling bit realized that they were going to have capacity crowds for this film, so they failed to put it in the screen with the best air conditioning.

Anyway, it was still great second time round. The Robin Hood-type social justice messaging is very do-you-see, to the point where you find yourself laughing out loud at a farmer literally taking his head out of a noose when he gets some good news for a change. As my husband says, Atlee is clearly a big believer in "subtext is for losers". The film gets a lot of mileage out of SRK's own mythology, and there are references to other films, because of course there are, but they don't derail anything. Atlee obviously loves him, and he pays it back in spades. I've seen a lot of films at this stage where they try to make SRK look bigger than he really is, but they don't bother with that here. I don't know what he's doing in terms of eating/drinking/snorting/lifting/injecting/digitally manipulating these days, but he looks like a whipcrack of a man in Jawan.

It should be noted that other people are also in the film.

thanks for your review!

eventually went to

enjoyed the spectacle, SRK is so damn charming

on one hand interesting to see such a radical critique of the current system in a mainstream movie, otoh very heavyhanded as in your example (not sure whether to laugh or cry)

Watched RDX on Netflix at the weekend. Plotwise there's nothing new here -- the main thrust being what if THREE guys were awesome? -- and the music is not a big factor. But the kickpunching is great, and the guys themselves are extremely likeable. Great clothes and hair, too.

I went to see Skanda, which really takes the awesomeness to its ne plus ultra - once the hero defeats an entire army squadron on his own you really start to wonder if there are any stakes in this at all. Quite suss politics: it's about local corruption, as always, but here it takes the form of framing a virtuos capitalist. Lots of talk about God and Country. Gender politics deeply fucked too. Worth a watch if you want a shot of stoopid ott action tho. If not, I do recommend tracking down this Spirit Halloween-ass video; sadly the version on YouTube alternates between the actual scene and a lyrics video, but it should still give a taste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu_oem10ywc

Jawan on Friday :)

I wish I was seeing Jawan on Friday.

Ended up going yesterday cause for some reason it leaves cinemas today?

A great time! Def liked this a lot more than I did Pathaan, but then I would, an angry class war polemic being far more amenable to my beliefs than the patriotic geopolitics of Pathaan (though Jawaan does lean into military-worship in the second half too). The very first musical number, wow, I don't know that I've ever seen a musical number with that many dancers!

Starting to realise that the Indian action film formula seems to be: introduce mysterious protagonist in first half, bring in origin story after the interval.

Have to say though trishyb, considering our agreement on violence against animals, surprised you didn't complain about poor Rio :O

On a tangential note, getting quite annoyed at "wow India is kicking our ass at action movies now" discourse. It comes from a good place of enthusiasm, and I've probably said similar in the past, but it's still centering Hollywood, like everything has to be compared to the fucking US, and also what do these ppl know about Indian action films of the 90's, 80's, 70's? I've watched quite a few and still wouldn't pretend to know anything really.

Have to say though trishyb, considering our agreement on violence against animals, surprised you didn't complain about poor Rio :O

Oh, I was not happy about it, not one bit. But it was very in keeping with the whole "throw everything at this and let it all stick" vibe of the film. Not enough that you have to do all these other things, but you KILLED DEEPIKA'S DOG. Plus everything moves so fast in that film. I loved the fact, for example, that the super scary Bane-looking guy with the cheetah turned out to be... nothing.

On a tangential note, getting quite annoyed at "wow India is kicking our ass at action movies now" discourse.

I haven't really seen this discourse. But yes, I totally agree with you. All I've learned about Indian films to date is that it is impossible for someone like me to really know much at all.

There's a part of me that thinks Hollywood/Western/non-Indian action films have become polarized. They're either all CGI, superhero, green screen, totally and obviously fake and comic book to the point where the actors may as well not be there at all, or they're striving incredibly hard for authenticity and a gritty reality that just ends up being kind of boring. The Indian action films I watch are a fun mixture of the two. But I could be massively misrepresenting modern non-Indian action films. tbh, I don't watch many non-Indian action films in them, because I do not find the awesome guys either charismatic or hot, so I can't be arsed.

in them = these days (don't know what happened there)

It's kinda crazy how violent Jawaan is, considering it's a mainstream blockbuster - child deaths, so many hangings!

A lack of star power is def a big part of the problem with modern Hollywood, partially since now it's so much about the franchise (whoever plays Spider Man matters less than Spidey himself).

fav random line from Jawaan, coming from a talking head commenting on the fact that the main character is holding the nation's entire stock of voting machines hostage until they give in to his demands: "this is not good for our democracy".

It's kinda crazy how violent Jawaan is, considering it's a mainstream blockbuster - child deaths, so many hangings!

Right? And SRK's social media team is all "oh, hey, take the kids, take the whole family, hope the little ones enjoy it." It was rated 15s in Ireland, and there were people there with small kids. I wouldn't let small kids watch that.

Thank You For Coming - Bhumi Pednekar plays a woman who's never orgasmed, until the night of her engagement...but she doesn't remember who it was with! Very self consciously progressive romcom - apart from the centering of female pleasure there's also casual marijuana use, a subplot about revenge porn and a portrayal of homosexuality which ends up very 90's and stereotypical but it does aim to be positive. Aleays feel a bit cheated when the actors don't sing in an Indian film - this has several musical numbers but all they do is dance, and not that impressively either. Anyway as a non-Indian male I am doubly unqualified to judge this film but it was a nice time, barely two hours. My favourite joke: in the middle of an anti-patriarchy catharsis session with girls shouting "I don't want to lose weight!", "I don't want to pluck my eyebrows", etc. one boy pipes up with "I don't want to study maths!" and there's no awkward silence or calling out, kid just gets away with it.

Lots of interesting videos on this channel it seems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd14bNaEdlc

Oh, nice.

My BBC Sounds notifications hiting paydirt:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/favourites/m001rjch

Hmm, I think that link is connected to your account. I just get an error when I click it.

Oops, this work?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001rjch?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

Ah, yes, very good. Thanks!

I just love him so much. Did we sit and watch Jawan again when it hit Netflix on Friday? You know we did.

I saw it was on netflix but the words "extended cut" gave me pause, I had a blast with the theatrical but one thing I didn't think was "this could stand to be a bit longer".