Help me with Bollywood and Indian cinema in general

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The big problem with this film that I had was that it really makes K3G look stiff and outdated by comparison, with its casteism, fat-shaming, patriarchal households, etc etc.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The big problem with this film that I had was that it really makes K3G look stiff and outdated by comparison, with its casteism, fat-shaming, patriarchal households, etc etc.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

It's only a few minutes longer. You would barely notice the difference.

btw, what are the essentials I should watch before Om Shanti Om? I realise there's no way I'll get ALL the references, but would like to have at least a few "aha, I get it" moments.

I don't really know. It was the second SRK movie I ever watched, so apart from recognising Hrithik in the extended "Deewangi Deewangi" number, I was very much in the "I assume this is some hilarious Bollywood reference I don't get" camp. Having seen it since I've learned more, I do at least understand that they make jokes about SRK being a notoriously bad timekeeper and always being on fire, but otherwise I think a lot of the older films they specifically reference are not that easy to come by - at least, outside India.

For example, I saw this musical number on Youtube the other week, which comes from Amrapali, a classic film that is referenced in Om Shanti Om. You can't get it anywhere, as far as I can see. Not streaming, and no DVDs available on eBay or other outlets.

Apparently on netflix in the US if you wanna invest in a VPN!

https://letterboxd.com/muktaa_/list/every-movie-referenced-in-om-shanti-om/

Using the filters it seems there is only one film that straight up isn't on any service anywhere: 1977's swashbuckler Jay Vejay, which does look like a lot of fun. 5 logs on letterboxd!

I will say though a lot of Indian movies I've found on streaming seem to have machine generated subtitles, which often end up quite poetic but entirely impossible to use to understand what's happening onscreen.

God, living in Ireland you get fleeced by streaming services left and right. There's so much we don't get, but we pay the same subscription fee. Moan moan, I'll just get a VPN, I guess.

Didn't go to Dunki in the cinema, because it opened four days before Christmas, and I'm not subjecting myself to the city centre at that time of year, not even for you, SRK. Anyway, it'll be on Netflix in a few weeks.

Very much looking forward to Malayalam film Malaikottai Vaaliban next week, based on nothing but the enthusiasm of some people I follow on BlueSky, and this intense trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDLiObvefA

I saw Dunki at my local cinema. It was... well, it's always enjoyable to watch a Bollywood movie at the cinema, not a big turnout this time though, so less atmosphere. The narrative is kinda bizarre but it def has a heart.

Ah well. At least the songs in it are good.

Hanuman - Telugu superhero film, first installment in a cinematic universe. My LB review:

Pays off the dumb "superheroes are the modern mythology" talking point by having its hero actually be based on local mythology, to the extent that this white boy sometimes had trouble following along (though the sung recaps of the mythological elements were very helpful). The film also takes considerable advantage of its gorgeous rural setting and overall the tone is agreeably goofy, closer to a live action Asterix than anything in the MCU. The one concession to "well that just happened" American-style superheroics is Vennela Kishor's character, whose constant referencing of DC and Marvel properties does grate, though I will say his habit of exclaiming "shazam" at every opportunity and in a variety of emotional registers grew on me. A great time at the movies, looking forward to more in this shared universe!

Got some amused smiles on the way out of the cinema; tube wasn't running so I got on a bus that had a group of lads who asked me if I had enjoyed the film, and then proceeded to slag off the subtitles in Telugu (at least that's what I assume, ENG word "subtitles" in derisive tone only thing I understood obv).

Also gonna try to catch Merry Christmas (romance/mystery, puzzlingly released in January) and Naa Saami Ranga.

Merry Christmas is a must see! Wonderful sensual love story leading into a deliciously silly but emotionally affecting mystery. Reminded me of 50's Hitchcock, equal parts Movie Stars being charming and sexy and intense tension. Set in 60's Bombay, but ofc within the Christian population - noticed the male lead's last name is Pinto, the female lead is Maria, there's an Henriques as well, are all xian converts in India of Portuguese descent?

I watched Jawan last weekend. That was a lot of fun. It felt like 10 movies rolled into one. Insane highway chase setpiece near the end too.

Some of you might be interested in this thread I started over on ILM:

Rolling DESI and SOUTH ASIAN music thread 2024 - Bhangra, Bollywood, Chutney Soca, Baila etc...

Nice. I don't think I've ever posted on a thread on ILM in all my years here.