After seeing some parallels between some copied hollywood flicks into Bollywood,I infer onething about Indians in terms of emotions experienced while watching movies.
Last night I was watching "My Best Friend's Wedding" on DVD...which was also copied in Hindi with YashChopra spinning another Love fable with a heavy dose of POWERED BY CTRL-C DRIVEN BY CTRL-V.
Now in this movie I see that Julia Roberts, is the typical girl..who ignores the movements of her Boyfriend and when she comes to know of his mariage..tries to go and break it up...but finally maturity prefers and the ending is not as we has in the Indian Yash Chopra where Uday chopra gets his girl and finally manges to break the wedding and has his way.
What I wish to point out here is the maturity levels in the audiences in India and abroad.Indian's come what may want a good ending with the script screaming "and the hero and heroine lived happily ever after" while the west seems to cling on to more mature decisions respecting the practicality of emotions.In last night's movie... it would have been so bad and so horrible if Julia Roberts actually ended up marrying her 9 years sweetheart just on the grounds that she knew him for a long time and after all the wicked things she tries to do to break up the marriage.Hence to the common discernible viewer it would have seen logical that Cameron diaz marries Dermot Mulroney...but the Indian audience would have gone back sulking if this had happened in Bollywood...and the moview would have been a despicable Flop.That Pretty much explains why movies with no cliched endings like Fiza didnt do well at the Box office in Bollywood
Another Movie that comes to my mind is Mrs Doubtfire..where again the ending is not so Hunky dory, but in the Tamil and Hindi Versions... Kamalahassan has to win..and so does he...and guess what he'shappy making the money,the audience is happy getting their money's worth of entertainment.So one thing I can conclude is that most Indians seem to fall for the trap of losing ourselves into an imaginary world to get some respite from the pressures and realities.I realised this when I watched a movie last Friday at Satyam Cinemas with my colleagues..when the movie"Being cyrus" seemingly had no end...it was a directionless movie in my view..but on harder reflections ...by my mind..whether I had wasted 80 bucks(include 10 in the parking lot), I realised that the movie was not so bad...it provided a lovely glimpse of what happens in real life in such families where the upbringing of children may not be proper due to paerntal abuse.Also another aspect was the way Mr Dinshaw was treated by his son's and that provided a glimpse into the feelings of a old 80 something man who has no one to talk to... and that's what resulted in the previous post.
So My take on the whole thing is that,while I too may like some of these formula movies...it's just the emotions conveyed in the movie that matter's and if it can get you to think on some aspects of life..which may have been unknown to you, the 80 bucks spent is Paisa vasool. Comments on this observation of mine are welcome
6 comments:
Interesting post man,,,,
hi kartik, first time on ur blog. that was an interesting observation. but i ve got to tell you, mere yaar ki shaadi hai, or the yash chopra version of My Best Friend's Wedding, did not set the box office on fire unlike the original one. I ve seen the movie and i and some of my friends are of the same opinion that, it was stupid to show that uday chopra gets the girl in the end. but then, even if a happy ending is avoided, at times, the result is not good. for example, mani ratnam's dil se, which bombed at the box office. I must say that one cannot underestimate the audience's intellectual capability. it will not be entirely right to say that formula always clicks. for exampple, kal ho na ho was a typical formula film with all the elements. but the hero dies in the end and the girl marries someone else. the movie is a hit. so that is also there. a film like Virasat by Priyadarshan, did not have a happy ending, in terms of re-union of lovers. but it was a hit. so, it all depends on the film, the story and the manner in which a director handles it.
Surfed here through Daily Girl Blog (Priya).
You have raised an interesting point. My 2 cents :
I also agree with you. But in addition to this, I feel while copying or deriving from Western movies, nowadays, filmmakers copy the 'thinking' 'reactions' of Westerners even if it is not compatible with our Indian sensibilities.
Like in the movie Best Friends Wedding, Roberts tries really hard doing 'wrong' stuff to win back her friend, even to the extent of breaking his marriage, which would be held in a couple of days. Now this attitude would definitely be considered 'vampish' in Indian terms...however much you love or want someone, you dont break that person's marriage !! Its just not the right thing to our Indian sensibilities.
But nowadays I see movies which totally seem to copy Western sensibilities & it feels wrong to me...like this is not a Indian movie, although the characters look Indian and speak Indian.
your post quite well explains the mentality man.... cant help it you see...that was a good observation.
it is also the kind of movies that we copy..there is a certain formula that is set and more than the question whether it will work or not..One has to risk it..fiza had an unusual end.. rather more realistic.. but then it wasn't absolutely great.. there are no portions in which we see hritik's transformation.. no depiction of his personal angst.. to me the movie was jumpy in alot of parts...
and since you mention the indian clone of my best freind's wedding,if you have forgotten the movie had bombed. and quite badly at that. simply coz the movie couldnt work for the audience.
Inept script. repetitive mushy style of film making. and it just wasnt frothy enough to fit in it's category...
hence more than anything else you need a well made film, whether it be an original 'cine'-ware or be "powered by CTRL C".
Thanx
I
too find myself criticizing the stupid emotionality of a lot of these american films that really lack any good direction. A good film really has to make an argument and show you something that isn't just a fake world that someone came up with. While movies will never be equivalent to the real world, some movies are just more stimulating.
its not necessarily that they are
intellectual, just passionate and true.
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