Indian versus International Movies

Let’s get first thing first and that is "Indian movies cannot compete at international level". It can not happen because international movies do not accept any commercial compulsions (at least not as rigidly as Indian movies) and thus stays true to the plot and basic premise and try for a realistic portrayal of its characters. However, Indian movies are soaking wet with commercial compulsions of our Indian cinema such as

• The 180 minutes movie length (so as to give paisa vasool to the public),
• Heroine (to bring sex appeal to the movie otherwise movie will labeled as "ekdum thunda") and amazingly a movie may get labeled as “Experimental” merely by the fact that it does not have a female protagonist,
• Love angle (not the little bit of romance rather full blown, in your face, absolutely clearly defined Love angle) but the makers somehow forget the basic premise of romance “subtler it is, better it is”
• A clear cut defined, all-evil villain (to allow viewers to project their hatred and frustration to a particular character and feel catharsis of their own violent urges while watching

Him destroying a good and settled person’s Life in the initial reels (we all derive a kind of pervert subconscious pleasure in witnessing pain and suffering, after all that’s why snuff is having such a hard-to-be-believed following)

Him getting destroyed by the protagonist, under the revenge-vendetta (we all are animals; basically, and thus have a violent streak in us. No denial to that)

• Making movies for utterly wrong reasons. Indian movie makers make movies not because they had found such a compelling and interesting story that should be told (in a commercially successful manner, off course!) rather for

Launching some star son or star daughter by showcasing all that he/she can do under the guise of a story and that’s why we have so many of unnecessary dance, action and emotional sequences in many of the movies

Making some easy money by making a scene by scene copy of some successful (not original/creative) movie under the guise of fancy jargons such as “remake of xyz” (used by the honest movie makers), “influenced by xyz” (used by those who still have some decency left in them) and “never heard of/viewed xyz” (used by the majority of these empty headed businessmen as they are not movie makers per se)

Showcasing some superstar’s rivalry with another superstar (I would love to place Ghajini under this heading)

• Apart form 150+ minutes movie length, 2 other compulsions are my personal worst-offs:

SONGS: I am not against having soundtrack but what really Pisses me off is the have a bizarre song and dance sequence, out of the blues, at most unexpected and inappropriate times. Again, this compulsion is so strong that merely absence of songs can make a movie experimental.

HAPPY ENDING: We Indian like to go home with leaving the movie behind, at the theater. After all, sweets are integral part of Indian styled celebrations and to an average middle class. family, movie watching (200+ Rs @person) is a kind of celebration

Now coming back to a our discussion that why Indian movies cannot compete at international level, I find there is one other reason that we are tied down to present and thus do not explore much of our past as well as probable future. On the other hand, international movies have gone up to 10000 BC and had imagined the future up till 4000 AD or so. This range of time had given them more flexibility as well as novelty when it had come to the stories.

So a nutshell if we have to ensure that people take notice of our moviemaking than we had to get rid of these compulsions and have to make ourselves more flexible and probing so as to dig new stories and have to think of new ways of telling them.

Any comments???