Producing twice as many films as Hollywood and attracting double the audience, the Indian industry is, by certain measures, top of the cinematic tree. With Ireland's first Indian film festival starting next week, DONALD CLARKElooks at the world's most exuberant movie industry
EVERYBODY HAS met somebody who, having enjoyed a brief holiday in Goa, professes to know something about Indian food. While friends plough enthusiastically through the jalfrezi and the bhajis, he or she will explain that this is nothing like the food Indians actually eat.
Something similar happened following the release of Slumdog Millionaire. "Think this is Bollywood?" the connoisseurs snorted. "You have no idea. Where's the unique collision of genres? Where's the ebullient buzz?"
They were entirely correct. Entertaining as Danny Boyle's film was, it offered barely a flavour of the audio-visual cornucopia that springs from Bollywood and – looking beyond Mumbai – the Indian film industry in general. Only a maniac would try to sum up Hollywood's output in a single feature, but, cultural imperialists that we are, more than a few of us felt Slumdog"got" Indian cinema. (To be fair, Boyle would never make any such claim.)
Ponder the figures for a moment. Some years ago, Vanity Fairdrew up a chart comparing Hollywood's output with that of Bollywood. Worldwide revenues from US films did, it is true, dwarf those from India. The average cost of an American film was, moreover, many times greater than that of its Asian counterpart. In every other area, Indian cinema hammered that of the United States.
Bollywood produced about 50 per cent more features and sold about 50 per cent more tickets. The Bollywood annual growth rate was about twice that of Hollywood. Approach the comparison from a particular angle and the Indian film industry looks like the busiest in the world.
So the launch of a dedicated Indian Film Festival in Ireland seems strangely overdue. In recent years, both the Irish Film Institute and Cineworld have screened Bollywood releases, but, though you can catch German, French and Swedish movie jamborees, the equivalent Indian event has been conspicuously absent. Until now.
Siraj Zaidi, a distinguished actor, director and writer, long resident in Ireland, has persuaded the good people at Swan Cinemas in Rathmines to open their doors to the first Indian Film Festival of Ireland on June 25th.
Over the following weekend, the complex will present a programme that celebrates the full scope of Indian cinema. You can catch classics such as Mother India, thrillers such as Raajneetiand sentimental crowd-pleasers such as Paa.
“This is the first time we are launching a dedicated Film Festival of Ireland,” says Zaidi. “Hopefully this will become an annual event in the cultural calendar of the year.” He sees the festival as having two intertwined purposes: to spread the word about Indian film, and to help create an atmosphere that encourages investment from Bollywood into Ireland.
It sounds so obvious. A great deal of energy has been invested in drawing US productions to our shores. If, as the figures above suggest, the Indian industry compares in size with its New World cousin, then we should also be making a grab for the Mumbai money. Zaidi, whose company, Bollywood Ireland, enabled those screenings at the IFI, elaborated on his ambitions at the programme launch.
“Through my company we have shown somewhere in the region of 500 Indian films throughout the country,” he says. “That has expanded since the British company Cineworld came on board, but that put more pressure on me. The idea is to increase the proliferation of Irish film and to foster co- production.”
He went on to discuss his plans for flogging Ireland as a location. “One more philosophy is to make Ireland a welcoming place for Indians to make their films. Many have shot a few scenes here and then gone away. I want to foster that relationship.”
With all such festivals, a fine balance must be struck between appealing to core immigrant populations and reaching out to the wider public.
Ironically, one of the barriers to worldwide acceptance of Indian cinema has been the unapologetic populism of so much of its output. Film festivals focusing on (as far as Anglophones are concerned) foreign- language pictures tend to appeal to art-house audiences. In other words, selling a season of films by Satyajit Ray, master of glacial classics such as Pather Panchali, to non- Indians is probably somewhat easier than marketing a Bollywood thriller or a musical to the same audience.
PS Raghavan, Indian ambassador to Ireland, feels confident that the wider exploitation of mainstream Indian films is becoming increasingly feasible. “It has spread from popularity among immigrant communities to popularity among the wider communities,” he says. “Look at Germany. Look at France. The Indian communities are not so large there, but you have mainstream TV channels showing films once a week, maybe twice a week. So it has achieved popularity among other populations.”
Raghavan goes on to explain that the powers in Bollywood have recently made efforts to trim films in such as way as to appeal to wider audience. “It mainly consists of cutting out the song and dance numbers that are regarded as surplus to requirements for a European audience,” he says. “It also has the benefit of cutting a 2½ hour film down to a 1½ hour film, which is more acceptable outside Asia.” He also recognises that, aside from boosting the industry’s revenues, an advance into the mainstream would help expand understanding of Indian culture.
“To a certain extent it exposes Indian culture in its present form,” he says. “That’s one reason why we support the festival greatly. We look upon it as another window into India. We’d like to see Bollywood promote tourism to Ireland and we’d like to see more Bollywood films being made here.”
It remains to be seen if Indian cinema can finally make an impression on the mainstream. As long ago as the 1980s, Channel 4 began screening Bollywood films on Sunday afternoons. An Indian film often appears in the UK box-office top 10. Yet, for all that, the films do not quite swim in the same waters as US or British releases. They are not screened for the press. The distributors rarely bother with advertising.
It is, thus, up to the punter to help Indian film advance beyond its safety zone. If nothing else, you'll be able to look down your nose at pals the next time they recommend Slumdog Millionaire.
-Indian Film Festival Ireland 2010 is at Swan Cinemas, Rathmines, Dublin 6, June 25-28. More information at cfcp.ie/iffi
-The cover art, Mother India #2, is by Indian artist Sukanya Rahman, sukanyarahman.com, harpswelldesigns.com
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RAAJNEETI (2010)
An epic socio-political drama from Prakash Jha, accomplished director of Gangaajaland Apaharan, the festival's opening film has already stirred up a degree of controversy on its domestic release. The versatile Ajay Devgan appears in a film that, despite its contemporary setting, makes conspicuous nods to the Mahabharata epic. There will, apparently, be free Indian nosh at the opening ceremony.
DEVDAS (1955)/DEVDAS (2002)
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s great Bengali novel has long fascinated Indian film-makers and dramatists. Allowing attendees the chance to assess changing attitudes and approaches, the festival will be screening two versions made nearly half a century apart. The mighty Aishwarya Rai – known even to Bollywood virgins – stars in the 2002 version.
MANORAMA SIX FEET UNDER (2007)
Bollywood often borrows plots from successful US films. Navdeep Singh's Manoramafollows a works engineer and aspiring novelist as he seeks to help the irrigation minister's wife find evidence of her husband's affair. Sound familiar? It's lifted from Chinatown. Abhay Deol takes the Jack Nicholson role.
KAL HO NAA HO (2003)
It is not unusual for Bollywood films to shoot outside India. This extravagant romance, already released commercially in Germany, tells its story on the streets of New York City. Preity Zinta stars as a frustrated young woman whose life changes for the better when Aman (Shahrukh Khan) arrives in her neighbourhood. The picture is loaded with melodrama, and features a best-selling soundtrack.
A WEDNESDAY! (2008)
It seems that the notion of the cop who has one more day before retirement is a staple of every commercial film industry. Neeraj Pandey’s take on the story features Anupam Kher as a police commissioner who, as the fateful hour approaches, recalls controversial event on, yes, one particular Wednesday. Pandey received the best director award for his work on the film at the Filmfare Awards.
THE BLUE UMBRELLA (2007)
The title is reminiscent of The Red Balloon, and Vishal Bhardwaj's film walks in similar territory to that classic French children's film. Based on an admired novel by Ruskin Bond, the picture revolves around a shopkeeper's efforts to wrestle the titular item from a spirited little girl. It took the Indian Film Award for best children's film.
JUNOON (1978)
Greatly admired historical drama by Shyam Benegal dealing with incidents surrounding the Indian Rebellion – or "Indian mutiny", as it was once known – of 1857. Another film based on a novel by Ruskin Bond, Junoonoffers an important insight into Indian attitudes to the legacy of the Raj. The picture won a sack of awards.
MOTHER INDIA (1957)
One of the most admired of all Bollywood films, Mehboob Khan's epic spins a moving story around the opening of a canal in a rural village. Though released two years after Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali, the film was, perhaps surprisingly, the first Indian release to receive a nomination for best foreign-language picture at the Academy Awards. It lost honourably to Fellini's Nights of Cabiria.
GANGAAJAL (2003)
The closing film of the festival is a police drama focusing on an idealistic officer who encounters all kinds of ghastly corruption when he is posted to the eastern town of Tejpur. The hero attempts to clean up the locale, but, this being a movie, he runs into the usual sorts of trouble. Features more explicit violence than your average Bollywood release.
PAA (2009)
Sentimental drama about a boy with progeria, a rare condition that brings on premature aging, who strives to bring his mother, a gynaecologist, back together with his somewhat cynical father, a politician. Further demonstrating the increasingly international nature of Bollywood, the film includes several scenes shot in Cambridge.
