Bollywood and Oscar nominations

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Bollywood is the informal name given to the popular Mumbai-based film industry in India. It even has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. I find the name in itself, unoriginal and a pun on Hollywood.

A lot of movies in Bollywood are re-hashed or just plain annoying. Anu mallik, a music director makes a career out of ripping English songs and presenting them "Bollywood Ishytile". Most of these songs reach the top ten and appeal to a lot of people. No questions asked, no explanations given. I, myself didn't give much thought to this till some hindi song was played at an Indian function and one of my American colleagues asked me, "Oh, this sounds so familiar?". The song was "Why did you break my heart?" courtesy Annu malik in Akele Hum, Akele Tum. The song is a blatant copy of George Michael's "Last Christmas". There are many such examples and I could fill a book just coming up with those.

I do watch Bollywood movies, but there are just a handful of movies that are worth watching. And isn't 3 hours, a bit too long to sustain interest? And do we need songs for every darned(!) occasion?

Let's take a look at our Oscar nominations. Jeans was an Oscar nomination. I cannot imagine, why anyone in their right senses would nominate this movie for the Oscars other than the fact that it boasts of a beauty queen and was produced by Vijay Amritraj! Some of our other nominations include Devdas. This was the magnum opus directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. I thought the movie was fine, but lets face it, it's not Oscar material. The reviewers walked out halfway through the movie. Everything about the movie was melodramatic and high pitched. One of the jurors commented that "Why are people screaming throughout the movie?" One of our other nominations, Lagaan was an interesting concept. I rooted for the movie though it didn't make it but atleast the movie had something to it.

Indians have perfected the art of beauty pageants. It's high time filmakers come up with movies that meet international standards, considering the fact that Bollywood is the second largest film industry in the world. Is this too much to ask for ?This year's nomination is Paheli. I thought Paheli was just plain weird. It has been said that it represents Indian culture! I sincerely hope that the contents of the movie never come true. Paheli didn't go down well with the reviewing comittee.

This is what was said about Indian movies at the Oscars: "We look at the films from the American point of view," What happens (in Bollywood films) is that in the middle of the scene suddenly (the actors) start jumping up and dancing and singing, which, to us, is ridiculous. When we see an Indian film and that happens, we don't know how to react to it. That's the problem."
He added that he was not suggesting that Bollywood filmmakers should change their filmmaking style. "Obviously, they are making the films for the Indian market and not for the American market."

Now, that being said, How important is it, for indian films to get international recognition? I would say a lot, because films for most part, represent the culture of a society. Till our movies don't reach out to a wider section of people, we are like frogs in a well.

Since 1956 -- the year the Academy started giving out Oscars for foreign language films, only three Indian films -- Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay (1988) and Lagaan (2001) have been nominated in the category. "Lot of people walk out of films, because they get very boring," the committee member said. "It is not out of disrespect. It is out of the fact that we have to see so many movies and we can't just sit there and be bored." "It is not just the Indian films," he added. "We saw some pictures this year, they were so bad -- it is frightening. You wonder how they could be picked."

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