Introduction
More than a thousand movies per year are produced in India, most of them in Hindi
To the average westerner, the Indian movie will definitely seem like nothing he/she has ever seen.
This node attempts to throw a little light on the average Indian cinema.
Standard format for mainstream Indian movies
- Indian movies are always longer than two hours.
- There have to be atleast five song and dance sequences.
- No scenes involving nudity ( atleast for the mainstream movies ).
- No swearwords! ( They will be censored out! )
- Background music themes are reused over and over in different movies during some common plot cliches.
- Action and fights are unrealistic ( Any hero magically turns into Superman during fights ).
- Most comedy is in the form of subplots which may not have any connection with the main story.
- The bad guy never wins.
- Politicians are always shown in a bad light.
- Depiction of women in non-traditional or unconventional parts is not very well taken in the box office.
- Some themes are taboo - Plots involving Anti-jingoistic, Anti-Gandhian, Anti-religious sentiments or any homosexual depiction will kill the movie in the box-office ( In some cases lead to destruction of theaters! )
- It is quite important to understand the Indian cultural dogmas about family, marriage, sexual relations and religion before you can completely understand the movie ( though not so much for the more recent movies ).
Over
time, once you have watched hundreds of movies, it gets
tedious, but a few gems come out from time to time, restoring faith that there exists
good taste. Lately the new
breed of "Hinglish" (combined Hindi and English) movies are refreshingly unique and have quite changed the whole
direction of Indian cinema.
Now go ahead and watch some!