Bollywood draws wider audience in London
The 50th London Film Festival has just come to a close in Britain’s capital and, in this very special year, featured no less than eight films from India and a further movie from Bangladesh.
As well as these productions, there was also a strong showing of UK made films that focus on British-Asian culture, and one of these, called “Mischief Night”, has been strongly tipped as a hit waiting to happen.
It is directed by Penny Woolcock and is a comedy about race, religion, love, childhood, drugs and crime - so something there for just about everyone - and it is set in a Yorkshire town not unlike Bradford or Leeds.
The film concentrates on two families separated by their differing beliefs and cultures and traces their relationships as the clock ticks down toward mischief night, a local tradition where madness and mayhem rule.
On a somewhat more serious note, one of the most interesting epics from India is called “Kabul Express”, in which Indian journalists in Afghanistan go in search of the Taliban, and there is also something called “Dombivli Fast” that depicts what happens when an ordinary banker snaps and becomes a vigilante on the streets of Mumbai.
Whether this is a homage or simply a straight lift - or remake to be more polite - of Joel Schumacher’s “Falling Down”, with Michael Douglas as the guy who has the breakdown, is for the audience to decide.
Other Indian movies that have been showcased in London included Mira Nair’s long-awaited adaptation of “The Namesake”, based on Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri’s bestseller about family and change, and also award-winning director Goutam Ghose’s “Yatra” that aims to illustrate uniquely varying sides of Asian culture.
So how come there has been such a strong showing of Indian movies this year? After all, one article about the Festival was headlined: “Asian Arthouse Cinema graces London Screens”.
Well, according to a spokesperson for the Festival: “It is because Bollywood productions are becoming more and more varied, deeper if you like. They are not all simply song and dance spectaculars with a minimum of plot. They have started to address major issues and this means that they are capable of reaching a far wider audience than they have done up until now.”
So, this new approach by some, though of course by no means all, Indian filmmakers should mean more cinemas in Britain showing more movies from South Asia in the coming months and years.
— ANI
Leave a Reply