SCOPE: New wave hits world's largest film industry

Asian Economic News, Feb 28, 2005

NEW DELHI, Feb. 28 Kyodo

''Black'' is the latest hue of India's film industry, the world's largest, which has been painting the silver screen with unusual themes in recent times.

Directed by renowned Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali, ''Black'' is a powerful treatise on the world of a deaf and mute girl and her mentor and teacher. With its dark theme, minus the conventional glitz, romance and song-and-dance routine, the movie has broken fresh ground.

''Black,'' in its fourth week, has been drawing crowds and winning critical acclaim despite bucking mainstream Indian filmmaking conventions.

Another low-budget movie, ''Page 3,'' which centers on three women, has been declared the year's first hit of the Indian film industry, popularly known as Bollywood.

In ''Shabd'' (Words), former Miss World Aishwarya Rai and Indian cinema's best known face abroad, stars in one of her boldest roles. She plays the wife of a writer who encourages her to have an affair with a younger man for creative inspiration, only things get out of hand later.

''Black,'' ''Page 3'' and ''Shabd'' and others released this year are some of the movies in recent months leading a budding insurrection within mainstream Indian cinema.

Bollywood is trying to break free from the shackles of archaic and prudish song-and-dance romances, hackneyed action or family dramas, Hollywood remakes or their plagiarized versions as never before.

The New Wave cinema is blending tradition with the modern, East and West, the art house and commercial, steering the audience towards a different entertainment mindset.

A new set of young directors, technicians, scriptwriters and musicians, though still in a minority, are trying to bend every rule of mainstream cinema and succeeding many times to come up with slick urban realism onscreen.

Moviegoers, now used to watching Hollywood films and western soaps on satellite television, are also becoming globalized and more open to change in the film industry.

''While the New wave of the 70s saw a rivalry between the art house and commercial cinema, today's films seek new themes but within the paradigm of entertainment,'' says Pritish Nandy, producer of ''Shabd'' and other offbeat movies.

While the art films of yesteryear had mostly theater or film school actors with unconventional looks, today all the top stars seek varied roles, consequently blurring the lines between commercial and art cinema, say experts.

Unlike the past, when image-conscious superstars played ''nice guys,'' today's actors are not averse to playing shades of grey with roles ranging from a mafia don, psychotic killer, or a terrorist.

There's women's liberation on screen as well with stars playing image-defying roles of an adulteress or a vamp, moving away from conventional stereotypes of a loving girlfriend or a faithful wife.

''Audiences too are craving for something different now and we are giving them what they want,'' says Madhur Bhandarkar, director of ''Page 3'' and maker of another hardcore realistic hit, ''Chandini Bar.''

Actors go for drastic changes in appearance to look the part and in real life work hard on their bodies unlike the flabby or buxom screen gods and goddesses of the past.

''Unconventional films are gaining momentum but with a limited audience. It will take some time for them to entrench themselves along with a typical commercial film,'' says Komal Nahta, a movie industry analyst.

According to experts, the biggest sign of changing times in Bollywood is that unlike the past, no particular genre is determining the overall trend. The cyclical trend of romance, action and family drama has been replaced by movies with varied and bold subjects.

The revolution in India's film industry has led to screen innocence making way for explicit realism. Unlike the past when a kiss or a love scene was depicted by symbolic shots, Indian cinema is shedding its fig leaf with films being made on many taboo subjects including homosexuality.

A lot of sleaze has also found its way under the guise of injecting realism into movies, a majority of which has been rejected or has found favor with only a limited audience.

Critics feel it is time the producers and distributors take the maturity levels of audiences seriously.

The Indian film industry produced 973 films in 2004, a third of them in Hindi, compared to Hollywood which released over 600.

Despite the slick flicks, Bollywood movies have yet to make an impact abroad. Expatriate Indian women directors like Mira Nair, Deepa Mehta and Gurinder Chadha have made movies with Indian themes but with a global appeal.

Years ago Indian directors like Satyajit Ray, Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan or Mrinal Sen got known globally for their realistic or arthouse films and had won many laurels abroad but never had any mass appeal at home.

In 2001 the Indian film ''Lagaan'' (Land Tax), which was nominated for the best foreign film Oscar, was a trendsetter of sorts. The movie with a novel theme in an entertaining packet had mass appeal despite its Indian flavor.