Even in its sixth year, the Dubai International Film Festival still manages to excite. As with the Middle East International Film Festival, the event’s Bollywood quota is always significant. Often, the biggest blockbusters, and their star-studded casts, arrive in these cities, playing to audiences hungry for the latest in Indian cinema.
These fans are so enthusiastic that, last year, the actor Govinda, had to retreat from a mall in Abu Dhabi during an impromptu shopping spree. Evidently, he thought that he would not be mobbed, as would be inevitable in India.
Clearly, the star underestimated the presence of Indians in the city. He was in town shooting Do Knot Disturb at Emirates Palace – a comedy about mistaken identities and hotel rooms. Although this particular movie did not premiere here, many of the films shot in the UAE often return for red-carpet screenings.
In fact, a number have their world premières in the Gulf. The region is only a three-hour flight away from Mumbai and its Indian expat population is eager for cultural products from home. This makes the GCC a significant market in its own right. However, it also provides a good gauge of how a film will fare when it travels around the world to other theatres where homesick Indians gather.
Last week, at Madinat Jumeirah, a crowd of teenaged girls gathered to get a glimpse of their favourite actor, Ranbir Kapoor. At 27 years old he is young and has a career of just five films so far. His latest movie, Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, also breaks the Bollywood mould. Kapoor does not play a classic romantic lead and the action features none of the song and dance sequences typically associated with Bollywood.
No one appeared to mind the lack of love interest and musical interludes. (The film has a soundtrack, but it is one that plays in the background.) They simply wanted to see Kapoor act and to get an idea of what it is like to be a salesman in the fiercely competitive environment of 21st-century Mumbai.
It appears that the straight-up love story no longer works in Bollywood. That is not to say that the biggest producer of films in the world called a total halt on such narratives.
However, it is true that filmmakers eager to reach out to a new audience have had to incorporate romance inside bigger ideas that more accurately reflect life in modern India.
Considering that only a decade ago, a move away from musicals in Bollywood would have been unimaginable, it shows how far the industry has come in recent years.
No comments:
Post a Comment