No cheal limos for our Slum Dog millionaire: a fizzle?…
I was pretty glad to see slum dog millionaire get the attention it deserved and it made me feel for a while that a lot many other Indian movies should have got the same treatment but then it would be asking for too much. It will be the same as asking for a hampshire limo when you’ve been graciously been handed over a Maruti 800.
Since the beginning- which is, since the time Hollywood started recognizing Indian talent be it Sashi Kapoor being chosen for the role eventually played by Omar Sharif in Lawrence of Arabia or the impressive Kabir Bedi as Sandokan , Indian actors have done justice to their individual roles without travelling in much obvious limo hire cars. And now with Resul Pukutty doing what he did I suppose Indian technicians too are coming to the fore.
Long ago Bhanu Athayya was the first one , as an Indian technician to make a mark on the Hollywood scene with some very sterling work as a costume designer on the sets of Attenborough’s Gandhi in middlesex and then there were some path breaking work done by technicians like Subrata Mitra ( the concept of ‘bounce lighting’ is till attributed to him).
The event as I would like to call it is a revolutionary one in many ways- first it once again has created an interest in what India has to offer; an interest that waned long ago when our auteur gang simply fizzled out in limo hire surrey. It started with a bang and then the whole movement somewhere somehow dissolved into oblivion to a point where Bollywood now is only known for Shah Ruk Khan and the very plastic but beautiful Aishwarya Rai.
Second, it simply tells you how no other film fraternity is even anyway close to what the bollywood stand for. ( I have known ordinary looking clerk like ‘uncles’ who work on london limo with pot bellies fly all the way to check out Shilpa Shetty perform in Dubai- where does that happen man? I have known maid servants save up a princely sum to buy tickets for first day first show Rajni movie- when they actually have to save for a month to do that, now beat that will you?) Come to think of it its larger than Hollywood in certain ways.
Agreed that they have larger production values and better equipment but does a Hollywood movie ever get the same treatment that a Chiranjivi starrer gets- first day first show.
Agreed that many of our stars don’t go around in a royal ascot limo –( I have seen Adoor cross a road while waiting at a studio to get photocopies done, can you imagine the full significance of that?) and don’t really make it big outside India. But the work that they have done is way beyond any Hollywood star can possibly fathom- Manorama the south Indian character artist had done somewhere close to 300 films. A mammoth figure, which even the most prolific of actors in Hollywood cant think of in their best dreams.
So its actually beautiful to see our very own Mr India stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bollywood biggies and for Resul Pookutty to be recognized because it is opening up spaces where Indian style can make a mark for itself- Indian improvisation, Indian star worship, our ‘jugaad’ and colors in a same frame as the beautiful wedding car, will all someday create a unique pastiche. And then Bollowood will be different altogether.
Its going to be like the Telugu guy who eats ‘Gonkra chutney’ sitting in California on a lap tap working at mDeals. I’m just waiting to see Sir Anthony Hopkins share a ‘Paav Bhaji’ with the focus puller from Chembur on an Indian set.
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