What’s wrong with it ?
Is it just the cultural taboo that makes it look so awkward and contrived ? Is it just that we’ve gotten used to not seeing them there ? Is it the handling ?
……Or is it something more ?
The lovemaking scenes have been conquered well enough (hats off to the directors) but no one has managed a really well-done kiss yet. Of course, Mallika Sherawat kisses often in all her movies – but one can’t help remarking that she must be pretty unpleasant to kiss (this comment may not be accurate since I’m not looking from a man’s point of view).
Anyway, back to the original question. What is wrong with the kissing scenes in Indian movies ? Maybe we draw some pointers from Hollywood movies. The best ones in mind are still from “Gone with the wind”, “Sound of Music” and a rare one from “Dune”. The one thing common with these kisses was that they were inevitable – the story had come to a point where the hero and heroine were bound to kiss. It underlined the chemistry and was the single defining moment in which they actually enter the relationship. Without that kiss, things just could not move forward.
For some reason, this doesn’t happen in Indian movies. Is this simply because we have learnt to substitute a song and dance sequence/ fantasy sequence for the kiss ? Maybe. In any case, the kiss looks like an extra that had to be introduced in the film – like one of those waiters who have to be put in to accommodate a relative of the hero. We still wait to see the natural kiss – the one that the movie just couldn’t do without.
The other thing that is lacking is spontaneity – since most of the girls who do agree to kissing onscreen are not great actresses, we may have to wait a while longer for these. Till then, we resign ourselves to smooching scenes that leave us a little cold and hoping the kids are not around to see this one…..