It’s been a long break for me from mouthshut, so thought of coming up with something different and analytical this time.
I was searching for a place to post this one and found this to be the most apt. Excuse me if not..
Ok, what am I talking about.. I tried to pick up some situations which I observed to be existing only in indian movies. No one else dares to copy them.. not because of copy-right violations of course.
Introduction Funda
This has always been a special part of an Indian movie. The way a lead role is introduced. Even the viewers give special importance to this, they are curious to know how a hero is introduced or an actress is shown first. Shoes? from back? hair? In westernized movies, its very rare that this is given so much importance.. except for few movies which are known for heroism.
Many times a lead role is also introduced with a statement such as ’’some day, some one will come to save this village’’ or ’’there’s some one who is equally tough and will come to tackle this girl’’
Fights
When I was a kid, I used to justify those one to one fights by assuming that the villain is giving hero an equal opportunity by sending his men one by one. It took me years to realize that this is not because of villains sportsmanship but because of heros ability to hit each of villains men with accurate and calculated power that he will not come back again exactly until the hero serves every other gunda in the scene. Sir Isaac Newton will come down to learn these principles.
The nuts and bolts concept
Got the point? how come it happens that all those strong tables, doors and other furniture on which carpenters have spent days and nights building them, collapse when a villain or gunda falls on them during fights? Simple. Take off the nuts, bolts and screws before shooting the scene. You can easily observe that these fights are never shot outdoors, because the director can’t get the shot right before a slight breeze blows away the dummy furniture. Is this really required? this is one of the concept that has become an integral part of indian movies, esp. south indian movies.
Not now, tera number ayega (you’ll have your day)
This is another special scenario. Movie has just gone past the intermission. Hero very well knows that villain is bad and he desperately wants to kill villain.. again for all the typical reasons.. villain killed his parents or any of his family members or he did some thing bad to his ’people’. At this situation, hero meets villain, villain is alone, thinking how to escape from this guy. Though he has every chance, hero doesn’t kill the villain, because it’s still one hour more to go for the climax and for the typical 1:100 fight to happen. so, the director breaks the standoff with another typical hero’s dialogue ’’I am going to kill you, for all you have done to me and my people... but my dear, not now, not this way’’ (what the hell.. )
Okay where am I going? lets check out the climax scenes.
An indian movie is not a movie if it doesn’t possess the following as part of climax:
Here comes the 1 to 100 fight that we talked about. Should extend for atleast 15 minutes. Atleast 20-30 bad guys should be thrown from roof of the building or any other elevated platform within the reach of ’Action’ Director.
One of the movies touching character is generally killed. Hero’s mother, father, friend and mostly one actress if there are two. Killing a hero, on the other hand is a very rare happening.
Death bed
At this point we should talk about this one. The director has decided to kill this character. No one can stop this now. So, its understood that no one should try to call an ambulance, even a microscopic effort to save the character is banned. At the maximum a simple two-word statement can be made ’’Let’s go to hospital’’. But even this is very rare, always the actor, actress and all the people around are highly engrossed in listening to what the dying character has to say. Some twenty-sixth sense has told them already that he/she is going to die.
Time can be stopped
Do you guys remember? this always happens when a timer is set for a bomb explosion, the typical count-down scenes. The director has started the timer for 30 seconds. What else can the poor guy do? the story mentions so. But unfortunately for him there’s still 30 full minutes of story to go. Come on, after all these ’efforts’ he can’t make a 100-minute movie, which people might take for a documentary. So, having left with no choice, he displays his potential to stop time. lot of do-don’t scenes happen, Will hero get into that car which has a bomb in it or not? who else comes in along with him? all that occurs and many people get injured if not killed, and adding to the woes of director, still 10 seconds to go. At this time he somehow resists to include a duet dream song. If he really want to prolong it then why not the timer is set for 30 minutes. Atleast this one is taken care is western movies. Somehow they (still) don’t agree that time can be stopped.
I think I have said enough. These situations are not picked from any partiucular movie as you can understand. They invariably appear and seem to have secured their place in indian movies for generations to come.
To end this, I must add that this obviously is not a generalization for Indian cinema. I am a big fan of Manirathnam, Ram gopal varma, Rehman - all of them known for their originality in their respective fields and movies like Satya, Sarfarosh and almost all of manirathnam movies stand apart.
Comments are welcome.. Either if you agree to my points or not.. It’s good to see feedback always.. isn’t it?