Bollywood Musicals
Despite American ignorance, Bollywood musicals are some of the most widely-watched and most profitable movies in the world. Mostly filmed in the Hindi language with English scattered into the dialogue, these films provide a different cultural perspective to Western audiences.
Most Bollywood musicals are PG or PG-13, average around 3 hours long, and have lengthy music and dance sequences.
Om Shanti Om (2007)
If you have never seen a Bollywood film, this is an excellent first film to see.
Get ready for over-the-top acting, beautiful visuals, awesome dance sequences (like a Gene Kelly film made by the MTV generation), and an epic plot. The story is a traditional Indian story of reincarnation and revenge, full of substance and spice.
Don’t be fooled by the light-hearted tone of the film: this story has real meat, and the characters are excellent. Substantive and tantilizing, it’s like eating a deceptively healthy dessert.
Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (2008)
The Netflix summary of this story seemed creepy to me: an older man enters into an arranged marriage with a young woman, then he tries to win her heart.
You’ve just got to try it, though. If you’ve never seen a Bollywood film before, this might not be the most representative film to start with, but it carries more emotional authenticity than almost any film I’ve seen: The characters are vulnerable, likeable, flawed and very interesting. The acting is more subtle than in some Bollywood films, and the characters really take on a life of their own. Having seen very few Bollywood films that don’t star Shahrukh Khan as the male protagonist, I was surprised to see new dimensions to him that we haven’t seen in his other work.
I loved the cinematography and set design, found the story to be very emotionally engaging, and I appreciated the uncommon subject matter (as an American viewer). The music is excellent, the dancing as well, and both are cleverly integrated into the screenplay.
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