In the last few years, there has been a spate of low budget Indian English movies. They don’t have the polish and sophistication that established directors, expensive sets and pricy cinematographers bring to a movie. But neither do they suffer as much from Bollywoodish melodrama. There were also the sleeper hits of last year from well known Indie directors, Mira Nayar (Monsoon Wedding) and Gurinder Chadha (‘Bend it like Beckham’). Both crossed the cultural chasm that plagues movies about South Asian experiences. Incidentally, I recently watched ‘Mississipi Masala’, a movie made few years earlier by Nayar. I think it is more honest than ‘Monsoon Wedding’.
What triggered this particular bout of profundities is reading the reviews of Everybody says I’m fine, the first feature film made by Rahul Bose and ‘Where is the party yaar’, directed by Benny Mathews ((via Sajit Gandi and Prashant Kothari respectively).
Rahul Bose was a fixture in the Bombay theatre scene. He first came to national prominence through his role in ‘English August’. The book was incredible. It came out when we were still in college. We couldn’t stop talking about it. The movie was also well made. But it does not have as much charm that the book does. But the gals could not stop talking about Rahul Bose.
Bose also acted in Aparna Sen’s ‘Mr and Mrs Iyer’ opposite Konkana, Sen’s daughter. It was released a few months back. Even if you see only one Indian movie this year, I would strongly recommend that you watch this. It has its weaknesses. But it is by far one of the best Indian movies made in the last few years. Most of the dialogue is in English and it is sub titled well.
I also saw Leela ( the reviews here). Leela is more feel-good and mushier. But what is important about Leela is not that it is shallow in resolution, but that it attempts an honest examination of sexuality and cross cultural identity.