Masala movies in foreign locations are no less masalas

Last year, my brother compelled us to watch a favorite movie of his--Three Idiots.  This time, he went for a twofer: Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara and English Vinglish.  Thankfully it was not a marathon, but spread over a couple of days is the best I can say about them :)

Perhaps because I have been away from the traditional Indian scene for an overwhelming majority of my adult life, I found it difficult to get connected with the two movies.

My first thought was that as much as Hollywood has been increasingly shying away from movies with lots of dialog because "talking" doesn't sell all that well in the rapidly growing foreign market where money is to be made, it appears that Bollywood is keen on tapping into the wallets of the Indian diaspora in the affluent countries.  Traditional formulas are, therefore, slightly tinkered around with in order to make it a lot more marketable especially in the US, UK and the Middle East, while appealing to the local population at the same time.  All these folks know how to make money--a strategy that simply does not fascinate me at all!

The Zindagi movie story unfolds in Spain, and throughout the movie I wondered whether the Spanish government had underwritten a part of the production costs for all the tourism advertising the movie seemed to promote.

The running of the bulls? Check.
The tomato festival? Check.
Fabulous beaches? Check.
Flamenco dances? Check. 

The movie reminded me of the contrast it made against a Hollywood movie from a few years ago, The Darjeeling Limited.  In the Hollywood movie, the focus was on the story telling, helping us understand the characters and empathizing with them, with the location merely as a backdrop.  Bollywood's focus was on locations and beautiful bodies.  Speaking of beautiful bodies, boy is Hrithik Roshan one good looking dude!  Too bad he can't act though; reminds me of Seinfeld's joke about "mambo"--male bimbo :)

English Vinglish, which I had consciously avoided even though it was an option in the in-flight movie options, seemed at times to be a painful remaking of the hilarious British sitcom, Mind Your Language.  A few minutes into the movie, I started to fidget around and re-position myself in the chair.  Finally, I simply walked away from the movie that had way too many cliches for my taste.

Later on, when a friend's daughter commented that she had hoped that the lead character, played by Sridevi, would ditch her husband in favor of the French chef who was totally into her, I agreed and added, "if she had done that, well, that would have been quite a movie."

But, the money-makers know all too well that a wife ditching her condescending and abusive husband would not appeal to the "traditional" value-minding Indians, even to the diaspora living in countries where such traditions of putting women down are considered bizarre and insulting.  Even the notoriously male chauvinist character, James Bond, has been transformed into a man with feelings and emotions, so much so that he could easily become the lead character in a sequel to Terms of Endearment!

English Vinglish at least had female characters in the story who were more than one-dimensional.  Unfortunately, the females seemed to be constrained by the walls of traditions.  Even in my teenage years, there seemed to be a lot more movies with strong female characters in the story.  But then they were in Tamil and Malayalam movies--not in the flashy Bollywood productions!

However, even my memories of old Tamil movies may be distorted after all; a cousin asked me a few days before my departure, "remember how you wanted us all to watch Kaadhalikka Neramillai last year and then fell off asleep a few minutes into the movie?"

Until the next trip, for yet another installment of Indian movies.