Sunday, August 14, 2011

Bollywood

A big part of TT is being kept awake to the wee hours watching Bollywood movies. Mainly the epic tv version of the Mahabharata. I like Bollywood, the colour, the dancing, the bad acting. 

When I was back packing through India in 2004 I was picked up in the infamous Leopold's Cafe in Mumbai to do a little extra work. It wasn't a movie but a Hindi sitcom called, 'Life out of control.' Based around a family running an Indian restaurant in London. I had no idea what was going on as it was all in Hindi. I got paid about $20 a day for a two day stint in which I played a nurse during a comedy electric shock treatment (BAD costume, photo sadly lost forever) and then a patron of the restaurant along with a motley bunch of other backpackers. It was a great experience and I made some new friends to hang around and explore with on my final leg of my Indian journey.

The other night whilst flicking through Foxtel I cam across a BW movie Salaam Namaste. The only BW movie to be filmed in Australia. I settled in and enjoyed the show. Hilarious. OTT bad acting, a few token random dance routines and a search for Ben and Jerry's ice cream at 1am in the morning. The funniest thing is that it was also in Hindi, with sub titles but with the odd English line chucked in for good measure.

I hope the movies we get to watch are as entertaining as this one.

Side note: If you watch a movie in India (I saw Spider Man and the Bourne Ultimatum staring Palolem Beach, Goa) it is a totally different experience. Everyone stands and sings the national anthem before the movie starts. The audience cheers and whoops at any opportunity, fight scenes, kisses, car chases. Totally wouldn't get that here in the West, you'd be shhhhhh'ed. It's cool, only in India experience.

2 comments:

  1. oh man, i love the idea of being able to be as loud as you want in a movie theater. there are sometimes when im like the only one laughing out loud. which leads me to think what a bunch of up tight weirdos we are here in america.

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  2. yeah, how cool would that be! Take a trip to India just to be able to holler out loud in a movie, oh n it's a wicked, insane country to visit.

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