Bollywood* Beginner Movies 7-9 — Shakespeare, Thrillers, and Modern Life

Part 1 looked at romantic comedies. Part 2 branched out to action,  romance, and myth.

Now we're looking at movies that intersect more with what we'd think of as Western movies. However, these are all distinctively Indian.

SHAKESPEARE

7. Omkara

Othello, Indian-style. Fairly faithful and gorgeous adaptation with gangsters. (My review. Scott and I talk about it here. Hannah and Rose discuss it here.)

• Ram-Leela
  Romeo and Juliet, Bollywood-style. A less faithful but even more gorgeous adaptation but it examines the families in a very Indian way. (My review. Scott and I talk about it here. Hannah and Rose discuss it here.)
  

THRILLERS

8. Kahaani

A 7-month pregnant woman arrives in Kolkata from London to seek her missing husband with nothing to rely on except her memories and a photo. This thriller blew our minds. Hollywood would be proud to make this movie. (My review. Hannah and Rose discuss it here.)

• Fan
  They had me at Shah Rukh Khan playing his own stalker. This is a solid thriller and a real star vehicle for King Khan who proves he can really act. (My review here. Scott and I discuss it here. Hannah and Rose discuss it here.)
  

MODERN LIFE

9. Piku

Piku juggles her life as a successful architect and caring for her 70-year old hypochondriac father. When they take a road trip from Delhi to Calcutta, the owner of the local cab company has no choice but to drive them personally since none of his drivers are willing to endure Piku or her eccentric father. (My review here. Scott and I discuss it here. )

• The Lunchbox
  A mistaken delivery in Mumbai’s famously efficient lunchbox delivery system connects a young housewife to a stranger in the dusk of his life. They build a connection through notes in the lunchbox. (My review here.)
  

NEXT

Part 4 will feature comedy-horror, Mollywood, and true history

For my complete list of recommended films, go here. The list begins with what I've seen most recently.

* "Bollywood" as I'm using it is shorthand for Indian movies in general. The Indian movie industry has a lot of different centers that are based on regional languages and storytelling styles. There will be a few recommendations from others as we go, however, generally speaking, Bollywood (Bombay/Mumbai) offers the easiest entry points for Western viewers.

A Movie You Might Have Missed #2: Monsoon Wedding

It's been 10 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed.

Monsoon Wedding

India

A large, Westernized, upper middle class Indian family is gathering for a wedding in a movie that includes Bollywood-ish singing, dancing, and romance. What may be unexpected are the strong messages about family love, protection of the innocent from sexual predators, doing the right thing and telling the truth no matter what it costs you.

 I love this movie but Tom is the one who added it to this list which tells you that it has a wider range than one might expect. The "R" rating is for the language, mostly that of the Wedding Event Coordinator and his help.

(A full review is here.)

Sarfarosh

After his brother is killed and father severely injured by terrorists, a young med student quits his studies to join the Indian Police Service to wipe out the terrorists.

This one's hard to sum up without spoiling it. It managed to combine serious content with true thriller and romance entertainment.

I liked Tom's summary from Facebook:

This 1999 action drama checked all the Bollywood boxes. A hero on a mission, a romance, gun runners from Pakistan. But the story ramped up to be quite gripping with a fabulous confrontation of good and evil. (Good had the best monologue.)

Last Bollywood checkbox, 4 song and dance numbers. 3 choreographed by our favorite Farah Khan. (Yes... we have a favorite Bollywood choreographer.)

Of course we have a favorite Bollywood choreographer. What are we, barbarians?

This is a dance that shows what the romantic couple is thinking after about 30 seconds in. Yes, they're at a birthday party but check out the passion bubbling below the surface!




Rating — for viewers with medium Indian film experience. (It's not rocket science, but without any cultural background at all you might feel kind of lost. Just let the movie flow over you.)

ALSO
An American's Guide to Bollywood discusses Sarfarosh here.

Monsoon Wedding: Love — Exactly and Approximately

MONSOON WEDDING
This story of a large, Westernized, upper middle class Indian family gathering for a wedding is one that I watched several years ago. Somehow it didn't hit me then the way it did last weekend when I absolutely fell in love with it.

Aditi decides that her married boyfriend may never leave his wife so she agrees to an arranged marriage. The groom has been in Houston for four years and is flying back to India for the wedding. Aditi's father is struggling with stress as the wedding costs mount. As various families are added to the assemblage, we see the single cousins who are attracted to each other, the unmarried female cousin who has an old secret, the wedding event planner who falls desperately in love, and many other colorful characters. We also are given many glimpses of India itself as scene dividers. The scenes are so evocative of what I imagine the real place to be that it made me yearn to visit India and see all the seeming contradictions for myself.

It is rare to see a movie that is so charming and yet shows us so well many faces of love. We see the deep love of a father for his daughters, the respect and brotherly love of a man for his long-time family friend, the burgeoning love of two different couples from very different social backgrounds, and the dawning of love that comes for the wedding couple who are in an arranged marriage. We also are shown quite clearly the consequences of mistaking much baser emotions for true love. When that trust and faith is betrayed "everything is broken." However, we also are shown the power of forgiveness and the fruit it can bear.

I love the fact that the singing ismostly someone singing a line or two of a familiar song that others would pick up and sing. It really made me think of how much song is part of the Indian psyche.

This movie seems much more real than the recently popular Bride and Prejudice and certainly much less Westernized. I was charmed with the seemingly random mixture of English and Hindi (?) which everyone spoke. The English was difficult to understand before we became accustomed to the rhythm and pronunciation so you must listen carefully because when English is spoken there is no captioning. However, it does not take long for your ears to adjust and this is not a problem for too long.

Rating — Introduction to Bollywood (come on in, the water's fine!)

Scott Danielson and I discussed this at A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.

Hannah and Rose discussed it at An American's Guide to Bollywood podcast.