It
is not surprising that cinemas in India have been greatly associated with
Bombay-Hollywood aka Bollywood for over a century! Without any doubt, Bollywood
has supported a rich tradition of movies in India for years and has nourished
all other regional film industries in the country. Yes, had there not been a
Amitab Bachchan, there wouldn't have been a Rajnikanth. Great! I have mentioned
those two names in an article revolving around Indian cinema. Now, I can safely
move on to the subject.
PHASE-1 OF THE SCENARIO:
Harking back to the 1960s,1970s and 1980s, Bollywood witnessed a heavily backed trend of what we call the "masala movies" (action, duets, sister sentiments, item numbers and what not!) The trend had its influence all over the country, especially on films in South India. Well, I don't want to talk about its Tollywood cousin which had perhaps digested too much of inspiration that even today its products cannot survive without ample dose of the typical Andhra masalas!
Down south is a smaller region which still holds its commanding position in the movie business at par with the Bollywood. And yes, the Bollywood masala inspiration prevailed for many decades here too except for the respite provided from time to time by directors like Mani Ratnam with catchy movies like Nayagan, Roja, Bombay and the like. Those were times when audience sulked if they saw their heroes ending the movie in a sad note! I can't cite a better example than the amount of criticism Ajith Kumar faced for his melancholy Mugavari a decade ago. Time flew, generations and actors changed, but the cliché could never be rooted out.
Meanwhile in the north, a bunch of young talents managed to throw away the cliche weeds with interesting substitutes. Heroines catching the trains at the last minute were made as interesting as a cop shooting the bad ass(DDLJ), 3 friends hanging out were shown as lovable as an exotic duet(DIL CHAHTHA HAI) and a single man leading a messed up team to world cup victory was as emotional as the hero's mother dying on his hands. While the Bombay talkies was clever enough to switch lanes, it was still the "same old same old" situation in the south.
PHASE-2 OF THE SCENARIO:
Towards the late second half of the previous decade Kollywood did try to get off the stereotyped track. There were spoofs, portrayal of gay couples and action movies began to lose their thunder subtly. But, that did not help in attracting the public and crunching the numbers. In such a scenario, I would like to point out two movies that came out in a span of two years and reminded everyone that there still is room and respect for creativity in the soil. One was "AARANYA KAANDAM" which released two years ago. The other one was the recent show stopper "SOODHU KAVVUM". Both the projects didn't have an appealing star cast, high octane stunts or the usually copied-from-Hollywood-movie car chases! But they had some out of the box teasers, astute presentation of the story, simple and appealing dialogues cooked in desi style.Thanks to all those non-dramatic ideas. The grand old clichéd wall of Tamil cinema could soon be diminished now, faith has thus been restored and the world has become a better place to live in!
But wait a minute, the oblivion is not that easy a destination to reach! There is a guy in Bombay in the name of Salman Khan. He simply checks in, moves some muscles, kicks some butts and then rest is history,scoring a whopping one hundred crores on the board! "Easier done than said". Well, such a simple white formula of bagging big money has indeed eye patched the big heads from experimenting on different genres, thus posting them back into the Sholay timeline! This served a lottery to actors like Ajay Devgan and Akshay Kumar who became preoccupied easily with the movies that demanded authentic stunts rather than genuine expressions and acting. In fact the 100 crore clichés had a tremendous potential which influenced directors even like Dibaker Banerjee to append item numbers to their flicks.(Not cool bro,not cool!) Well the trend that kicked off with Dabangg doesn't promise to reach the oblivion in the near future. Increasing the concerns, Shahrukh has now come down the line with his Chennai Express which is undoubtedly going to be a typical "flipping-the-cars" Rohit Shetty movie. The budding creativity currently flowing in the Kollywood fraternity has instilled a sense of satiety but I still miss those days when SRK used to put people in trance with his guitars, Saif made one go on the floor laughing with his comical romance, and of course those days when Salman Khan had more interesting criminal cases than his movie records.
PHASE-1 OF THE SCENARIO:
Harking back to the 1960s,1970s and 1980s, Bollywood witnessed a heavily backed trend of what we call the "masala movies" (action, duets, sister sentiments, item numbers and what not!) The trend had its influence all over the country, especially on films in South India. Well, I don't want to talk about its Tollywood cousin which had perhaps digested too much of inspiration that even today its products cannot survive without ample dose of the typical Andhra masalas!
Down south is a smaller region which still holds its commanding position in the movie business at par with the Bollywood. And yes, the Bollywood masala inspiration prevailed for many decades here too except for the respite provided from time to time by directors like Mani Ratnam with catchy movies like Nayagan, Roja, Bombay and the like. Those were times when audience sulked if they saw their heroes ending the movie in a sad note! I can't cite a better example than the amount of criticism Ajith Kumar faced for his melancholy Mugavari a decade ago. Time flew, generations and actors changed, but the cliché could never be rooted out.
Meanwhile in the north, a bunch of young talents managed to throw away the cliche weeds with interesting substitutes. Heroines catching the trains at the last minute were made as interesting as a cop shooting the bad ass(DDLJ), 3 friends hanging out were shown as lovable as an exotic duet(DIL CHAHTHA HAI) and a single man leading a messed up team to world cup victory was as emotional as the hero's mother dying on his hands. While the Bombay talkies was clever enough to switch lanes, it was still the "same old same old" situation in the south.
PHASE-2 OF THE SCENARIO:
Towards the late second half of the previous decade Kollywood did try to get off the stereotyped track. There were spoofs, portrayal of gay couples and action movies began to lose their thunder subtly. But, that did not help in attracting the public and crunching the numbers. In such a scenario, I would like to point out two movies that came out in a span of two years and reminded everyone that there still is room and respect for creativity in the soil. One was "AARANYA KAANDAM" which released two years ago. The other one was the recent show stopper "SOODHU KAVVUM". Both the projects didn't have an appealing star cast, high octane stunts or the usually copied-from-Hollywood-movie car chases! But they had some out of the box teasers, astute presentation of the story, simple and appealing dialogues cooked in desi style.Thanks to all those non-dramatic ideas. The grand old clichéd wall of Tamil cinema could soon be diminished now, faith has thus been restored and the world has become a better place to live in!
But wait a minute, the oblivion is not that easy a destination to reach! There is a guy in Bombay in the name of Salman Khan. He simply checks in, moves some muscles, kicks some butts and then rest is history,scoring a whopping one hundred crores on the board! "Easier done than said". Well, such a simple white formula of bagging big money has indeed eye patched the big heads from experimenting on different genres, thus posting them back into the Sholay timeline! This served a lottery to actors like Ajay Devgan and Akshay Kumar who became preoccupied easily with the movies that demanded authentic stunts rather than genuine expressions and acting. In fact the 100 crore clichés had a tremendous potential which influenced directors even like Dibaker Banerjee to append item numbers to their flicks.(Not cool bro,not cool!) Well the trend that kicked off with Dabangg doesn't promise to reach the oblivion in the near future. Increasing the concerns, Shahrukh has now come down the line with his Chennai Express which is undoubtedly going to be a typical "flipping-the-cars" Rohit Shetty movie. The budding creativity currently flowing in the Kollywood fraternity has instilled a sense of satiety but I still miss those days when SRK used to put people in trance with his guitars, Saif made one go on the floor laughing with his comical romance, and of course those days when Salman Khan had more interesting criminal cases than his movie records.
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