IFAC #19: The obligatory Analytics post.

Every blogspot blogger loves Google Analytics, because to find out what people search for to end up on our blogs is hilarious. I've often mentioned these hilarious searches to people over IM but never made the obligatory "search key words" post. So here it is, get ready!

1. "haiku of farhan khan"

Um.. Either they mean Farah Khan or Farhan Akhtar. Since the latter one inspires more poetry in me, I'll freestyle a haiku. However, as it so happens, I don't really know how syllables work in English and haiku-ing in Finnish is easier so I'll just do that.

voi Farhan mä en
nimeäsi hämmennä
lohi sukeltaa.

Translation: Oh Farhan, I don't / confuse your name / the salmon dives.

2. "cultural proximity in kabhi kushi kabhi gham"

Hot damn, them's big words. While I wish I was able to pick apart KJo's films using such interesting terminology, I kind of don't have the interest, so ..sorry!

3. "im white but like bollywood movies"

Um. You're not alone?

4. "look a shiny thing"

Sorry, not much sparkle here! Unless you find Indian films shiny, which I personally do.

5. "purab kohli wife"

Dude, if I was his wife, I would not spend my days blogging about films. Or maybe I would, but I would also keep a secret blog secretively titled "HOLY SHIT you guys I am Purab Kohli's wife how did my life get this awesome?!".

Disclaimer: I don't know if Purab Kohli has a wife, and if he does, I mean no disrespect to his wife by the above paragraph. I'm sure if she exists, she has better things to do than keep a blog. As would I, if I was really his wife.. God this paragraph is getting creepier than the last one, I better stop writing it.

6. "what is it called when they dance at the end of indian movies"

I think it's just called a dance at the end of a movie. If it's during the credits and obviously has nothing to do with the film, it could be a promotional song. Why am I answering a random Googler's question seriously?

7. "why did they dance slumdog millionaire"

I bet this and the person before are the same guy. Sigh. Listen, dude. Boyle came to India and worked with a lot of Indians and probably got an idea to end his movie off with a dance sequence in "Bollywood style" even though it wasn't really Bollywood style because Bollywood films rarely end on an elaborate song and dance sequence because audiences in Indian theaters typically start leaving when they know how the movie ends and don't stick around for the credits. It's just a little homage. It's no big deal in the context of Slumdog.

8. "mullet dance"

Nobody wants to see a mullet dance, yaar. Unless it's at the end of Slumdog Millionaire, in which case I would know Danny Boyle really knew his Indian films..

9. "manpain definition"

Angsty dudes. Come to think of it, I don't use this often enough to have it in my intro post's glossary. Shame, self, shame.

10. "saif"

Short and simple. I hope he had "SaifSearch" turned on! Ha ha ha -- oh forget it.

off-topic announcement: May travel hiatus.

In less than ten hours I leave for my first trip to Asia. Specifically, South Korea.

This country and its culture are as interesting to me as India's, and I've spent about as much time consuming Korean entertainment, music, television as I have watching Indian movies. So yeah, I'm very glad to be able to go and travel the globe once more. (Maybe India will be my next trip...?)

I'm sorry April was such a lame blogging month; I mostly just rewatched this and that. I have a post to make about re-watching Lage Raho Munnabhai with a bunch of NIFs and also maybe further thoughts on Slumdog.

I'm returning May 18th. After that, I'll have free time to return to my blogging schedule, and maybe my headspace won't be occupied by this trip, planning it etc so that I can actually relax with an Indian movie.

Meanwhile, take care and please don't drop me off your blogrolls. I'll be back I swear!

Alvida!

Slumdog Millionaire and escaping the reality.

First of all apologies for the lengthy silence. It's one of those points in time for me when it's difficult to work up excitement over all things Indian cinema related. Everything exciting is coming out close to the end of this year, and I'm never in the mood for anything in my large pile of DVD's-to-watch. I haven't seen a single 2009 movie yet. It's odd.

But let's talk about what I have seen, specifically that little movie that won the Best Picture Oscar.

Slumdog Millionaire is a quizzical - pun unintended - piece of cinema. It weaves together the realism of violence and misfortune of the streets, gangsters, religious zealots and orphaned child beggars, with the dreamy escapism of Bollywood films, love conquering all obstacles and the idea of fate, 'kismet'. You could argue that because of this, it portrays Mumbai or Bombay perfectly, the two sides of the city both brought on display. At the same time, for this particular viewer at least, it created a strange discord - I didn't know how to allow the movie the benefits of both styles, how to reconcile the illogical parts with the ones that made more realistic sense.

You must all know the story by now. Jamal Malik (Dev Patel, who I previously loved in the UK television series Skins) is a kid raised in the slums and out on the road, who ends up on the game show Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, hosted by Prem (Anil Kapoor), and against all odds, knows the answers - simply because he does. Accused of cheating, he is forced to relay his life story to a police man (Irrfan Khan), a tale of misfortune but also of success, and of his search for his childhood love, Latika (Freida Pinto).

It feels a bit silly to critisize the movie for things I felt were unrealistic, in a way that quite bothered me, because for one, I did truly enjoy the movie. It was powerful and had a lot of great elements coming together effortlessly. Then, for two, who am I to say what is and isn't realistic? Despite my long interest in India and my knowledge of it, I'm oh so far from all-knowing on the subject. And yet -- would slum kids truly learn such fluent English while being out on the streets (or on the rails, as it were)? Would they ever, later in life, converse fully in English? These are small complaints but they threw me off all the same. It's odd how I could easily suspend my belief on the existence of fate, but not these smaller things.

The film is nicely paced, and especially the scenes with the children actors - first very young and later slightly older - were fantastic. As Jamal matures, Dev Patel carries the role splendidly, but the adult Latika, played by Freida Pinto, is sadly not as convincing. This made me lose interest in their love story just the tiniest. If Freida did have the chops to pull off the role, it felt like she was not giving her fullest and was more of a pretty face than anything else. The other actors, such as Anil and Irrfan, are as solid as one could expect - the layers in Anil's Prem were a pleasant surprise for me. The sound design and music overall deserved the Oscars they received, punctuating scenes fantastically. The song-and-dance, which is surely not a spoiler at this point, is not up to Bollywood standards (the choreography is partly fine, partly reminds me of cheesy 90's Hindi films) but if nothing else, allows the film to end on a high note and was not as bad as I initially expected.

I think it's wonderful that Slumdog has gotten the success and publicity it has and that India, too, has embraced the film as if its own. I'm glad to have seen it and enjoyed it - even though it doesn't quite make any of my favourites lists.

Bollywood, Slumdog & "the West".

I haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire because I intended to see it in theaters and the Finnish release date has been postponed time after time. Right now we're looking at a March release date, and I'm not sure if I can wait until then.

But even without seeing the film itself, it's impossible not to witness the impact its making in English-speaking countries, and other countries where English films typically reign supreme. I've had American friends tell me, "I just saw a Bollywood movie!" (which leads me to react, "Good for you! But technically Slumdog isn't Bollywood..."). There's quite a lot of buzz, and a lot of media coverage and even if Slumdog isn't technically Bollywood (if we define Bollywood as Hindi-language, Bombay-produced, mainstream films), it's certainly getting the genuine Bollywood some attention in the eyes of the so-called West.

Having spent nearly five years in the Bollywood fandom, there seems to be this constant question of when Bollywood will finally break out and become cool and popular among the Western mainstream, in the way that Chinese martial arts once did (leading Jet Li and Jackie Chan to become recognized household names), or in the way that Japanese films and comic books became when you began to find manga books and anime DVD's in nearly every store. People predicted it would happen with Lagaan and now with Slumdog, and rather than to ask, should it happen (in other words, does Hindi cinema need the approval of the Western mainstream somehow, why should it ever break out into the consciousness when just the NRI's and the few non-Indian fans seem to bring in quite a nice amount of abroad box office money?), I'd rather ask, will it ever?

I somehow doubt it.

I can't speak about the histories of Japanese popculture or Chinese/Hong Kong films with expertise, so I suppose it could be exaggeration to say they're somehow more open for the eyes of people outside those cultures, whereas Bollywood films can be such a different ballgame from European or Hollywood movies, and the culture they portray so alien to the Western viewer that they take a little while to become more accessible. When I saw my first Hindi film, Kabhie Khushi Kabhi Gham, I loved it, don't get me wrong, but I didn't get it. I was confused by the less structured story-telling (it was not a 90-minute Hollywood script in three acts!) and couldn't read all the cultural customs and references that they loaded the screen with.

Of course, that's not to say I'm now fully versed in Indian culture and know everything and get everything; that just wouldn't be possible. But I've become more understanding of this form of cinema, its traditions, history, values, tropes and style. Getting into Indian films has in some ways become an exercise in open-mindedness; it's different from everything you're used to seeing, but now you accept that, and appreciate it on (what I hope are) its own terms.

This doesn't mean I love every film or don't find objectionable things in films or the industry itself. But along with my love for Bollywood, comes a definite attitude re-adjustment. Films are films. If you watch Hindi/Tamil/Telugu/whatever Indian language films and continue to carry the notion that films from the US/France or wherever in the so-called "West" are somehow magically superior, you might as well stop watching.

But if only it were that simple that all films are created equal and a bad film's bad, although in different ways, despite the country or culture it comes from. But the ideas of Western film-making's superiority is sadly prevalent even in the minds of some Indians themselves. But I suppose that's a different issue altogether.

The point I'm trying to come to is that I'm not sure the audiences at large in the "West" would be so accepting of the Indian manner of making films and telling stories. Some people occasionally might get into, thanks to an Indian friend, a visit to the country itself or pushing efforts by us non-Indian filmi fans, and that's wonderful, but for it to become something more popular in the mainstream, for people to know stars beyond the few who've been in the limelight outside India, I just don't see it happening.

And to risk sounding elitist, I don't mind it.