9.3.12

What is Happening in Bollywood?

By Kathy Dunne


In the past decade, the Hindi film industry has made a paradigm move from churning out commercial masala movies to making serious films that are thematically bold experimentations in methods, themes and story line. This can be clearly noted in the currently running and upcoming Bollywood movies.

The clear line marking the divide between the art cinema from the popular cinema is fading. The new Bollywood movies hitting the screens depict real issues and are well directed, edited and cinematographed. A host of talented directors are now providing evidence of their talent and affecting audience tastes by their revolutionary films.

The plots of many newest and upcoming Bollywood movies including 3 Idiots, Wake Up Sid and Well Done Abba are related to the troubles and life problems of an ordinary man. The rebellion of a member of the general public against social problems and terrorism has become well known as movie plots among present directors.

One more evident trend is the use of the state-of-art technology and graphics in new movies such as Drona, Love Story-2050 and Krrish. Further, animation movies are becoming popular and many big producers such as Yash Raj Films are trying their hands at it.

Yet another groundbreaking phenomenon gaining popularity in Bollywood is cashing on the remakes of good old movies. The recent newest remakes include Don that was a 1970 blockbuster starring Amitabh Bachchan and RVG ki Aag which is a remake of Sholay.

Today, many movies are made keeping in mind the taste and likes of the urban audience. Such movies like Fashion, Metro, Company, Wake Up Sid and Page3 that were directed to the city viewers have managed to be very profitable for the producers.

Another noticeable change is that a few production houses in Bollywood have been releasing many movies in the span of one year. Also, co-production of films by several banners is becoming more common in current times.

Finally, a very important trend in the Bollywood cinema has been its growing popularity beyond India and the rise in demand of the big budget Hindi movies. A large number of the Indians who are now residing abroad still crave for Hindi movies and it is conjectured that soon Bollywood movies will be competing with the Hollywood counterparts in international markets.




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