Movie – Chak De! India (2007)

Chak De! India (literally “Let’s Go India!”) is an unabashedly rah-rah movie about an underdog women’s national field hockey team.  Unlike Lagaan, which was called the “Rocky of cricket”, Cha De! India is much more in the vein of the 1986 film Hoosiers.  Both feature a coach in need of redemption, leading a team of underdogs into the championships.  A more recent comparison might be the 2004 film Miracle, about the American 1980 Olympic ice hockey team – more on the underdogs theme, not the coach’s redemption theme.  All of these films are primarily about sports, but spend a good amount of time on the people participating in the sport.  They are not just faceless characters, which lifts these films above the normal sports movies.

Movie – Outsourced (2006)

First things first: this post is about the 2006 movie named Outsourced, not the 2010/2011 NBC TV show.  While the latter was a spin-off from the film, it suffered the fate of most other movie-based TV shows and it only lasted one season.  I did not see it, but I have read that the humor on the TV show was much broader than in the movie.  It sounds like they dumbed it down for television audiences.  Outsourced-the-movie features some charming comedy.  Much of it is the fish out of water kind, but there is some romantic comedy, too.  The movie is about learning about other cultures.  If you ever saw the 1983 movie Local Hero then Outsourced could be considered the next generation version of that.

Movie – Black (2005)

Black is an Indian film that would not have come to my attention at all were it not for a man from India recommending it to me.  It also served as an introduction to the wealth of foreign films that Netflix carried, but that is another story.  This man had rented the DVD via Netflix, but before returning it he loaned it to me.  He knew I was always looking for good movies and he felt this one qualified.  He was right.  This is a great movie.

Movie – Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001)

Lagaan is the first Indian movie that I remember hearing about.  The reason I remember is that I had seen it for sale in a store, while just having read an article about how it was setting box office records for a Bollywood film in the U.S.  This made me curious, so the next time I was in the store I looked for it, but all the copies were gone.  At first I thought they must have sold out, but when nobody else was selling it either, I figured out what had happened.  Like other Bollywood films at that time, this had been released direct to DVD in the U.S.  When Lagaan became only the third film from India to ever be nominated for an Oscar (after 1955’s Mother India and 1988’s Salaam Bombay), the studio decided to release it theatrically.  When they did this, they apparently had the DVDs pulled from the shelves.  The problem with this is that movie rental places didn’t end up getting copies, so I didn’t have any way to see it.  (This was before the days of Netflix). 

Fast forward to about five years ago and I happened to spy a copy for sale.  By then I had forgotten about wanting to see it, but this reminded me.  I did a blind buy – something I rarely do.  Even then it was a few more months before I finally watched the movie.  I was glad that I had.  It is an entertaining, crowd pleasing film.  Time Magazine recently named it one of the 25 best sports films ever made, although it is a lot more than just a sports movie.

Movie – Monsoon Wedding (2001)

Monsoon Wedding is probably Indian director Mira Nair’s most popular film in North America.  She first hit my radar screen with the Oscar nominated 1988 film Salaam Bombay.  Although I still have not seen that movie, I did see her American follow-up, 1991’s Mississippi Masala with Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury.  That made me a fan of Nair’s, so I have tried to see her other films over the years.  While Nair has explored topics are far ranging as Cuban refugees (1995’s The Perez Family) and classic English literature (2004’s Vanity Fair), Monsoon Wedding is a tale of two Indian families that are trying to balance tradition with modernism, while blending their families into one.  The result is a charming combination of light comedy, romance, and drama.

Movie – Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

Slumdog Millionaire is an absolutely terrific film that swept through the Oscars in 2009.  It won 8 of the 10 awards it was nominated for, including Best Picture.  And one of the awards it didn’t win – Best Song – it lost to itself when the other song from the film, “Jai Ho”, took home the Oscar.  It wasn’t just the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences who loved it.  It is only the second film in history to sweep the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay awards at the Golden Globes (Hollywood Foreign Press), BAFTAs (the “British Oscars”), and Academy Awards.  The other film to do it?  Schindler’s List.

A Taste of India

“God I love the sweet taste of India/ Lingers on the tip of my tongue/ Gotta love the sweet taste of India/ Blame it on the beat of the drum.” – Aerosmith, Taste of India

Quick – what country’s film industry produces more movies in a year than any other?  Nope, it’s not America’s, despite the number of new movies that come out every week.  It’s India’s.

You may have heard of “Bollywood”.  Technically, it refers to the film production from the country’s largest city (Mumbai), but it has come to generally be used when referring to all Indian cinema.  (Just as “Hollywood” is used for any American film.)  The word comes from Bombay (the previous name for Mumbai) Hollywood.

Unfortunately, it is sometimes used in a derogatory manner, meaning quick and cheap productions that only have singing and dancing in them.  That’s no more fair than saying that all Hollywood movies are quick and cheap horror/action/romcoms.

There is a wide diversity of movies made in India.  I have seen too many that I would recommend to list them all here.  Instead I will try to give you just a taste of what is available from Indian cinema.  Note:  I will not be covering classic Indian films here (i.e. Pather Panchali); that is deserving of a separate category someday.

I have tried to pick representative movies from different genres.  I was lucky in that I worked with contractors from India for many years and I got to discuss films with some of them.  One of my recommendations, Black (2005), is a movie I probably would never have even heard of, let alone seen, if it had not been recommended to me by them.

Some of the movies I will be writing about are actually from non-Indian production companies, but all are shot in India and feature mostly Indian casts and crews.

As I post the reviews I will come back and post the links to them here:

Slumdog Millionaire
Monsoon Wedding
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
Black (2005)
Outsourced
Chak De! India

On to the reviews…