I have been fortunate enough to see a few movies in India (ranging from stereotypical bollywood masala, to western - Zorro and Harry Potter rocked!, to international arthouse cinema - thanks to the 12th annual Kolkata International Film Festival). What has been most striking to me is that Indians (maybe it's just bengali's - subs care to comment?) LOVE their movies.
They REALLY get into them. Half the time I was more enthralled with the audience than the film. My movie going experiences in the west were either the sterile hushed atmosphere of theaters in the US or the ghettofied fired chicken eating outings of Puerto Rico. In Kolkata, it is somewhere in the middle.
I've been scolded for laughing too loudly while someone is eating pan-fried noodles next to me. People talk to the screen, cheer the hurry, clap at poignant moments. The audience totally engrosses themselves in the movie. It's amazing. I would think that coming to a film in India would be a directors dream, I assume this is the kind of emotional attachment that most western filmies dream of!
Now I wonder, if audiences get this involved in films, what does that mean for the theater!? Let's see if I can find out.
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2 comments:
my theory is that indian people dont watch as much television as Americans (i didn't do any regression analysis on this, but I'd bet money on it). So moving cinema just effects them more. I know this happeend to me. I didn't own a television for a couple of years, and every movie I saw, I would be bawling my eyes out, or laughing at every corny joke.
are u nuts??if indians didnt watch alot of television then where would the likes of ekta kapoor be??wat would happen to our never ending sob story soaps??
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