Bollywood Infomercial Sleek: RACE 2 Review

 

Let us quote and interview of Johann Verheem, founder of a weight loss company who became famous overnight due to one of his infomercials: “It's not just that sex sells, but one of the other things very important in direct selling, in infomercials, is that a product looks different enough for someone to stop and watch it.” (Inc. magazine)

Verheem's expert knowledge of "what sells" completely matches my impression of Abbas and Mustan Burmawalla's Race 2, where a score of gorgeous males and females show off their tanned and chiseled bodies and brand clothes in luxurious settings while trying to appear cool by emoting as minimum as possible and handling uncannily humongous sums of money (plus the shroud of Turin!) throughout a plot that unfortunately keeps craving for an ending well before the intermission.

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GROW UP, BOLLYWOOD GIRLS!

Guest post by Dolce from the Dolce and Namak Talk Indian Movies blog

Dolce (Italian for “sweet”) is an Eastern European movie addict (Indian movies to be precise) who has made Toronto, Canada her home over the past few years. She has an endless infectious enthusiasm for movies, songs, settings, dances, badassness and everything else that makes Indian movies a world of their own. You may visit Dolce's blog by clicking here..
 

One of the biggest disadvantages of having a group of friends where everyone is 3-5 years younger than you is that you're always waiting for people to grow up. You keep making excuses for them and keep saying: they'll grow up when they get a real job, they'll grow up when they find a steady girlfriend/boyfriend, they'll grow up when they move out, etc. And there is some truth to that because that is usually how people learn responsibility and maturity. In fact, on the opposite end, the most telling sign that someone is refusing to grow up is that they will do anything (and I mean ANYthing) to not get a full-time job, or what we call a "real" job.

In a way, Bollywood is like these friends of mine: it keeps refusing to let its heroines (and heroes sometimes) grow up. In real life, if someone is responsible enough to keep a real job and live on their own, we also expect them to be emotionally mature. (Of course that expectation can backfire horribly, but that's for a different day to discuss.) But Bollywood, as I have discovered, doesn't like emotionally mature characters. It follows logically that they cannot have jobs (or if they do they're in the artistic realm), live on their own or make reasonable (read: mature) decisions. So... they don't.

I have already discussed in my blog that a fair percentage of the male characters have become manchildren (without actually getting to the bottom of why that is, but we might get there in this post), so it's only right to now discuss what type of female characters will suit these boys. Not surprisingly: girls! Not women. Girls. Sometimes (not very often, thankfully!) manic pixie dream girls and other times just girls in the process of growing up along with their hero. But girls nonetheless.

Look around at Bollywood movies from the past two decades: how many women can we count and how many girls? And of those women, how many are the heroine? Moreover, how many of those heroines end up with the hero? Three questions, each worth exploring in some detail.

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AARAKSHAN: Watch with Reservations

Prakash Jha's new film, Aarakshan, touches upon the controversial subject of caste and has done so in such a straightforward way, according to three Indian states (Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh) that they have banned its screening, fearing that it might spark bouts of communal violence. Other measures taken in order to ensure safety in relation to the film, have included providing special protection in certain movie theaters where Aarakshan is being screened, as well as protecting the film's well-known actors.

Aarakshan's setting is in a school in which Amitabh Bachchan, the principal, must face the delicate issue of   caste-based quotas. The controversy started once the first look of the film was launched. However, even if the film does indeed allude to Aarakshan at some point in the beginning of the story, the rest of the script is less concerned by it as it develops into a critique of education in India.

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