Impacts of Multiplex Boom

I think after multiplex boom happend in major cities of india, we can see new kinds of films being produced and marketed.Multiplex boom has both positive and negative impacts on our film industry. upto 1990s hindi film industry produced films mainly for small town and middle class population. So the story and characters of majority of films were targeted for these viewers. But now the situation is changed. Multiplexes have introduced new marketing and exhibition possibilities in front of Indian film industry. Multiple screens in multiplexes have created new spaces for low budget and art films. Before, those films can’t be screened in major theatres because they usually do not pull as much viewers to the theatre. Big theatres can’t function if the viewer attendance is mediate or low. But screens with lesser seats are very suitable for low budgets films. It will promote production of art cinema.But multiplexes are alienating lower class from theatres.

Due to the heavy ticket charge majority of population can’t approach multiplexes. Their dependence on television and cable network is increasing drastically. So the democratic space created by traditional theatres is vanishing gradually from cities. In Indian context it will create negative impact in a long run. The charaters coming from working class are now slowly disappearing.

"Boys do not cry"(2008, Korean)

When the Korean War ends in 1953, the country left with nothing but desperation. This film is about that period when the gangs ruled the urban Korea. It is about two orphaned boys, who lives in a relief camp where everyone suffers from hunger, inhumane treatment and unbearable work conditions. But these two have a dream of a better tomorrow. One of them has wits and brains and another is a tough street fighter. Together they scheme to collect rice from the neighborhood and to sell it in the coming winter season. They recruit other street boys in their business. But when they start to take business away from the local gangsters, their fight for survival turns into a war.
Nice film but not great one. Understated story and good performance by the actors.

Korea has made so many good films about their war.... i wonder why India never made a realistic good movie on any of our wars. Films like Boarder and LOC are terrible.

One of such themes is “Partition”. We can count Hindi films on Indian partition with fingers. It was such major national tragedy, even then for a long time the Indian film industry seldom addressed it. After 1990s some films were made on the theme like 1942 earth, train to Pakistan etc., but they were not mainstream films. Why mainstream film makers neglected this theme????
[Garam Hawa and Dharam Putra are the exceptional films on partition. I recommend you to watch both these films]

WHERE IS HERO IN HINDI CINEMA. WHERE R THEY GONE ??

The concept of Hero itself is personification of contemporary moral values i.e., the moral values of the contemporary society decide the “hero ship” of that time. It means by studying the hero (of novel, story, art forms, cinema, etc.,) we can learn the moral values of the time or vice versa. Moral values always changes with time. We can see the same in Hindi Film “Heroes”.

Who was a hero in Hindi films – he was a hard working, truthful, strong, handsome, kind, action orientated ‘MAN. He also represents a particular class (with all its qualities). In most of the films, Raj Kapoor, Guru datt, Manoj Kumar, Dileep Kumar, etc., represented those heroes. After independence the thirst for social change were seen their characters. In that period the class difference between the hero and Villon is the main stage of drama in many movies. Many of progressive artists came to film industry during that period.

But gradually that hero vanished to angry young man-who takes revenge against the prevailed corrupt society. The hope was changed to anger. “Amitab” was famous for such roles. Jitendra, Shatrughan sinha, Mithun etc., also played such roles.

Now due to globalization those heroes are also slowly vanishing. Now we do not know what should be the moral value of a hero. What should he stand for? The class struggle is almost vanished. Now we have heroes, who are very confused like us. What is right -what is wrong, he does not know. I am not saying whether it is good or bad, but it is the truth.

Villains of Popular Hindi Cinema

Let me share some of the interesting observations on popular Hindi cinema (I will not call it Bollywood).

The Hindi film industry always reflects the social realities of the nation-sometimes directly sometimes indirectly-most of the time by creating stereotype characters especially villains. If u study the kind of villains in Hindi films, u can sketch the changes happened in our society.

For example after independence when the whole nation was in a state of hope to build a better nation, the characters in the films represented that vision. That time the society was basically based in villages. Agriculture and ownership of land were the main issues. So Hindi film industry produced villain who was a greedy landlord who want to take over the poor man’s land. Even then almost every film ended with a note of hope to change this system.

Then when slowly the society gets more urbanized the villains became greedy factory owners. Then city “gunda” (mafia) became villain and police became hero. Slowly when the bureaucracy and law enforcing system in this country could not meet the demands of masses, gradually police became villain and interestingly the mafia man was raised to hero. After sometime politicians became villains and then Pakistan became main villain along with Muslim terrorists.