From my favourite Bollywood movie (I’ve seen so few) MR INDIA. Proletarian superhero Mr India (Anil Kapoor) who, like Frodo, is equipped with a mystical ring of invisibility, dances with his love, played by the voluptuous Sridevi.
Director Shekhar Kapoor is one of very few Bollywood directors (maybe he’s the only one) to movie onto the international stage, with BANDIT QUEEN (very good), then ELIZABETH — not so good — he started swinging the camera about for no reason around this time, and the movie does feature one of my favourite unfortunate lines: a heretic is being burned at the stake, and cries, “Throw on more wood, I’m burning too slowly!”
Then came THE FOUR FEATHERS, a remake of an Imperialist British warhorse, with the stunt casting of Kapoor as director designed mainly, I fear, to assuage doubts about the politics of the piece. The movie totally tanked, and went straight to video in Britain, I think. Haven’t seen it.
Since then Kapoor has done ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE, and it seems quite possible he’ll be returning to the adventures of Queen Liz in future, but meanwhile he’s got an episode of I LOVE NEW YORK under his belt, which might be fun. I liked bits of PARIS JE T’AIME.
You’ll notice a particularly fine example of the wet sari scene in the above clip. This scene was de rigeur in Bollywood musicals (I remember with fondness a Bollywood movie that stole the plot and all the best bits from LETHAL WEAPON, but added musical numbers, thus improving on the original by about 200%), and I once saw a very serious Indian actress interviewed, saying that she wasn’t sure she could explain the significance of the wet sari to a western audience…
shadowplay 