Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Subtle Entertainment?

I love hindi movies. Cant say the same about Hindi serials. But both have something in common. they lack something that English movies and serials have. And I have firgured it out. SUBTLETY!! Most Hindi serials have to spell everything out...twice!!! they are in your face and most often crude. They treat the audience as if they are 5 year olds and in this day and age, even 5 year olds would be smarter. Undercurrent emotions are almost unknown. I wonder how a 'good' person is so blind not to see the other person making all kinds of faces which clearly indicate his/her 'evilness'. There is rarely any subtext nor any link to previous episodes. Characters change behaviour without any reason and while i know that the very idea of soaps is twists and turns without explanation and without reason just to keep the story going but there has to be some coherence. I have caught some episodes of American soaps and yes, they change plots, spouses, stories, behaviour with unpredictable or rather predictable regularity but atleast there is an appearance of coherence. Comedies are far behind. They all lack punchlines and have to resort to crudeness to get any laughs.
While I enjoy the sheer madness of hindi movies without any regard to why anything happens, I realised that very few Hindi movies have conversation between the actors. I liked Jab We Met precisely because there was a real connection between these two characters independent of the fact that since they were the main characters, they had to fall in love. The dialogue between Shah Rukh Khan and Vinay Pathak in Rab ne is another example. But there are very few movies which express emotions without having to resort to over the top drama. And that can be found in the English movies... atleast in many of them that I have seen.
I wish that our movies could imbibe that.. atleast in part..

3 comments:

rama srinivasan said...
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rama srinivasan said...

hey you don't like sarabhai v/s sarabhai? u r so upper middle class to find any english serial better than hindi.
remember that we get only a fraction of their soaps in india, i presume the most popular ones.
and hollywood movies can get even worse.
whether we r learning from wiser west or getting it right ourselves, subtlety is coming. i think taare zameen par was not the melodrama it could have been.
seen sorry bhai? i liked it that sanjay suri didn't walk into them making love and then creating huge drama with sound effects and close-ups. it is so much more pleasant to have them talking things out as mature adults. and regard us as adults too!!

Eye of Tiger said...

i liked sarabhai.. it was one of the few hindi serials i watched regularly.. and i liked sorry bhai for the lack of melodrama (the movie lacked chemistry as such except between shabhana azmi and boman irani). and yeah i guess what i have seen is a fraction of english soaps and movies.. but i am basing my comment on those that i have seen.. and the general impression i get from those.. besides even if we are looking at the most popular soaps.. our most popular is kyunki.. ugghh
things are getting better.. didnt i mention a few movies??