2 July 2022
This is a story of singing dinosaurs.
I lie. Exaggerate, perhaps. But there will be singing. And dinosaurs.
This is a story of cultural snobbery, of inauthenticity. How, we in the West, besmirch Bollywood for being trite. For lacking gravitas. Because the hero, the supporting cast, right in the middle of a car chase, the gun fight, the emotional crisis, bursts into song. And dance. Really good dancing.
“But I love Bollywood” you might say. Many people do. Many people like it in the same way they might admit to loving musicals. As a guilty pleasure. I'm against guilty pleasures. Guilty pleasures are an inverted #humblebrag. Either praise it for its magnificence, for its truth to its own form, or go home. Loud and proud. Or not at all. Actually, loud, dancing and proud, in this case.
While South East Asian cinema is now all the rage with the Hollywood intelligentsia, South Asia isn't afforded the same dignity. Because of the dance scene. Because we in the West only have diegetic dance scenes, by which I mean realistic dance scenes. We refer to Bande à Part. Tarantino even named his production company after it. For the record, it is magnificent. One of my favourite dance scenes.
Ask yourself, which is more ridiculous, a group of people watching dinosaurs herd across the plain, totally unaware of the loud anthemic music playing all about them, or a family engaged in heated argument, who, when suddenly hearing music playing out of nowhere, stop their shouting, and start to sing and dance. Which is most *realistic*?
A trick question. Obviously.
Musicals need to include several songs or they aren't deemed a musical. Serious films can't have any songs in them at all. Before any other cantankerous, old white men, like myself, point out a Western film with a song in the middle, the fact you can so readily find the exception, shows how rarely it happens.
Cultural difference you say. Here's where things get slippery. Twice, that I know of, Western tradition has stopped the show to have a sing and dance.
We think of incidental music as the now standard Hollywood background music, but its origins are more aligned with Bollywood breakout. Classical Greek and Roman plays featured songs, a dance, a turn, during the performance, often to highlight dramatic plot points. The Early Christian Church did not like this, no!, and stamped it out. Along with the shuttering of Epicurean communes. No fun for you, Christian! The chorus became choral. 1 2
A few years back, Anne and I didn't come back from a holiday in Hong Kong for two years, finding ourselves living in a village called Hung Shing Ye on the rural island on Lamma. The cheapest rent there is, in terms of closeness to the business district of Central. As Hung Shing Yeah! — as we called it — is equidistant furthest from all ferry piers, nobody who has to commute lives there. The twenty minute hike up hills in sweat season is no mean feat. A little joke. Sweat season lasts from February until November.
Our neighbour held a drinks party one night, and Anne got chatting to a young gentleman from Calcutta, I ambled over. Turns out he was recreating dinosaur feathers for his PhD on pigment.
"Oh, like in Jurassic Park?" I said. Vulcan death glare is all I have to say. Anne and dinosaurboy became besties for the rest of the party of course. Arindam, learning his name, was living in our remote village due being driven out of his University lodgings by appalling racism from Mainland Chinese students.
Risking death by academic laser-eye I invited him to join us on cinema trips to view Hong Kong action movies. I still have the scars. Undeterred, I suggested he come over one night to watch an art house film at ours. There is irony at the heart of this tale. The first is, it turns out he was a massive Marvel film fan. Prejudices once brushed aside, we had many a great film evening, replete with home made samosas.
I got to see some terrific Indian films. However, I would say, at the end of each Saturday evening "Hey Arindam, next Saturday, pick one with a great dance scene". He wouldn't. He refused. They were trite. Silly. For the uneducated. Instead, on one occasion he enthused about the actor's Shakespearian credentials.
It was customary in Tudor and Stuart drama to include at least one song in every play. Only the most profound tragedies, in accordance with Senecan models, occasionally eschewed all music except for the sounds of trumpets and drums. In his later tragedies, William Shakespeare defied this orthodoxy and used songs startlingly and movingly, particularly in Othello, King Lear, and Hamlet.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Music-in-Shakespeares-Plays-1369568
Yep, Ol' King Lear liked to bust out in song mid banishing.
Now, I would like to be able to recommend some fantastic Bollywood films with outstanding dance routines. But I can't. So instead I'd like to draw your attention, not to the great finale of Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan's "Slumdog Millionaire", which you'll note is placed at the end, not midway, but to what is considered a modern dramatic classic, Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia".
Want an example of the snobbery I'm talking about? In The New York Times, Janet Maslin wrote, "But when that group sing-along arrives, Magnolia begins to self-destruct spectacularly. It's astonishing to see a film begin this brilliantly only to torpedo itself in its final hour". I'm sorry Janet , but the cast being unaware of how “One (is the Loneliest Number)” is drowning their speech out is authentic?
I usually post a film’s trailer, instead of a scene, so as not to include spoilers. If you haven't seen Magnolia, first, do. Second, don't worry, even after this, there's plenty of surprises.
I cry every time. Even as a Youtube clip.
A song in the middle of an otherwise non-musical film. You can argue if you want, but a song in the middle of the best films in the last twenty years.
But Julian, there was no dancing. You said dancing.
OK then, dancing, but a warning, it's one of the most foul mouthed films I seen, but riotously funny. Here’s Kevin Smith's "Clerks 2"
Serendipitous too, Clerks III hits our screens soon. Hopefully, now you know Shakespeare approves, one can reevaluate having a single song and/or dance number in the middle of otherwise serious drama, as a good thing. No guilty pleasure. Straight up critical approval and appreciation.
Finally Jean-Luc Godard, with the classic that inspired many a dance break, including of course Pulp Fiction, in the more "acceptable" device of placing it within a scene where dancing is a requirement of characters within the plot. A round of applause again please for Kevin Smith and Paul Thomas Anderson for being true traditionalists.
Bonus points to Jean-Luc for killing the music for a few bars and dropping in a voice-over, in the classic film noir tradition, to let us know *we are watching a movie*.
My recommendation would be Magnolia. But since my recommendation every week would be Magnolia, here's three superb Indian movies that without Arindam, I would never have seen.
The first is Vishal-Shekhar's "Kahaani" (trailer contains spoilers)
Watch on Amazon UK | Amazon US
Yet another film best seen knowing nothing, although my viewing was enhanced by Arindam offering cultural insights to little touches that otherwise I would have missed. It's been optioned by Hollywood. Curious to see how they deal with the festival at the end, where the traditional costume for women is integral to the plot, to great effect. One of the most original thrillers I've seen for a while.
Navdeep Singh’s NH10
The Guardian called Navdeep Singh's "NH10" a misogynistic slasher movie with a topical twist. Somewhat missing, I think, the commentary within its survivalist horror genre on male violence. Given the film was produced within a society where violence against women is condoned, it is way more political than The Guardian gave credit for. Acid test: Anne loved it. Trailer below, although it gives much away. Warning, it's tense as fuck.
Watch on Amazon UK | Amazon US
The NH10 is a highway that runs through North India where patriarchal values still hold sway. The film was highly controversial in India, not just for the violence, but for portraying it as a consequence of male aggression against women.
I can't help but chuckle at number five
In a film where there is little scope for regular songs or routine dance numbers, the film has not one but six composers with nine songs. I, for one, am looking forward to watching how they have been used in the narrative.
Anurag Basu’s “Barfi!”
The last choice is a counterpoint to all this violence and terror, a slapstick rom-com about a deaf-mute boy (last minute wrangling of silence theme) and an autistic girl. Really.
Watch on Netflix
This week’s recommendation
Sacred Games
Vikram Chandra
Buy here | www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571231218-sacred-games/
Slightly unusual step of recommending a book I haven't read. I wish I had, but discovered it through the Netflix series. I have bought a couple of friends a copy, who reported enjoying it. Although I suspect neither finished, it's huge. In length. Think I'll put a copy on the Kobo now there's been a reasonable gap since viewing, ready for a week by the pool, which it will need.
The adaptation is huge too, in scope and vernacular meaning, as in lit, top, goat, etc. Along with The Bridge it's one of the things I wish I could unwatch, just so I could have the pleasure of seeing it again with fresh eyes. The compulsive Nawazuddin Siddiqui rains charisma down all over it from on high. He's the main reason to see Gangs of Wasseypur. Saif Ali Khan, a celebratory heartthrob in India also gives a career reviving performance.
Speaking of huge, I'm also going to throw in Gregory David Roberts's "Shantaram". His partially true dance though the Bombay underworld, after an Australian prison break. This and Trent Dalton's "Boy Swallows Universe'' (also soon to be a Netflix series) deserve a post of their own, but to do so would invoke many spoilers.
Postscript. Complete serendipity in, having just finished this column, RRR being chosen for movie night with friends. A patriotic action flick with the British as pantomime villains, that perfectly showcases the Bollywood aesthetic. Being both the most expensive production and highest grossing, plus being on Netflix it’s a perfect introduction. Naturally, there's a dance scene bang in the middle. It could be viewed as camp, but then one would have to view every Hollywood oddball pair cop bromance film the same way.
Interestingly, while watching Marvel's "The Black Widow" I was very uncomfortable with it's switching between realistic stabbings and then scenes of comedic dialogue. There was a point in RRR where I thought the cruel violence might go too far for me, but (spoiler alert) mid-whipping with a barbed lash, the victim bursts into beautiful song, continuing throughout the scene. Instead of spoiling the narrative, it reminded me it was fiction, that the violence should be taken within the context of entertainment. With reflection a stylistic convention I think I prefer, reminding us we are watching heightened drama and not to enjoy realistic brutality in itself.
Make popcorn, it's the most entertaining three hour romp I've seen for a while. Epic, is I think, the word. It deserves the same praise that "Everything Everywhere All At Once" is having lavished on it, which incidentally is also amazing.
The trailer, as always, reveals the whole plot, twists and all. So watch at your peril. My advice is copious snacks of choice, a comfy seat, and hit Netflix up.
Further watching
The dance scene from Danny Boyle and Loveleen Tandan's "Slumdog Millionaire"
While winning eight Oscars you'll notice, as I pointed out, the dance scene is at the end of the narrative, removed, and cut into the credits, making clear it's a reference, a homage, a "we like it, but not in our films please"? With no disrespect to Danny Boyle whose work I love, there's only actual Indian film to win a best foreign picture, Mira Nair's "Salaam Bombay!". 3 4
Illustration by Timothy Hunt
©2017 Timothy Hunt
A shoutout to Timothy Hunt, my favourite illustrator, who very kindly allowed use of his work to enliven this post. Please do him a solid by following him on Instagram and liking all his posts. Even better would be visiting his shop and purchasing a print, gold star goes to commissioning him to design or illustrate your next project.
https://www.instagram.com/timothyjphunt
https://www.timothyjphunt.co.uk/shop
A small ask
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References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_issues_surrounding_Slumdog_Millionaire
Legally I have to tell you I might get five pence or something from Bookshop dot org should you purchase something, but really I just want to stick it to Amazon and keep independent bookshops alive. Yeah, rebel me, bringing the man down from the inside etc etc.
Reminds me that we never expected to be sunbathing on a beach during our short but timely visit to Hong Kong...