The release of the Indian movie "Toilet Hero" this week has attracted widespread attention from fans. While the box office is good, its reputation has also soared, and it is once again hailed as a phenomenal Indian film by major media.
"Toilet Hero" is adapted from real events. It tells the story of the Indian bride Jaye who married her husband Keshav. Because there was no toilet at home, she could only go to the open air in the suburbs every morning to go to the toilet. The story of the women's toilet revolution. When the film was released in India, it sparked a heated discussion about "open-air toilets". With its strong topicality and attention, it not only earned more than one billion rupees at the domestic box office in India, but also ranked in the top ten of the annual box office. It has also attracted the attention of the United Nations, and even rarely received the support of the national tax exemption policy.
As we all know, India is a religious country, and the influence of religion penetrates into every part of its society and culture, which makes religion play a decisive role in the lives of Indian people. As the "Bible" of the Indians, the "Code of Manu" is respected by the Indian people. There are words in the code that encourage believers to "excrete in nature far away from their houses", and building a toilet at home means leaving uncleanness and filth at home, which is disrespectful to God.
This film cuts in from this, using comedy to analyze this sharp and serious social issue humorously, which makes people admire the spirit of Indian filmmakers' self-explaining and the courage to challenge religious bad habits. Indian movies that have been popular in the Chinese market for several years, such as "Wrestling!" "Dad", "My God", "Mysterious Superstar", etc., you will find that Indian films seem to have formed a set of inherent patterns, just like the assembly line products produced with the same mold, they have fallen into the rut and changed. It has become more and more routine and more and more labelled.
In my opinion, the biggest label of Indian films is that they must take a controversial social issue as an entry point, and start the plot step by step, thus triggering discussion and reflection from the audience.
"Wrestle! "Dad" discusses the realization of women's self-worth, "My God" satirizes the hypocrisy of religion, "Starting Line" criticizes the Indian education system, "Mysterious Superstar" brings out domestic violence and feminist issues, "Little Lolita" The Monkey God Uncle" talks about ethnic conflicts and religious estrangement. It can be said that these films have high intentions, and the social issues they throw can grab the audience's hearts at once. However, the key point is that these films carry too much social responsibility and carry too much educational significance. Is the film only used as a tool to promote social development?
After the release of "Toilet Hero" in India, the proportion of "outdoor toileting" in India dropped from 60% to 30%. Some people claim that this is a film that has changed the fate of 600 million women in India.
This reminds me of several Korean movies that were very popular in the past few years. "Melting Pot" exposed the social phenomenon that powerful figures violated minors. While shocking the whole of South Korea, it pushed the South Korean government to enact the "Furnace Act" to combat sexual violence; "The Defender" criticized South Korea's judicial abuses and human rights in the 1980s The problem, a year after the movie was released, the South Korean government retrialed the case more than 30 years ago, and five of the defendants who were convicted that year were finally acquitted.
From this point of view, there is no doubt about the practical value of the above films. Their release has indeed promoted the development and progress of society. However, the reason why film is regarded as an art is that it can bring beauty and bring Pure spiritual pleasure, and the social value it produces is not the only criterion for evaluating a film, unless it is just a missionary or scientific film.
This will bring out another label of Indian movies, which is rough in production.
As I mentioned just now, successful Indian films all start from acute social problems, which makes them have a high starting point. Unfortunately, the development of films often deviates from the expected track. It is obviously a very serious subject, but it is not. If it is presented in a nonsensical or even mixed way, the tonality of the film cannot be unified, which makes people feel different. The reason is that many people think that it is due to the style, but I think it is the lack of polishing of the script. Like "Uncle Monkey", "Mystery Superstar" and "Wrestle!" "Dad", its plot is too idealized and completely divorced from reality, which is quite far-fetched and taken for granted. There are also many humorous elements in the Korean film "The Defender", but the tone of the whole film is serious and profound. The context of the whole story is very clear. While weeping and crying, I started singing and dancing at once, which made people feel very abrupt.
In addition, at the technical level, the first to bear the brunt is the camera. Not only "Toilet Hero", but most of the Indian films mentioned above are mostly filmed with fixed shots, and it is difficult to impress people in terms of composition, lighting, color matching, and character scheduling. I believe that all viewers who have watched "The Furnace" can remember the horror scene of the principal looking down at the little girl in the bathroom, and many fans even said that scene became their nightmare. It can be said that such a lens with image tension is almost difficult to find in Indian films.
The second is special effects. I believe that as long as you have watched "Toilet Hero" seriously, you will find that the backgrounds of some pictures are obviously made of special effects, and they look very fake, so fake as if we were in a photo studio when we were young, standing on those paintings of the Badaling Great Wall, It is the same as the photo taken in front of the curtain of the Egyptian pyramids. This reflects that there is still a big gap between Bollywood in India and Hollywood in the United States in terms of the production level of the film industry.
Of course, the most intuitive impression most viewers have of Indian films is that they are too long. This is also another tag I would say about Indian cinema, verbose.
All the Indian movies listed above, I checked the information, except for "Starting Line" which is only over 130 minutes, every remaining movie is no less than 150 minutes, including "Toilet Hero". This will inevitably lead to a very protracted rhythm of the plot, the progress of the plot is very slow, and there are some dispensable scenes. The reason is that there are a lot of song and dance performances interspersed in the film. This is also the last label I want to talk about, the song and dance form of Indian cinema.
Indians' obsession with dance also stems from religion. Shiva is one of the three major gods in Hinduism. Hinduism believes that dance is created by Shiva, and Shiva is the embodiment of dance. Therefore, Indians express their worship of Shiva as their love for dance. Therefore, dance is indispensable for Indians, and naturally, this is also reflected in the film, so dance has become an indispensable part of Indian film.
The use of singing and dancing in the film can render emotions, mobilize the audience's emotions, and also contribute to the development of the plot. From the classic Oscar-best film "Chicago" to the "La La Land" released in the mainland last year, there are actually quite a few musical films that people are talking about. Combined, then singing and dancing not only cannot add color, but instead forms a rigid and artificial sense of form, which eventually becomes a tasteless and redundant burden. In my opinion, most of the Indian films listed above have this drawback. It seems that without singing and dancing, it cannot be called an Indian film. Since it is an Indian film, it must have singing and dancing. This fixed logic has been deeply rooted in the minds of Indian filmmakers.
To sum up, by connecting these labels together, we have the outline of Indian films in our minds: cut from social issues, presented in the form of comedy, interspersed with a large number of localized dances, the rhythm is slow, the plot is too ideal, the overall The production is rough and rough.
This has formed a labelled Indian film, and more importantly, Bollywood does not seem to regard this as a dilemma, but instead regards it as a shortcut to success, and keeps producing Indian films with the same routine. Although these Indian films are very popular and popular, but looking at the three major film festivals after the 21st century, it is almost difficult to find Indian films. Even the domestic films that have been criticized, there are Jia Zhangke, Lou Ye, Wang Xiaoshuai and other world-renowned filmmakers. The director of the forum, and how many Indian directors can you say? This shows that the artistic achievements of Indian films in recent years are really lackluster, and naturally they are not favored by film festival awards.
The developed European and American film industries can not only produce popcorn blockbusters like "Transformers" and "The Avengers", but also cultivate literary film giants like Jarmusch and Sorrentino. Since the early 1990s, after the death of the Indian master director Satyajit Rey, who once swept the three major film festivals, Indian films have been in decline and even disappeared from the world film circle for a time. As a result, Indian movies, which have finally returned to the fans' vision, regard those labels as life-saving straws, copying the successful model again and again, and finally lead to their own labeling.
How Indian films take off their own labels and how Bollywood develops on the road to diversification are questions that every Indian filmmaker should ponder.
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