New Bollywood

Shubhra Gupta

The results of Hindi cinema’s ventures into the global mart have been mixed. The only real successes in this sphere have been the Chopra-Johar rom-coms which are more about extended large-hearted Punjabi families showing their love than about two individuals getting it together. The rest have come and gone, dreaming of those elusive dollars and pounds. And, doubtless, yen and dirham, as well.

But more than anything else, Blue is being seen as the film which will take Bollywood to the next level in foreign markets. So, what is it about Blue that could make it capable of spreading the new Bollywood gospel in markets hitherto untapped?

Till the early 1990s, the general perception of Bollywood was that it consisted of shrill socials or florid melodramas. And then, in 1995, Aditya Chopra placed teenage heartthrobs Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan in the middle of London, got them to do a Europe-darshan on Eurail, and changed that perception forever: post Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, being Indian was cool, and young people espousing traditional Indian values were even cooler.

Then came Karan Johar and his brand of designer desi cool: his young leads flaunted American brands like DKNY and GAP, but were unafraid to go to the temple, and do an aarti. His lovers lived in New York and New Jersey, were as swish as any ‘foreign’ actor, and as comfortable in the colour of their skins as the cut of their couture.

Between these two directors, and their made-for-NRI movies, the whole outlook of Indians living abroad changed — not only towards their movies but also what those movies told them about themselves. But even these films did not really charm the non-traditional audiences, which continued to be derisive about the costume changes and the songs-and-dances and the high-pitch of the dialogue delivery. A Monsoon Wedding here, and The Namesake there, did manage more of a crossover, but it can be argued that they were not really the real Bollywood thing — the film with songs and dances and heroes and villains and extravagant tale-telling.

And that’s precisely why Blue, and its potential, is so interesting. It’s both completely unlike the traditional Bollywood film, and yet very firmly a traditional Bollywood film with all its trappings. Will it, in the hyperbolic terms used by marketing mavens, really conquer the world?