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Gliding Bollywood and Glittering Other South Asian Industries

Within India, Bollywood is no more the biggest or the most influential industry.

by Fahmidul Haq

Bollywood is the flag-bearer of South Asian Cinema to the global audience. Bollywood produces films in Hindi language, with its signature song and dance numbers with the aesthetic values of Bhabas and Rasas evident in Bharat Muni’s Natyashastra (see Massey 1992). The industry evolved in the late-1990s with the films like Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Kuch Kuch Hota Hay (1998), Taal (1998) and many more. These films are produced in a liberalized and free market, with hybrid cultural values of both Indianness and global, by targeting NRIs as potential spectators (and satisfying the local audience too). The storyline often travels to European or American cities, however the characters always remain Indian by heart. In 1998, the government declared to give movies an ‘industry status’, and foreign equity was allowed up to 100% in production and distribution in 1999. Rajadhaykhsya (2003) describes this whole process as ‘the Bollywoodization’ and he observed that the marketing part of the Bollywoodization was missing in the South Indian industries which were very much locally oriented.

However, in recent times, the scenario has been changing and this article provides a chronicle of the success of other Indian and South Asian film industries. Rajadhaykhsya’s theoretical notion of the Bollywoodization will be applied to analyze the changing aspects of South Asian Cinema.

Since the local and global success of Telugu film Baahubali: The Beginning (2015) the act of the Bollywoodization can be seen in the South Indian films industries too. This time, productions like Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (2017), Pushpa: The Rise-Part 1 (2021), RRR (2022), K.G.F.: Chapter 2 (2022) got a new identity – ‘pan-Indian’ cinema. These films are produced from South Indian cities like Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad, Kochi and Bangalore, dubbed to Hindi and released for pan-Indian audience and thus they have been becoming the highest grossing films in India. According to the box office reports provided by IMDB, among the 10 highest grossing films in 2021, only two were from Bollywood. In terms of critical acclaim, South Indian films are now ahead of Bollywood films. Film Companion, a platform of critics, published the list of ‘The Best Indian Movies of 2021’ and among 15 selected films, only three were produced from Bombay, two in Hindi and one in Marathi language. All other films were produced in South Indian cities. Generally, the Malayalam film industry from Kerala is best known for producing critically acclaimed films.          

Check the review of Baahubali

To build a pan-Indian character, Bollywood stars are sometimes casted in these films (i.e. Ajay Devgan and Alia Bhat in R.R.R and Sanjay Dutt and Ravina Tandon in K.G.F 2). And although these are known as pan-Indian films, the acts of the Bollywoodization are also applied to these movies. While reporting the international success of KGF 2, a Kannada film produced from Bangalore, Karnataka, “Indian Express” reports: K.G.F. 2 is the fourth highest-grossing Indian film ever internationally, after Dangal, Baahubali 2, and RRR. In the list, Dangal is the only Bollywood film and both Baahubali 2 and RRR are Telugu films directed by S. S. Rajamouli.

Under the dominance of fiction films, the top-notch international success is bagged by Indian documentary filmmakers. Rintu Thomas and Susmit Ghosh’s Writing with Fire (2021) was nominated for the 2022 Academy Awards. Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes (2021) won the top documentary award (Golden Eye) at Cannes 2022.

Bollywood still may feel proud of the low-budget and content driven New Bollywood Cinema led by Anurag Kashyap and his friends. But it has almost lost its glory regarding its signature productions – big budget and masala movies based on formulaic song and dance numbers. Parallelly, South Indian Cinema is gleaming with their own southern mannerisms. The other South Asian industries are shinning too. Since Bol (2011), Pakistan has been experiencing a New Wave and the country has been producing fiction films that are both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. Canada based Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won academy awards twice for her documentaries Saving Face (2013) and A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness (2017). Saim Sadiq’s Joyland (2021) won the jury prize at Cannes 2022 in the Un Certain Regard category.

Bangladesh has been experiencing an independent film movement since the 1980s and the country has produced a lot of remarkable films such as Matir Moina (2002, FIPRESCI award at Director’s Fortnight, Cannes) by Tareque Masud and Television (2012, won Grand Jury Award at Asia Pacific Screen Award) by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki. Abdullah Mohammad Saad’s Rehana Maryam Noor (2021) was in competition at Cannes in Un Certain Regard category. Kamar Ahmad Simon’s The Day After… (2021) also competed at IDFA, Netherlands. A new generation of filmmakers has already arrived in the scenario due to the advent of OTT platforms.

After watching Sidik Barmak’s Osama (2003), the world came to know that Afghanistan too produced great films. Atiq Rahimi’s Earth and Ashes (2004) was in competition in Un Certain Regard category at Cannes. The Oscar-nominated short film Buzkashi Boys (2011) by Sam French is an Afghan-US co-production. Gulistan Marzaei and Elizabeth Marzaei’s Three Songs for Benazir (2021) is another academy award nominated film in the short documentary category. There was a significant rise of women filmmakers in Afghanistan who mostly made documentaries and the list of the names of the filmmakers is quite long – Sahraa Karimi, Shaharbanu Sadat, Sahra Mani and Roya Sadat. However, after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Sahraa Karimi, the chairperson of the Afghan Film Organization had to leave country and the potential of Afghan Cinema has stopped.

Buddhist monk Khyentse Norbu from Bhutan directed several award-winning films that includes The Cup (1994) and Travelers and Magicians (2003). His assistant Pawo Choyning Dorji made Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom (2021), that got academy award nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 2022. Nepal’s film industry was heavily influenced by Bollywood and its cinematic norms, however since Nischal Basnet’s Loot (2012), Nepali directors have been producing commercially successful films which are free from Bollywood influence.

Apart from the South Indian industries, for decades Bollywood has been influencing all other industries in South Asia. However, the scenario has changed very recently. Other South Asian industries too are trying to tell their own stories and are determined to evade the Bollywood templates. However, the Bollywoodization process still matters, may be in their own definition – participating in international film festivals and bagging awards from there, finding co-producers from international markets, getting wide or limited international release and occupying spaces in international OTT or digital platforms.

Reference

Rajadhaykhsya, A. (2003). The ‘Bollywoodization’ of the Indian Cinema: Cultural Nationalism in a Global Arena. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. 4:1, 25-39.

Massey, R. (1992). From Bharata to the Cinema: A Study in Unity and Continuity. Ariel: A Review of International English Literature. Vol. 23 No. 1. pp. 59-71.

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