THE BEST OF INDIAN CINEMA ARE IN BANGKOK

IIFA Weekend and Awards 2008 showcases 'Sakar Raj' in world premiere

LEKHA J. SHANKAR

What makes the IIFA (International Indian Film Academy) Awards special?

A man walks past a poster of new film ‘Sarkar Raj’ in Mumbai. ‘Sarkar Raj’, is the story for a shrewd businesswoman’s plan to build a power plant and is caught in development politics. — REUTERS

The special element is that Indian cinema and Indian cinema stars get a grand exposure outside India. With India being the flavour of the moment, its cinema has gained a new dimension, which is why we have top Hollywood companies like Warner Bros setting up office in India, to make Bollywood films.

And on the other side, we have top Indian companies like the Reliance conglomerate helping to fund Hollywood films, including a new Brad Pitt production.

By holding the awards events outside India, Indian cinema gets a major boost, which is what the IIFA awards have managed to do, in every country where they were held in.

This is especially important in a country like Thailand, where the public distribution of Indian films stopped when Hollywood cinema gained the upper hand. Indian film screenings are now restricted to only weekend screenings, thanks mainly to the efforts of one distribution house, Bollywood Thai Co, which has been spearheading Indian films in the Kingdom for more than three decades.

The Thai-Indian company keeps track of quality Indian films, and screens them on the day of their release in India, as otherwise, they are sure the pirated versions will be available on the streets of Bangkok first!

Among the recent movies they have screened in Bangkok are Guru, Om Shanti Om, Chak De India, Jodhaa Akbar and Sivaji, the Boss - the most talked-about Indian films of last year.

Many of these movies are in competition at the IIFA Awards in Bangkok.

It's a pity that the films are not being widely screened in the city to coincide with the holding of the awards, as they offer an exciting view of the slickly produced, new-age Bollywood movies of today, which, in addition to their quota of music, dance, drama, have provocative subjects, strong story lines and charismatic characters.

Three of the competition films - Chake de India, Guru and Om Shanti Om - are being screened, in the DVD format, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand, and they have aroused a lot of interest because of their nouveau themes and concepts.

Chak de India has superstar Shahrukh Khan playing the coach of a women's hockey team vying for the World Cup. Made by a first-time director, with a brand-new cast of youngsters, the film was a superhit in India and abroad, thanks mostly to the vibrant script which animatedly and enjoyably discussed issues of caste, religion and gender under the guise of sport. The film impressed the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences so much that it requested for a copy of the film's script for their Margaret Herrick Library!

There are no songs or dances in that film, but superstar Shahrukh Khan makes up for this in Om Shanti Om, in which his dazzling body movements make it the biggest Indian hit of all time.

The film has a newcomer playing the female lead, the actor as producer, and a dance choreographer as director. If it worked, it was because it said nothing new, but on the other hand, it slickly and sleekly cut-and-pasted all the time-tested ingredients of Bollywood cinema, into a highly palatable masala.

Guru is a biopic on the founder of the Reliance empire, and it is a fine example of how a true story can be cleverly translated into a Bollywood script with all the frills intact. In the film, Abhishek Bachchan, son of the legendary Amitabh Bachchan, gives an awesome performance, supported by the lovely Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World and currently No. 1 heroine in Bollywood, and who also happens to be his wife.

Director Mani Ratnam, a former software engineer, is one of the dynamic directors of contemporary Indian cinema who makes movies in many languages that are distinctly commercial, but which have his unmistakable stamp, thanks to strong story lines and cutting-edge styles.

The couple comes together again, with the elder Bachchan as well, in Sarkar Raj, the much-awaited film that had its world premiere at the IIFA Awards in Bangkok yesterday.

This film is an example of new-wave Bollywood cinema: The story and characters are striking for being totally out of the regular mould.

Director Ram Gopal Verma is yet another individualistic director who dares to be different. His heroes are dons of the underworld, and his stories are noted for their questionable ethics and unrelenting violence.

While his previous film, Sarkar, was based on Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather, this movie is based on the controversial Hindu leader Bal Thackeray, which is why religion, politics, high drama and brutal violence have a mega presence in the film.

If the IIFA Awards are a celebration of contemporary Indian cinema, this film is symptomatic of new-wave Bollywood.

Those not lucky enough to have received an invitation to the world premiere of the film at Siam Paragon yesterday as part of the IIFA awards can watch commercial screenings of the film at the following cinemas: Tonight at 8:15pm at EGV Siam Discovery; tomorrow at 4pm and 7pm at Major Cineplex Rama III; and on Monday at 8pm at SFX Emporium. Tickets available one hour before showtime.

Call 02-225-7500 or visit http://www.bollywoodthai.com/ for more details.