Love Fest

If you have chosen to get updates from The New York Times in your Google Reader, then chances are that you spluttered into your morning coffee yesterday. We certainly did. The newspaper described Nagesh Kukunoor’s Aashayein as “a genre-defying Bollywood look at death”. As snark goes, it’s as heavily disguised as a camouflaged guerrilla fighter. In her review, Rachel Saltz is so kind in her appraisal of the film that you’d think she’s Kukunoor’s guardian angel. But the director isn’t the one that brings out Saltz’s warm and fuzzy side. It’s John Abraham, who she asserts has “one of Hindi cinema’s most ogled gym-moulded bodies”. Hence the headline—“Handsome Guy Is Dying, but He Can Afford Care”.

We have two questions for Ms. Saltz. One: having read her colleague Jeanette Castoulis’s inexplicably-generous review of Kites, we’d like to know whether Hrithik Roshan scores higher on the ogle statistics than Abraham. Two: what do we have to do to get American film reviewers to judge Bollywood flicks by the same standards that are extended to Hollywood movies?

While watching a non-Indian film, the same reviewers demand that the movies fulfil some basic cinematic obligations, like a good script and credible acting. It seems such criteria are inapplicable when Bollywood films are critiqued. How could Catsoulis describe the exhaustingly corny Kites to be “pure pulp escapism, so devoted to diversion that you probably won’t even notice the corn”? The film had Hrithik Roshan in a Mexican costume that made him look like he was entering a fancy dress competition, for crying out loud. But she wasn’t alone. Roshan’s light eyes and tight abs were enough to make The Los Angeles Times‘s Kevin Thomas and David Schute of Village Voice ignore Kites‘s glaring cinematic flaws. Saltz’s opinion of Aashayein is that it is odd. If Brad Pitt—we’re trying to match gym-moulded body for gym-moulded body—was in a film that had him earnestly believing he is Indiana Jones and destined to find the fountain of youth, would the reviewers have been so gentle? How could Saltz ignore the bizarre racism of My Name is Khan and describe Karan Johar’s direction as skilful? Kevin Thomas went so far as to describe the film as “potent, engaging and timely entertainment”. Had a director like James Cameron shown as caricaturised a version of an African-American congregation as Johar does in My Name is Khan, would he have been praised for his directing skills?

It’s wonderful that the American media is paying attention to Bollywood releases and we’re glad the genre has fans like Richard Corliss of Time because we hope that this will mean the good films made in India will get the attention they deserve. (Interestingly, Dev. D, one of Bollywood’s best offerings last year, didn’t get even a passing comment from any of the reviewers mentioned above.) However, from most of the reviews we’ve read, it seems the standards set for Indian films are entirely different. And they’re significantly and condescendingly lower than those established for cinema from the rest of the world.

Deepanjana Pal is a journalist and the author of The Painter: A Life of Ravi Varma. She is currently developing a keen appreciation for lazy brunches and coffee breaks in Bandra while working on her freelance assignments.