Photo by Jack GouldIt's no secret that the classic Hollywood musical is dead, replaced by pre-adolescent Disney fare or hilarious postmodern spoofs. But if you travel halfway across the globe to India, you'll find the new Golden Age of musicals: Bollywood, a land that takes any excuse to break into song. Here, musicals have the Busby Berkeley trademarks of goddesses and insane choreography—but multiplied exorbitantly, creating a bizarre product that is both incomprehensible and irresistible.
Orange County's only conduit for Bollywood is Namaste America, a one-hour television show airing on KSCI devoted to all things Indian, with the first half dedicated solely to Indian musical cinema. Each week, Namaste America screens clips from Bollywood, a term that is popularly used to refer to Indian cinema as a whole but is actually somewhat of a misnomer. More correctly, Bollywood refers to Hindi-language cinema, but no one is complaining because a singular term is needed to present the immensity of Indian cinema to the world. India produces more movies by far than any country—ever. The huge output is explained by Bollywood's 1 billion-plus audience, relatively inexpensive production costs and movies that rarely deviate from the masala genre. Namaste Americaserves as a guide for trends in masala cinema.
Masala refers to the fiery spices that have burned many a novice's tongue when encountering curry for the first time. Moviewise, masala describes Bollywood's favored plots. Whether dealing with love, class conflict, the generation gap, assimilation or ethnic identity, the plots—more melodramatic than anything on Lifetime starring Meredith Baxter Birney—eventually revert to Bollywood's universal solution to every problem: a musical number.
In the United States, we associate musical numbers with the musical genre. In Bollywood, musical numbers extend across all storylines. Sorry, Norman Mailer: tough guys do dance in Bollywood, as do fat guys, power-suit-wearing guys and men fitting every Indian stereotype. Indeed, these musical numbers are beautiful anarchies involving hundreds of people and locales so pristine that Gale Norton is salivating to open them up for drilling. Usually, the song scenes involve a man and woman vocalizing at point/counterpoint. A phalanx of men dance behind the lead actor, and the lead actress has her own army of women mimicking her moves. The camera cuts between the groups, zooms in and out, and pans so fast Michael Bay would suffer vertigo and collapse in a puddle of his own sick.
The dancing is intricate to the point of obsessive orthodoxy. Every tiny gesture —every shoulder shake, eyelid flutter and hand movement—carries centuries of meaning in the tradition of classical Indian dance. The style of singing (ululating or wave-like, with voices raised to the highest treble) and music (rhythms that resemble a truck with no shocks) also draw upon India's ancient arts.
The most extravagant spectacles are marriage numbers, in which everyone is dressed in traditional Indian dress and perform traditional ceremonies. Contemporary numbers highlight the clash of epochs and culture best. Most contemporary numbers feature a guy pursuing a girl in a sports car, stopping at a dock, and dancing with his buddies, who wear Tommy Hilfiger's designs. The women chat on their cell phones and wear skirts that would put Boogie regulars to shame. Regardless of their attire, they dance and sing in the traditional styles—kind of like Eminem crooning Crosby.
Non-Indians must accept the fact that some nuances will be lost while viewing Bollywood films. India has 16 official national languages (take that, Gloria Matta Tuchman!) and more than 1,500 dialects; distinguishing one culture from another on film can be a chore. Full-bearded Punjabis dance with Gujarats, and all pursue the absurdly beautiful Hindi princess. The multicultural harmony of Bollywood makes it hard to figure out who is what or even what language is being sung. Is it Malayalam? Tamil? Assamese? Is the culture portrayed Tegulu? The fact that Namaste America offers no subtitles (although the intros to the clips are in English) does not help much. But, unintentionally, the lack of subtitles forces the non-Indian to concentrate solely on the breathtaking visual aesthetics of the films. In a way, this is like a bridge between silent films and talkies; the visual rules.
Lack of subtitles also does not detract from Bollywood's finest stars. There's the stunning Karishma Kapoor, the reigning queen of Bollywood, whose hips and shoulders move as if operated by a homeboy playing with his '65 Impala. Even more beautiful is Mahima Chaudhary, whose voice is soothing—as soothing as ice-pick-pitched vocals can be, that is. There's Bobby Deol, a Ray Liotta look-alike who seems to be the rebel of Hindi cinema. More interesting is the always-sporting-sunglasses Anil Kapoor (no relation to Karishma), Vicente Fernández' Indian doppelgänger. He is chubby and not all that good-looking, but he manages always to get the girl with what appear to be comic lyrics.
Each Namaste America episode has a theme, ranging from “Punjabi Songs” to “Boat Films” (an episode devoted to musical numbers on boats) to individual celebs such as Kannada-language star Dr. Rakjumar or the late, legendary Hindi actress Madhubala. But the star of Namaste America is Indian cinema itself. Exotic locales, women from heaven, and the largest film business anywhere: Bollywood is king. Now if only I knew what the hell they're singing about.
Namaste America airs on Ksci, Channel 18. Every Sat., 11 a.m.
