Indian Movies Thread V

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Historians of the period have pointed that this Hindu-Muslim peg in the film has been the superimposition of a more contemporary perspective on the 16th century, when identities were formed not so much in terms of the Hindu-Muslim binary, but rather in terms of caste, clan and lineage.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Unfortunately, here is another young mind corrupted by the secularwalas populating the "intellectual" centers. Blaming the victim is the essential trait of these characters.

It's like a pedophile entering a community in which there was no such thing before, who then begins to stalk the weakest members. When the community gets together and points out the pedophile, the pedophile responds "but there were no pedophiles in your community before we came in, therfore you should not be upset by pedophiles." Of course, this is just their convoluted way of implying - You are not fulfilling your role as our victim.

[Bodhi]

ramana, (318-)

it is pity that those who have come forward to oppose the movie are 'rajput' orgs doing it from the standpoint of rajput-pride rather than anything larger. But are they ready to deny the historical fact that for whatever pressure their ancestors did send the sisters and daughters into the harems of musalmans? How does it matter whether the name of the first sacrifical hindu girl at the harem of Akbar was Jodha or not?

Men, then too warriors, are dharma-bound to protect women, elderly, children and meek from the invading tyrants. What will we say to those who pushed their own daughters, under whatever pressure, into the lusting mouths of the invader in order to protect their tiny fiefdoms?

What Rajput? Who Kshatriya? Merely by growing moustaches and watching Chamelibai's mujara noone becomes Kshatriya. These pseudo-kshatriyas have sold our home first and now they want the respect due to them?

But the Rajput-Pride - an erronous perspective for protest aside, Jodha Akbar (JA)still needs to be analyzed by those who suffer no such false pride.

JA has shown the romance of a Hindu princess who falls in love with Mugal Tyrant with whom she was politically bartered for peace, and this alone will suffice to negate and obliterate one of the darkest chapter of the Indian Medieval history. No Rajput or Hindu pricess would ever willfully accept a musalman. Not in history.

The movie is simly just another step of the same process of Mugal-period-glorification that had begun in 20th century first by Leftists. Even British did not do this. First left-wing historian who began the process was Mr. Manavendra Nath Roy, who began glorifying all Islami invaders. Motivations are well known by now...and so are the later developments in it. JA is simply the latest artifact of the same school, for the consumption of the ignorant masses, particularly the ultra-liberal youth of today, and nothing else.

Such artifact is a unique example of how liberal India's generations have become - and how detached from their historical agony. Imagine a movie being made in China, by a chinese, glorifying the love story of a chinese princess with a Japanese governer! Or likewise elsewhere in world! But we are truely enlightened peoples - where we hold our invaders in aweful reverence!

Those who can sympathatically make such a movie, and those who can enjoy it, are the same people who knowingly or unknowingly are in support of the ongoing process to erase the every historical trace of the national-emotional entity called Bharat.

[ramana]

Thanks Bodhi for the translation. I saw the movie and came out with the feeling that Akbar who was quite a barbarian before his encounter with the Rajputs removed the two taxes and allowed his non Muslim subjects some level of livelihood. And this went on for ~ 100 years till Aurangazeb rolled these back. It was the 100 years respite that saved Hinduism from becoming swamped. Recall in the south Vijayanagar was already overcome by Deccani Muslims in 1565 one year after Panipat. The 100 years gave the Hindus a chance to recover and when the reforms were rolled back led to the diminishing of the Mughals by Marathas and Sikhs.


So my thanks are to the Rajputs who tamed the grandson of the Tiger.

[Bodhi]

Well, Akbar surely did change in attitude and became a non-Muslim during his later life, but it could have been much less from an influence of his heathen harem or so called rajput influence. Since if that were the case then it took him roughly 14 years to come out from the Jehadi mindset after first marrying Bharmal's daughter. The ill famed massacre of civilians actually happened 3-4 years after he had already started marrying Rajput princesses, so if there was ny truth in the so called harem-influence, it had still not happened.

It was much later, that he had practically become a heathen, daily and publically worshipping Surya-Bhagwan, observing Amavasya and Saptami fasts, applying Tilak, Offering Tarpan to purvaja-s in river yamuna, wearing the holy thread and the such. Celebration of the Heathen festivals - Hindu and Parasi - with royal status.

Reigning-in Islam: Many mosques of Lahore were reduced to stables, and in the new capital Agra and then in Fatehpur, besides a few mosques new were not to be constructed. Deen-e-Ilahi was also invented to secularize the court Moslems (and also Rajputs). Also a decree was issued declaring Akbar's writ to be final in all the matters of Islamic law, to supercede over all Kazis and Maulavis, thereby reducing the autonomous institution of Sharia to nothing, and he declared to have superceded the status of the last prophet of Islam (to which there were few takers in private, but no one dare challenge in public) - and the statement changed to La-Ilah-il-allah - Akbar ul rasul Allah. Even more than Jazya-abandonment he passed orders offending to Islam like ban on cow-slaughter and recommendations against polygamy.

All this was towards the later half - much much after the so called "Jodha" episode - almost 2 decades after.

For this change of religious attitude in Akbar, which is recorded by few of his contemporaries, there are a few well documented accounts. While some who noted these from a distance record this to be his cunning and mere stategem. Others have written these to be his true evaluation of Islam.

Particularly two sources are important on this:

a) Badayuni: Badayuni was an islamic fanatic general in Akbar's court, who was aghast at Akbar's changing religious attitude. So he has recorded the change and its sources in detail, in his chronicles, and this provides a lot of insight. He largely attributes it to his Brahmin friend Birbal - who had "initiated" Akbar into kufra, teaching him Sun-worship and the such devilish stuff. Secondly he blames the inadequate knowledge and skill of the Islamic scholars - who could not stand the arguements of Brahmins and "jogi-s" whenever Akbar organized the religous debates, and always lost in reason and argument.

b) Jesuit priests : With their mission of converting the monarch, they particularly observed the relious attitude changes. Of course boastful jesuits take credit of enlightening Akbar out of Islam.

But Badayuni's record is much more accurate, detailed and reliable. Corraborates with real events that were taking place back then. Also from the diaries of Jahangir, Shahjahan, this is what corraborates.

===

Thanks are to Rajput for sure. But not to those Rajputs who were fighting Akbar in his harem, but who were breaking his teeth in the battle. I allude to Maharana Pratap.

How have they depicted Pratap? How much coverage? Over hyping "Jodha" and underplaying Chittod is just the same thing.

Did they show Mina-Bazar concept at all? Also distribution of his harem-5000 to his fellow courtiers?

[Bodhi]

Also remember - Mugals were only a new muslims : about 2 centuries earlier they were as heathen as Rajputs.

[Husky]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bharatvarsh+Feb 18 2008, 08:21 PM-->QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Feb 18 2008, 08:21 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Of course I can imagine they made the film look good: colourful and pretty. Just like the pseculars and their media make dhimmitude look so convenient and comfortable which keeps Hindus in continued inertia.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
i seen som trailer of it n its pretty retarded i wud say[right][snapback]78678[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->Oooh, it's that bad? (I haven't seen the slightest glimpse of it, hence my 'imagining' that they might have bothered to make it look shiny.) But, so much the better!

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->indian movie makers got enuf money to spend on making songs in switzerland runnin around trees n snow but ain't got enuf to hav decent sound effects (thy r still stuck in dishoom dishoom sounds for fights).
by the time bollywood comes up wid something lyk bourne ultimatum (& even then i can imagine them making jason bourne dance around trees turning the whole thing into comedy) or lotr my great great great great grandkid will have his great great great great grandkid n even then it ain't guaranteed.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->I see what you mean, but it could still happen sooner than mainstream hollywood stops producing poor copy-cats of E Asian movies (from inferior Disney rip-offs of others' animation, to 'remakes' of Korean romances and Asian horror films, to Kill Bill imitating older HK cinema. And there's the general infatuation with the Katana which every wannabe US movie has from comic-book-turned-movie Sin City to comedy(?) Ultraviolettttt. Does hollywood want to be Japanese? If not, do they even know Asian martial arts are the specifically <i>religious</i> techniques created entirely by non-christoislamic religions? Perhaps US cinema is feeling a bit short-changed: they came up with nothing realistic, only overblown one-man-christoStallone-takes-on-evil-'atheist'-Russia kind of movies... Oh and let's not start on those 80s american movies about American wannabe ninjas like 'White Tiger'...)

Bourne's good though.

I'd prefer it if <i>some</i> Indian movies always kept the song-and-dance tradition alive - tasteful ones I mean. It's part of Indian culture, even if I'm not a great fan )of modern song-dance insertions) most of the time. But sometimes it even helps in storytelling instead of hampering it. (Been a while since I watched any film, let alone Indian cinema - hard to find non-pirated rentals, so I am behind on whether the song-dance thing has taken a turn for the worse.)

'Dishoom dishoom' - oh, that brings back childhood memories! You know, when we all imitated this sort of thing at home, complete with lame slow-motion moves and the all-important sound-effects... I remember it like it was yesterday. Oh wait, it probably was yesterday... <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/wink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='wink.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<b>Edited:</b> typo

[Hauma Hamiddha]

I think Bodhi has pointed to some important historical issues that the seculars have willfully kept out of or obfuscated in the history textbooks. It is on account of this the population is largely ignorant about the Hindu past

Of course Akbar wearing the yaj~nopavIta has nothing to do with his wives. Though some hindus in the court like Birbal and Todarmal did make a difference.

Ramana-

Baboor originally meant beaver in Parsi. The later chroniclers wanting to make it more dignified for the Padishaw of Hind made it Babar i.e. tiger. You can consult the Baboor nama in this point.

Parsi : Sanskrit
baboor : babhru = beaver (a proto IndoEuropean word)
babar : vyAghra = tiger (bhAga in Middle Indo-Aryan)

[Capt M Kumar]

<!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' /><!--endemo--> btw
babar in Panjabi means lion.

[Guest]

http://www.boycottjodhaaakbar.org/

[Bodhi]

One final military engagement disturbed his contemplation on the homeward road. One more upstart princeling to slap down. A diversion into the Kathiawar Peninsula to quell the obstinate Rana of Cooch Naheen, a young man with a big mouth and a bigger mustache (the Emperor was vain about his own mustache, and took unkindly to competitors), a feudal ruler absurdly fond of talking about freedom. Freedom for whom, and from what, the Emperor harrumphed inwardly. Freedom was a children’s fantasy, a game for women to play.

No man was ever free. His army moved through the white trees of the Gir Forest like a silently approaching plague, and the pathetic little fortress of Cooch Naheen, seeing the advent of death in the rustling treetops, broke its own towers, ran up a flag of surrender, and begged abjectly for mercy. Often, instead of executing his vanquished opponents, the Emperor would marry one of their daughters and give his defeated father-in-law a job: better a new family member than a rotting corpse. This time, however, he had irritably torn the insolent Rana’s mustache off his handsome face, and chopped the weakling dreamer into garish pieces—had done so personally, with his own sword, just as his grandfather would have, and had then retreated to his quarters to tremble and mourn.

The Emperor’s eyes were slanted and large and gazed upon infinity as a dreamy young lady might, or a sailor in search of land. His lips were full and pushed forward in a womanly pout. But in spite of these girlish accents he was a mighty specimen of a man, huge and strong. As a boy, he had killed a tigress with his bare hands and then, driven to distraction by his deed, had forever forsworn the eating of meat and become a vegetarian. A Muslim vegetarian, a warrior who wanted only peace, a philosopher-king: a contradiction in terms. Such was the greatest ruler the land had ever known.

In the melancholy after battle, as evening fell upon the empty dead, below the broken fortress melting into blood, within earshot of a little waterfall’s nightingale song—bul-bul, bul-bul, it sang—the Emperor in his brocade tent sipped watered wine and lamented his gory genealogy. He did not want to be like his bloodthirsty ancestors, even though his ancestors were the greatest men in history. He felt burdened by the names of the marauder past, the names from which his name descended in cascades of human blood: his grandfather Babar, the warlord of Ferghana, who had conquered, but always loathed, this new dominion, this India of too much wealth and too many gods, Babar the battle machine, with an unexpected gift for felicitous words; and before Babar the murderous princes of Transoxiana and Mongolia, and mighty Temüjin above all—Genghis, Changez, Jenghis, or Chinggis Qan—thanks to whom he, Akbar, had to accept the name of Mughal, had to be the Mongol he was not, or did not feel himself to be. He felt . . . Hindustani. His horde was neither Golden, Blue, nor White. The very word “horde” struck his subtle ears as ugly, swinish, coarse. He did not want hordes. He did not want to pour molten silver into the eyes of his vanquished foes or crush them to death beneath the platform upon which he was eating his dinner. He was tired of war.

He remembered the tutor of his childhood, a Persian Mir, telling him that for a man to be at peace with himself he must be at peace with all others. Sulh-i-kul, complete peace. No Khan could understand such an idea. He did not want a Khanate. He wanted a country.

The Rana of Cooch Naheen, young, slender, and dark, had knelt at Akbar’s feet, his face hairless and bleeding, waiting for the blow to fall. “History repeats itself,” he said. “Your grandfather killed my grandfather seventy years ago.”

“Our grandfather,” replied the Emperor, employing the royal plural according to custom, for this was not the time for his experiment with the singular—this wretch did not merit the privilege of witnessing it—“was a barbarian with a poet’s tongue. We, by contrast, are a poet with a barbarian’s history and a barbarian’s prowess in war, which we detest. Thus it is demonstrated that history does not repeat itself but moves forward, and that Man is capable of change.”

“That is a strange remark for an executioner to make,” the young Rana said softly. “But it is futile to argue with Death.”

“Your time has come,” the Emperor assented. “So tell us truthfully before you go, what sort of paradise do you expect to discover when you have passed through the veil?” The Rana raised his mutilated face and looked the Emperor in the eye. “In Paradise, the words ‘worship’ and ‘argument’ mean the same thing,” he declared. “The Almighty is not a tyrant. In the house of God, all voices are free to speak as they choose, and that is the form of their devotion.” He was an irritating, holier-than-thou type of youth, that was beyond question, but in spite of his annoyance Akbar was moved. “We promise you that we will build that house of adoration here on earth,” the Emperor said.

Then, with a cry—Allahu Akbar, “God is great,” or, just possibly, “Akbar is God”—he chopped off the pompous little twerp’s cheeky, didactic, and therefore suddenly unnecessary head.

Fiction: The Shelter of the World
Salman Rushdie

[Guest]

Is there list of Hollywood movies that copied ideas/stories from European, Asian & other movies? Many a times when we see B/K/Tollywood movies copying things from Hollywood some of us wince at the shoddy quality, and wonder why desi folks can not come up with good quality material often. It is not as if we don't make original quality movies?

I know Kurosawa movies had wide following and was inspirational for several Hollywoood movies, were there others?

[Guest]

If Akbar became so anti-Islam, why was he not able to influence and enforce it among his own kith and kin. Why did we even have an Aurangazeb ?

[Bharatvarsh]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Is there list of Hollywood movies that copied ideas/stories from European, Asian & other movies? Many a times when we see B/K/Tollywood movies copying things from Hollywood some of us wince at the shoddy quality, and wonder why desi folks can not come up with good quality material often. It is not as if we don't make original quality movies?

I know Kurosawa movies had wide following and was inspirational for several Hollywoood movies, were there others? <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Departed from Internal Affairs a Hong Kong flick.
The Ring from Japanese Ringu

Those are 2 i know.

To be honest we DON'T make original quality movies, 90% are just standard love story crap with song & dance thrown in switzerland (as if India isn't good enuf).

The last really good movie I remember seeing was RGV's Company. Sarkar was okay not that great when compared with the Godfather.

Remember LOC Kargil, that was so long and full of needless melodrama.

They also insert songs even when they are not needed and totally unsuitable, like making some dirt poor "hero" in love with the super rich "heroine" dance in swiss alps, what the hell is that.

Hollywood copies movies too and it has it's fair share of crap, but for all that crap there are directors like Scorcese, Tarantino, Spielberg etc, what does Indian cinema have right now besides RGV (some movies turn out gr8 others dreadful) & Mani Ratnam.

Where is the Bollywood list comparable to:

1) The Godfather
2) The Godfather 2
3) Shawshank Redemption
4) Pulp Fiction
5) The Usual Suspects
6) Goodfellas
7) The Silence of the lambs
8) American History X
9) Reservoir Dogs
10) Raging Bull

Instead we get bs like Devdas, Main Hoon Na, Don - The Chase Begins Again, Om Shanti Om (none of which i fully watched, i only watch clips online to judge).

[Guest]

One day I was flipping channels, they were showing some B or C grade old movie of (70s) (Hollywood). Its Hindi version, "Kaho Na Payar Hai" (name ??) was ditto copy. Even they had copied exactly same ship in movie. Hindi version added some songs rest 100% Hollywood movie of late 60s or 70s.

If you listen to songs in Hindi movie, every music is stolen.

[Guest]

Now don't you dare criticize Om Shanti Om....just kidding. I loved that movie, it was entertaining probably because it invoked some kind of nostalgia. But there were areas where I thought the director made some effort, and areas where he goofed up big time.
Okay, Here are recently watch movies that I thought were good.

1) Evano Oruvan (tamil remake of Dombivili Fast - marathi movie)
2) Orum Po (tamil...entertaining)
3) Chennai 600028
4) Hala Bol (hindi. got little too long..unnecessary songs )
5) Satham Podadhe (tamil. saw parts of it... griping movie from Vasanth)
6) Nayak (Old Bengali movie. I liked it...)
7) Charulatha (Old Bengali movie....)

As our cultures are different, we have the cultural baggages and other habbits - like song track, comedy track, fights track. These some times in no way help the movie and just derail them.

The Bollywood movies are all geared towards NRI. Where are movies that had a 'kaka' or 'mausi" these days? None of them are set in rural surroundings. There must be a serious disconnect for people in towns and villages watching such crap. Or maybe it transforms them into a different duniya for the 2+ hours.

So do Indians lack creativity? Nah...I don't think so. So why don't we come up with good quality movies? Are there audiences for them?

[Guest]

Talking about copies, the Hindi movie 'Bacheha Ye Asman' is xerox copy of the Iranian movie - Children of Heaven. I was sick to the stomach and controlled me throwing up for such a copy. The Iranian version was damn good. The Hindi version had the usual added melodrama, but nobody has even heard about it. It is a good movie, so why did bomb? It is the Catch-22 situation, good movies are not appreciated and without appreciation the movie makers are not geared towards making good movies. Because there are no good movies, people watch bad movies.

[Guest]

It is true movies are NRI based and they show all NRIs very rich and stupid.
"Aa Ab Laut Chalen" was somewhat close to average NRI in US, In UK average NRI are struggling.
Worst, it give very wrong impression back home about NRI. Back home some think NRI are bank from where you can take unlimited, no return and bank will never lose smile.

[Guest]

During my last visit, there was this porter at Hyderabad airport who asked me $20 (yes in Dollars) to move our luggage about 200-300 feet. I had to laugh.

[Husky]

Some examples off the top of my mind where hollywood recently copied plots and elements from E Asian cinema or just remade E Asian movies entirely:
- Infernal Affairs HK
- Lake House is a rip-off copy of superior Korean romance movie
- Matrix copied back-of-the-neck plugs, bullet-time, even the opening credits lettering style from the infinitely superior and not-to-be-compared Japanese animation from 1995. Bullet-time was done again in a late-nineties JP animation before Matrix came round to copying it.
- Firefly/Serenity premised on very specific (setting, background, context) ideas that were done far better (in every way) in a Japanese animation series
- Ringu (JP), Two Sisters (KR), Ju-on (The Grudge?) and others remade or set to be remade
- Disney's Atlantis and/or Treasure Planet (can't remember anymore which) ripped off entire plot parts from Japanese animation, while they held onto the rights of distributing the same Japanese animation which they only released later on
- Every jump and action-related move in Matrix (see trailer Reloaded(?) or Revolutions of female biker) is a rip-off of traditional Ninja moves. For example, the way the robot lands, breaking the floor in I Robot and then the same with Jovovich in Ultraviolet. This movement is stolen frame for frame from a Japanese animation which is itself of course based on well-known Ninja moves (the moves should be copyrighted). Those movements are not random in Japanese movies, but are a reference to their own history and culture. But they are ever so lamely out of place in American movies. Actually, I am practically convinced that we can find an E Asian precedent for every cool action move in any American cinema involving martial arts or Asian swords.

More than half the time hollywood does not even refer to let alone credit the originals, it's only viewers who note it (if that).

[Guest]

How and why should the moves be copyrighted? The movies that are listed are comparatively less and not the most popular ones when one compares to the copies done by Bollywood.