Jul. 11th, 2005 03:21 pm
India is here
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muckefuckFor me, Bollywood Night started from the moment I stepped into the El at Argyle and took a seat next to a semicircle of South Asians. A woman in a beautiful deep orange kurta was gesturing expressively; some of her movements were reminiscent of classical Indian dance. A moustachioed man sitting across from her was trying to sound out a word one syllable at a time as she mutely coached him. I was baffled until she suddenly relaxed her posture, broke into a smile, and started talking as he began to gesture.
I spent the next dozen stops watching two women and three men play charades in a language I couldn't understand. At first, I didn't even know what it was, but from the sound and their appearance, I deduced Malayalam. I wasn't sure, though, so as I left I turned to one of the women and asked, "Malayalam?" "Malayalam, yes," she replied and then they all broke out into smiles. I wish they could've accompanied for the entire trip. They would've made much more pleasant companions than the hollering ghetto folk who make trips on the Green Line so trying.
The movies both completely fulfilled my expectations: The "Bollywood Superman" was as wretched as an awful, no-budget, foreign movie can be with enough dire mugging for four full seasons of Saturday Night Live. And Kandukondain Kandukondain (a.k.a. I have found it) shows that you simply can't go wrong by starting off a Jane Austen adaptation with an IPKF shootout in a banana grove. Since it's the first Tamil movie (a Tamil movie without a village arbitration scene? They're really taking a risk!) I've seen and I'm pleased to see how world-class their standards are.
The Dravidians I ran into earlier might've been pleased with the nods to Kerala. One of the romantic leads was the "Malayali Megastar" Mammootty. And the first big song and dance number combines snatches of a half-dozen forms of South Indian folk dance, including a choreography with half-naked men in Kathakali makeup [see picture]. The poetry, however was all Tamil, with particular emphasis on Bharathiyar and Bharathidasan (and woe betide the suitor who confuses the two!).
I spent the next dozen stops watching two women and three men play charades in a language I couldn't understand. At first, I didn't even know what it was, but from the sound and their appearance, I deduced Malayalam. I wasn't sure, though, so as I left I turned to one of the women and asked, "Malayalam?" "Malayalam, yes," she replied and then they all broke out into smiles. I wish they could've accompanied for the entire trip. They would've made much more pleasant companions than the hollering ghetto folk who make trips on the Green Line so trying.The movies both completely fulfilled my expectations: The "Bollywood Superman" was as wretched as an awful, no-budget, foreign movie can be with enough dire mugging for four full seasons of Saturday Night Live. And Kandukondain Kandukondain (a.k.a. I have found it) shows that you simply can't go wrong by starting off a Jane Austen adaptation with an IPKF shootout in a banana grove. Since it's the first Tamil movie (a Tamil movie without a village arbitration scene? They're really taking a risk!) I've seen and I'm pleased to see how world-class their standards are.
The Dravidians I ran into earlier might've been pleased with the nods to Kerala. One of the romantic leads was the "Malayali Megastar" Mammootty. And the first big song and dance number combines snatches of a half-dozen forms of South Indian folk dance, including a choreography with half-naked men in Kathakali makeup [see picture]. The poetry, however was all Tamil, with particular emphasis on Bharathiyar and Bharathidasan (and woe betide the suitor who confuses the two!).
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