{"id":29,"date":"2014-01-31T18:13:30","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T18:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/?p=29"},"modified":"2014-01-31T18:24:23","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T18:24:23","slug":"bollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/31\/bollywood\/","title":{"rendered":"Bollywood!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An unexpected development in my life last year was the discovery of Bollywood films.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t still love Hollywood and American independent films, but Hindi cinema has really been a thrilling change of pace.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t have imagined how thoroughly fresh and new these films would be to experience.\u00a0 Here\u2019s just a few reasons why you might want to consider enjoying them if you aren\u2019t already.\u00a0 There are great selections in Netflix, and if you\u2019re lucky, your local cinema might carry a Hindi film once in a while (like my AMC theater does!)<\/p>\n<p><em>Bollywood films are visually stunning<\/em>\u2014and I\u2019m not just talking about the crazy action scenes (where a car hit by a cricket bat will flip end over end)\u2014but visually stunning because of the radiance of the Indian color palette.\u00a0 Just in case the aqua, pink, orange, and red houses aren\u2019t enough, you have women in colorful silk saris and scarves and men in bright lungis and sherwanis.\u00a0 And if that still isn\u2019t enough, maybe they\u2019ll smear bright red, blue, green, and yellow powder on each other\u2019s faces during the Holi festival.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"&quot;BALAM PICHKARI&quot; _ Full Song ~ *Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani* (RanbIr Kapoor,) Movie 2013\" width=\"529\" height=\"298\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9o1rWMtfPsc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em style=\"line-height: 1.625;\">Bollywood films have great musical energy.<\/em><span style=\"font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.625;\">\u00a0 Often to mark new interpersonal conflicts (or their resolution and metamorphosis), the characters will suddenly break out into the carefully choreographed dances that are a hallmark of Hindi cinema.\u00a0 Sometimes these songs will seem almost random.\u00a0 Sometimes the lyrics aren\u2019t translated, which leaves you guessing.\u00a0 But the energy and expression of these dances is a great mood elevator and change of pace.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/H3y66bW4Feg\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/H3y66bW4Feg<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.625;\">Bollywood films have engaging personal and political drama.\u00a0 Regional politics and religion have played an important part in every film I\u2019ve seen, whether through clandestine relationships between a Muslim and a Hindu, or clashes between local political sects, or discrimination between regional peoples and languages.\u00a0 The pain of the Partition of India still echoes in many films. \u00a0<strong><em>Bhaag Milka Bhaag<\/em><\/strong> (trailer below) is the true story of how the Flying Sikh overcame discrimination to join the Indian national track team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/iY3qfhYPJSI\">http:\/\/youtu.be\/iY3qfhYPJSI<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: inherit; line-height: 1.625;\">Bollywood films have epic stories.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve grown tired of the often formulaic story arcs in American films, you might be blown away by the Hindi storylines.\u00a0 After watching a couple dozen, you\u2019ll realize they have a formula all their own, but they have such epic scales.\u00a0 A Hollywood movie might show the struggle of some young men to start a business, and show their rise and fall\u2026 But in <em><strong>Kai Po Che,<\/strong><\/em> for instance, you see that business struggle, a clandestine love affair, a natural disaster, the friendship and camaraderie with young boys that they introduce to cricket, political strife that tears families apart, street battles between political rivals, a cricket match the reunites the nation, death and tragedy and rebirth\u2026 all in one film!\u00a0 Many Bollywood films will seem to drag on (they usually are 3 hours in length!), and sometimes you\u2019ll feel they\u2019ve tried to do too much; but they have such novel ways of telling stories and creating plot turns that I felt I was learning something as a writer\u2026 sometimes you forget that relationships can be moved by so many different things, and you realize you\u2019ve fallen back on a limited store of emotions and events.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>I was lucky that <strong><em>Kai Po Che<\/em><\/strong> (trailer below) was the first Bollywood film I saw, because it is one of the best of recent years and will probably remain my favorite for quite a while. \u00a0<em><strong>Kai Po Che<\/strong><\/em> was available on Netflix last I looked.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kai Po Che | Official Trailer 2013 I Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh, Raj Kumar Yadav\" width=\"529\" height=\"298\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/a1s3YIagZOo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An unexpected development in my life last year was the discovery of Bollywood films.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that I don\u2019t still &hellip;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/2014\/01\/31\/bollywood\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[19,47,17,18],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-bhaag-milka-bhaag","tag-bollywood","tag-hindi-cinema","tag-kai-po-che"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troyehlers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}