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By Tushar Joshi ©2002 Bollyvista.com |
Come March 25, and Aamir Khan's Lagaan team will have to play another one day match against four other teams in the Best Foreign film category at the 2002 Oscars. If his team manages to score a victory then this will be the beginning of a new innings for Indian movies on an international platform.
Director Ashutosh Gowariker and Aamir Khan have left no stone unturned into putting Lagaan in the spotlight and it has paid off quite well. Lagaan is the third film after Mehboob Khan's Mother India in the 1950's and Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay in 1988 to be ever nominated in the Best Foreign film category. It is definitely a moment of great pride and joy for every Indian to bask in the success of Lagaan making it in the final round. But along with this, the question of why do Indian films fail to reach the expected mark on an international level needs to be answered. Bollywood produces the maximum number of films worldwide, while it is seen that the movie nominated in the Foreign film category are usually European , South American or South East Asian. Why do Indian movies not get the much-needed exposure globally ? What has Aamir Khan done that other producer/actors could not do?
Lagaan is definitely a superior product in terms of quality than any average movie, which Bollywood churns out every friday. It has a great cast, a superb score, and a person who decided to go by his gut instinct. The gamble has finally paid off big time for Aamir and his team. Right from the word go Lagaan had invoked the wrath and criticism of the so called trade pundits. They called it a dead bait which no one would dare to touch, some said it was too humongous and epic in its outlook, while some simply waited for the movie to collapse by its own weight. But nothing of that sort happened. The movie not only broke records at the Indian box office, but also won critical and commercial acclaim worldwide, right from Switzerland to South Africa, and England to America. And now the nomination is just like a cherry on the icing.
Why haven't Indian movies met the benchmark that Lagaan managed to meet? Firstly, we should remember that Indian movies are never made keeping in mind the Oscars, they rather would want to focus on the local junta who shell in money to watch their movie every friday. There are very less independent movie makers with their production houses who want to make a movie that is different , not in the clichéd "hatke hain" way. Though we have good directors like Mani Ratnam, Yash Chopra,Shaym Benegal, Govind Nihilani, Shekhar Kapoor (is he ours anymore, I doubt!) they have hardly met any critical acclaim worldwide, except for Kapoor whose Elizabeth was shunned away by the Oscars in a very distasteful way.
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