Bollywood Newbie#1 - Tollywood Newbie....

I decided to start this special feature on my blog mostly because I have too much time during the summer. Also, it’s also part of my constant “preaching”(in a different way). Anyway, the whole point of Bollywood Newbie is to get my friends who haven’t watched Indian movies before to watch one and then I’ll ask them what they think about the film.

My first “victim” is Daphne. Why Daphne? She’s a very very good friend of mine and would definitely say yes! AND – she watched 2 Bollywood films and liked them too. Since she’s already watched 2 Hindi films, I recommended South Indian movies. Originally, I asked her to choose from 1) Blockbuster, 2) Rom-com and 3) Action. But she wanted horror. Arundhati is the only Southern horror I’ve seen so it had to be Arundhati.

To let you understand Daphne as a film lover -
Daphne's All Time Favourites:
Vertigo
2046
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Being John Malkovich
Adaptation

I got some interesting answers from Daphne -
1) What do you like about the movie?

To my surprise, the first thing she mentioned was “feet”. She really liked how Indian women walk with bare feet. She felt that even their feet can act, especially in the dancing scenes. Another example she raised was the car-trap scene in Arundhati. That was quite an exciting scene.

She also found how the villain made his entry interesting. (He took the form of a lizard at the beginning of the movie) Daphne said it’s a bit similar to a Thai movie. She found it interesting ‘cause it’s different from the typical images of ghosts, for instance, female ghosts with long hair as in the Ring. The old maid in Arundhati has a scar on her forehead. Daphne said it’s similar to a character in Silent Hill. (I haven’t watched Silent Hill so I’m only quoting what Daphne told me.)

2) What don't you like about the movie?

The pace – she’s not used to it ‘cause the film is relatively slow in a certain points. She said you don’t need to have all the characters tell you everything in details again when you can get it from the flash back. And obviously Arundhati isn’t scary enough, which I also agree.

I remember there’s one thing about Arundhati that I didn’t like so much - the way they make the villain so evil that it’s not even believable. I asked if Daphne felt the same when she watched the movie. She said it was okay. Not too exaggerating and still convincing to her. She said Sonu Sood’s look in the movie was very “chic”.

3) What surprised you in the movie?

a) Special effects: they were better than Daphne expected.
b) The blind dancing teacher – she thought the dancing teacher being blind may be a symbol. She’s reading My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk. In the book, she learnt that Muslim people believe that some blind people are closer to Allah. I haven’t heard of that before (which is not a surprise…) and I guess most people agree that was a copy of the Chinese movie by Zhang Yimou.

4) North Vs South

Daphne has watched 2 Hindi movies (OSO and Chak De India) so I asked her how she’d compare North and South Indian movies. It’s a difficult question because the genres are hugely different. But she’s quite observant and was able to share something.

Arundhati doesn’t have so many dances in it. (only 1 if I remember it correctly.) The music is a bit more traditional, compared with OSO and Chak De India. She also saw both old and new India in it. Even when the movie is on the Arundhati at present time, there are still big old mansions and the Muslim exorcists. I guess it’s interesting and appealing to people who don’t watch Indian movies so often.

5) Rating

I don’t really rate movies when I write about them. But I asked Daphne to rate Arundhati just to see how she much liked it. She gave a 3.7 out of 5!