In India, cinema speaks many languages. “To have not seen the films of Satyajit Ray,”
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Traditionally, Indian television channels are categorized into national and regional ones, the latter term even used for channels beamed across India, but in a different language. National channels are broadcast in Hindi and English, and occasionally show regional films with rudimentary English subtitles. As a result, viewers had long largely stayed in their own lanes. The emergence of streaming television in the 2000s and 2010s enabled platforms to take pre-existing libraries of films and serve them up better
“Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films,”
Outsiders often mistake Indian cinema for “Bollywood,” one homogeneous song-and-dance riot. But of the roughly 2,000 movies made in India every year, less than a fourth are in Hindustani, the Hindi-Urdu blend spoken across large parts of northern India. There are other “-woods.” The Malayalam film industry is called Mollywood, the Kannada industry Sandalwood, the Tamil industry Kollywood, and both Telugu and Bengali industries lay claim to the nickname Tollywood.
Indians have long been so parochial that instead of watching movies in languages we do not know, we would remake them instead. Commercially successful romances, comedies, and action movies have, for decades, been routinely made over and over again in other Indian languages, each cover version adding cultural specificity and local flavor. But Indians began losing their taste for remakes as better subtitled moves took off. A viewer in Delhi could turn to Malayalam and Maharashtrian cinema to scratch an arthouse itch, and Telugu and Tamil blockbusters for an old-school escapist experience. Many Indians even went from their daily soap operas toward
The nation’s taste evolved—or so it seemed. Audiences at home started demanding more interesting content, while filmmakers and actors known in their own states started enjoying national celebrity. However, despite audiences being more discerning with what they were watching at home, they were simultaneously
Indian cinema has always clamoured for stars, placing popular actors—mostly men—on a pedestal, and treating tentpole movie releases like festivals. This is a country where actual temples are built to honour actors—there is one for Tamil star
RRR kicked off a wave of Telugu and Tamil films at the box-office, leading to a new buzzword: the “pan-Indian” hit that scores across the audience (and the diaspora). These are bombastic films that are unabashedly loud and violent, films that literally worship their stars and leave absolutely no room for subtlety. Pan-India hits include K.G.F.: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2, Pushpa: The Rise, and Leo. They are the kind of films Hindi cinema had left behind in the 1980s and 1990s, only done much more slickly—and with theater-shaking sound-design—by filmmakers who have nailed the blockbuster formula. Hindi cinema is now trying its best to keep up with the volume.
This nationwide shift away from
Cinema, then, might be offering a resistance.
Right as we started to watch our best subtitled movies, we also started indulging once again in movies so deafening that they don’t need subtitles. But, at the very least, we are looking beyond what we knew. Where we once chose our very own moons and suns and stars, we are now sharing our constellations. We’re gazing at a larger sky.