Indian cinema goes global
What do films like The Last Lear, Love Songs – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, The Japanese Wife and Bow Barracks Forever have in common? Filmmakers whose heart and soul is rooted in serious cinema have directed them. Yet, these films speak in English.
Part of the acting cast, such as Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta and Arjun Rampal (The Last Lear) Jaya Bachchan and Om Puri (Love Songs), Rahul Bose (Anuranan, The Japanese Wife, Kaalpurush) has been sourced from Bollywood.
There is international outsourcing too. Aparna Sen chose a Japanese actress for the title role in her new film. Buddhadeb Dasgupta's The Voyeurs is a Bengali film produced by Anurradha Prasad's Communications with Lilette Dubey and Neha in important roles. Saregama, the music house that has stepped into film production, is producing Aparna Sen's film. NRI Raj Basu has invested in Piyalir Password, shot entirely in the US. Films are being shot across the world from London through Tokyo to the US and Darjeeling, the Sunderbans and the streets and bylanes of Kolkata.
Indian cinema, particularly Bengali films, has broken out of its regional straitjacket to carve a global identity. Does this mean that Bengali cinema as a cultural perpetuator of language and literature is on its way out? Not if one takes a closer look at contemporary mainstream cinema.
The 'Mithun' factor offers another dimension to the changing trends in Bengali cinema. Pushing 60, he is giving the two top stars in the industry, namely Prosenjit and Jeet, a run for their money. This man is churning out extremely diverse portrayals in films as different as Minister Phatakeshto and Kaal Purush. Every commercial film of his is a box office grosser. His off-mainstream performances underscore his fluidity as an actor par excellence. Tulkalam had housefull signs at all the 47 theatres it was screened in.
Mithun has gifted Bengali cinema with a genre not one of his predecessors could – the genre of the action film and the credo of the crusader hero. His forthcoming releases – Rene D'Souza's Rangamatee and Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Kaal Purush, will throw up more faces of this versatile actor who stepped into films sans the qualities needed to become a marquee star – voice, class, film background, looks and screen presence.
