"Give us the glycerine."

Mother India has come in at the top of a poll taken among 25 leading Indian film directors who were asked by Outlook India to draw up a personal list of the ten best Hindi films of independent India. And that's only one feature of a big and grand special issue devoted to Bollywood. Sandipan Deb kicks off the festivities with an intoxicating rejoinder to Jean-Luc Godard's famous one-liner, "Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world":

Well, who needs the truth? Give us any day the shadows on the white screen in a dark hall telling us tales written in light and time. Tales of heroism and cowardice, love and hate, justice and inequity, of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And if it is the Hindi film, give us the glycerine, and the trees to dance around, the white saree in the artificial rain, and the rising crescendo of a hundred violins. And endless debate on Sholay vs Deewaar, and Awara as opposed to Shri 420.

Be sure to explore the sidebar on the right of those pages for more on the top ten in the poll and articles on director Guru Dutt, Hindi film's thing for "spectacular death" and the "Ultimate Bollywood Fan Poll": Best bods! Funkiest styles! Biggest hams!



Posted by dwhudson at May 6, 2003 7:34 AM