Happy 24 hours to Baahubali! I have my tickets already, super expensive but I decided it was worth it.
Besides Baahubali, I haven’t been watching much. I finally got into Murder She Wrote, a good 30 years late. It really is as fun and soothing as everyone says! And I want to remake it in Hindi, of course, but I can’t decide between Hema Malini and Sridevi. Ooo! Or Rekha! Oh, and after the massive uprising of support on my Silly Sunday voting post, I am finally watching all of North and South, instead of just the train station scene over and over. And I watched this video on the making of the 11 minute one shot at the end of Angamaly Diaries. Which mostly just confirmed what I already expected (one take, steadicam, blocked it with actors in advance), but also let me recognize that the song the band is playing is “I Am a Disco Dancer” which somehow makes me love Pellissery even more.
Now, see, it’s the same music as this!
I am also slooooooooooowly making my way through Thugs of Hindostan. If you love flowerly Victorian language, Orientalism, one dimensional characters, no women with dialogue, and generally bad writing, this is the book for you! But I am also getting kind of addicted to it, in a sort of Stockholm syndrome for book readers way. The same way I managed to get through The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I have ages to finish it, Aamir is still doing look tests, they haven’t even started filming the movie version.
And for thinking, I am thinking about a new apartment! One month from today, I have to be all packed, with a new lease signed and movers hired. As of now, I have 7 boxes ready, no lease, no movers, and no apartment that even looks likely for me to move into. I want to move to the Indian neighborhood, so if any of you know someone who is renting a 1 bedroom off Devon in Chicago, let me know! And then I can walk over to the movie stores whenever I want, and live on Jalabi. And also have cheap rent and an easy commute to work and still live close to my parents and grandfather, the logical reasons for the move.
dontcallitbollywood 
I watched Manje Bistre again. I visited my hometown and my mother wanted to watch it. I enjoyed it more in Chandigarh. Crowd was good over there. Even on weekday afternoon. there were people. They were laughing at humorous moments. Best part, crowd consisted of youngsters. It can only be encouraging for future of Punjabi cinema. Punjabi youths are interested in clean and simple movies that depict culture
but
I spent all my movie fund. Now I cant watch Bahubali. I will have to stay away from your reviews. I cant even watch Guardians of The galaxy. I wont be able to watch any movie in theatre till Spiderman Homecoming. I wasnt actually interested as I wasn’t that impressed with first one but still herd mentality. Now I cant watch it.
LikeLike
I spent so much money on my Baahubali tickets! But I bought them as a birthday present for my friend, so I was able to take money from my birthday gift fund for them, instead of my movie fund.
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 7:30 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
Looks like you have more disposable money than me.
I have to watch Holywood movies too. I will have to watch Spiderman Homecoming. I liked trailer. And there is Wonder Woman, Dunkirk
LikeLike
What are your views on crowd still interested in this movie?
This movie still has about 10 shows in a multiplex
I hope that even Bahubali wont completely draw it out this week.
What do you think about it? I think tjat growth of regional cinema os encouraging sign. It can give chance to youngsters to show their talent. Yiu have to be very rich to get a big break in Bollywood. But regional cinemas can accommodate people from middle class.
LikeLike
There’s a post going up later today that deals in detail with the Bahubaali release strategy.
But for this particular comment, I should mention that barriers to entry vary language to language. I’ve been told that Telugu can be even harder to break into for an outsider than Hindi.
LikeLike
I know that. Most people arent even interested in learning south Indian language. Punjabi language is closer to Hindi and many punjabi words are used in Bollywood. Dont forget about songs.
South Indian cinema has unique audience and freedom from competition.
LikeLike
I will finally be posting review of Angrej
There is one movie which showed Punjabi culture( India is very big and I can’t possibly say anything about other parts). This is not a bollywood movie
It is a punjabi movie named Angrej – Wikipedia. I found it accurately portraying culture of Punjab. Though it is set in 1942. But some aspects of this movie are still relevant.
Talk about characters
Angrej/Gejja: He is not a typical bollywood hero. He is not strong, super charming. He is not a nerd. He is a common youth. He is good looking but not like a model. He is a normal guy
Aslam: Aslam is Gejja’s friend. But he is no way inferior to Gejja. They both are equally stupid/ shy/ coward. He is not a goofy friend like we see in a movie.
Dhan kaur/ Maarho: They are heroines. They are not subserivent. I won’t spoil movie by exploiring them. They are beautiful but not superhot models
Talking about culture aspect
Dealing with Breakup: Gejja neither becomes a Devadas nor he forgets every thing nor he fakes a laugh. He is remains upset after breakup. He doesn’t cry but remains silent all the time. This emotion is real and described my sitaution perfectly Here is the song for it.
Carnival: Carnivals used to be big part of villages. They still are but not that big. This song shows it
Marriages: It shows marriages in most realistic way. It is not a bollywood marriage. It shows marriage amongst middle class. It doesn’t portray women dancing to well ccrafted moves. It shows folk songs that are sung by people. Though it has changed witj DJ but still people sing like this. This is how people sing in marriage
I won’t spoil rest of the movie. I don’t like romantic movies. I watched it for portrayl of pre partition Punjab.
Acting wise, Amrinder Gill and Binnu Dhillon steals the show. Chemistry between Amrinder and Sargun was quite awesome
In the end,
If you want to be Singer and actor, be like Amrinder gill not Himesh Reshamiya.
LikeLike
How did you like my review of Angrej?
LikeLike
It was good! I wish I had more to add, but as you know, Punjabi isn’t really my area.
Have you considered starting your own blog? You said there is nowhere online to discuss Punjabi films. You could build that place, and get more responses from people with understanding of the films.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I dont know how to do that. I dont have that mucj time too. You run a lot of posts. I cant do that. I am.not that dedicated. I only like to participate.
Moreover, you have good audience over here. They are interested in Indian movies. I think that I can suggest some Punjabi movies. It is only blog where I think I can have good discussion over Punjabi cinema
Also, Punjabi cinema is not that big enough to run a seperatr blog. I wont have enough material.
I am not good in drawing crowd and lacks expertise.
LikeLike
King of Punjab, I agree with Margaret. You SHOULD start your own blog on Punjabi cinema. Don’t take Margaret’s number of posts as a guide as to how many you would need to write– she is VERY unusual in how often she posts. I manage maybe one post a week on my blog. Think how much material you write about Punjabi cinema just in these weekly Wednesday posts and on the Monday posts and that would be more than enough for your own blog.
Margaret and I use WordPress, and it is VERY easy to learn. Really.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/five-step-blog-setup/
Another option is Blogger:
http://www.wikihow.com/Start-a-Blog-on-Blogger
Especially if you could write your posts in English I definitely think you could attract an international audience because Punjabi movies are quite popular in Canada and other diapsora countries.
Go for it!!
LikeLike
King of Punjab, your blog wouldn’t have to just be about Punjabi Cinema either — you should write about your love of Hollywood action movies, too!
Margaret concentrates here only on Indian cinema, but my blog is more a mix of Western and Indian Cinema. Indian films for the most part, but not exclusively.
LikeLike
Thanks for the advise. I will definately think about it. I will think about what should be there.
Thanks for your advice. Hopefully, I will start it. And I hope to see you there
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought ahout posting my biggest fantasy of Alia Bhatt. But I couldnt write it. I will write it on Monday.
LikeLike
I am reading a novel named No Man’s land by David Baldacci. It is very interesting, fast paced, thrilling.
It is about a military cop who is investigating his mother’s disappearence 30 years ago but stumbles into a conspiracy.
I think Akshay Kumar will be perfect in Bollywood for antagonist role John Puller. He can show the conflict and he will look good as an army officer.
Have you heard about it?
LikeLike
I haven’t heard of it. But I agree, Akshay Kumar would be wonderful in the role of a military man villain.
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 8:49 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29467945-no-man-s-land
Here is the link of it with complete synopsis
LikeLike
I saw Noor over the weekend which was a bit of a disappointment as I’d loved the book Karachi, You’re Killing Me. One thing I was happy about was Kanan Gill in the film. This was his Bollywood debut, and I thought he did a great job. He had that charming sarcastic humor of his intact that I love. I love following him on ShapChat, and from the looks of the last few weeks, he kept Sonakshi mightily amused for the whole PR release schedule. While the film has not been an overwhelming critical success by any means, I’ve seen several critics highlight his performance so I hope he gets future films from this.
I wrote up my full thoughts on Noor last night: https://moviemavengal.com/2017/04/26/noor-bridget-jones-type-rom-com-with-a-serious-issue-shoe-horned-in/
It’s been a crazy week of volunteering at my son’s school, so I haven’t had the time I’d want to watch movies. I have been rewatching Bahubali and can. not. WAIT for Thursday. I bought my ticket for the very first IMAX showing. I’m lucky in that it’s showing five minutes from my house, and they have assigned seats for the IMAX theater. $40 for that first day show, but for me very worth it.
Thanks to FilmiLibrarian mentioning rewatching Sanam Teri Kasam, I finally sat down to watch it late last week, and I really enjoyed just sitting there and tearing up. Sometimes you just want that release of crying through a romantic film, even if it’s kind of schlocky, too. Very enjoyable FFF.
LikeLike
I’m jealous of Sonakshi getting to hang out with Kanan Gill during the whole promotional period!
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 9:28 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
Baahubali completely sold out in our theatre. Even the 6 AM show. (I cant imagine going out to watch a movie at 6 AM.
During the previous weekend I was watching the first three episodes of the latest season of prison break and season 3 of Monk. Also watched the elclassico Real Madrid vs Barcelona.
LikeLike
I watched Take Off Malayalam). It was wonderful, just like I had heard. Here is my review, with spoilers.
I also finally watched Kaabil. Not a great film, but not unwatchable either. Is it just me or does Hrithik’s way of playing a happy-go-lucky person feel like he is in Koi Mil Gaya mode?
I watched Vettai, after reading yours and Moviemavengal’s review, and it was quite fun! Madhavan is sooo adorable!
Then I finally watched Mohanlal’s Oppam. Again, not a great movie, but watchable. Mohanlal was great as usual.
Then finally, I saw my first Kannada movie on a flight – U Turn. By the same director as that of Lucia (which I HAVE to watch soon), it was a very engaging thriller, with a strong female protagonist. Shraddha Srinath (the heroine, appeared briefly in Kaatru Veliyidai as the brigadier’s daughter and Karthi’s girlfriend) did a great job.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank goodness someone watched Kaabil so I don’t have to! Not worth chasing down, it sounds like? And is Oppam the one that is shockingly similar to Kaabil? With the blind fighting?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 10:09 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
oppam is better than kaabil…and it wil b remade soon in hindi by priyadarshan with ajay devgan as lead..its a good thriller
LikeLike
Not really worth chasing down. And yes, Oppam is the one with blind fighting. Even that is not really great, but maybe a bit better than Kaabil, because Mohanlal is a better actor.
LikeLike
If you liked U Turn you should definitely seek out Lucia as it is a much better film. Glad you liked Vettai!
LikeLike
Oh, Moviemavengal, I didn’t realize you had reviewed U Turn! Now I really need to watch Lucia. But I’m confused about whether to go for the Kannada version or the Tamil remake. Because Kannada, being the original, should be the better film. But there is also the thing that I understand Tamil really well, while I’m entirely dependent on subtitles for Kannada.
LikeLike
I accidentally watched the Tamil version first, and I like it better than the Kannada. I feel bad about that, because obviously the Kannada one should get credit for coming up with the idea and all that. But the Tamil was just slightly more polished and easier to follow. Kind of like the rough draft versus the final draft.
Also, Sidharth is really cute.
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 11:51 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
Ok, then I guess I’ll watch the Tamil version first, then if I love it (which I think I might), then I might go for the Kannada version. And yes, even I find Siddharth really cute, partly why I want to go for the Tamil version. 😊
LikeLike
I watched both and really liked both. I saw the Kannada first and I was blown away. Siddarth brings something a little extra in his weary depressed movie star scenes in the Tamil.
LikeLike
U turn’s malayalam version is releasing next month. Is the movie worth the watch in theatres?
LikeLike
So many movies, so little time. I add like 5 titles everyday to my to-watch-list, and I can watch only 1 or 2 movies a week. Only today I read about Sairat (I’m really excited to watch this one 8,6 on imdb, and it will be my first marathi movie), Iruvar, Maryan (with Dhanush) and decided to finally give Anbe Shivam a chance.
Bangalore Days, Neram, Ennu Ninte Moideen and Kali are still waiting to be watched. Now you all write good things about Lucia, I have been thinking about seeing it, but wasn’t sure .
Last week I managed to watch: City of God end I began Thattathin Marayathu.
LikeLike
Out of that whole list, I would put Bangalore Days at the top I think.
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 2:38 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
I read a lot of good reviews of Bangalore Days, and now I’m little scared that I may not like it due to too high expectations.
I checked: I have Jacobinte Swargarajyam, Happy Wedding and 2 tamil films Nila and Shivaji (I get this one because I wanted something with Rajnikanth, but don’t have courage to watch it) on my list.
LikeLike
I hate to add to your list, but if you want something with Rajnikanth, two of my earliest were Kabali and Thalapathi. And those were really great intro films for Rajnikanth. He is the hero and the big star and all of that. But they are also good films in general with great characters and deep storylines and so on.
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 3:40 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
Add as much as you want I’m open to suggestions. I want to watch everything, as long it doesn’t have Shraddha, Katrina Kaif or Rohit Shetty in ending credits 😉
LikeLike
My life is gobbled up with the end of the semester — 2 1/2 more weeks of classes between me and sweet release. But I did finally finish up SRK’s 1995 films with Ram Jaane and Trimurti. Ram Janne has grown on me; the last 20 minutes are golden, and his scene-chewing is Cagneyesque. He has these wonderful moments when he drops the fast-talking tough guy act and looks all boyish,sad and vulnerable before the mask goes up again. Delicious. As revenge drama goes, I like Karan/Arjun better than Trimurti. But Anil and Shah Rukh sharing a screen!!
Now onward to 1996. English Babu Desi Mem and Chaahat.
LikeLike
Trimurti!
(Slashfic has ruined/improved so many movies for me in so many wonderful ways)
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 4:03 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
Fabulous. Only makes it better.
LikeLike
I went back to the haveli with a Bengali film called Elar Char Adhyay, which after two months of Bengali lessons I can tell you means Ela’s [Something or Other]. I had high hopes for this, but they were not entirely met. I am about 1 hour into the movie and I will probably watch the remaining 50 minutes, but I have significantly lost enthusiasm. The movie is based on a story by Tagore and set in the 1940s. I will list the good things first (1) Costumes, set design, and cinematography. The haveli! Paoli Dam’s lovely lovely saris! Lots of rainy scenes! (2) music: two Rabindra Sangeet, nicely (to my untutored ear) interpreted (3) Paoli Dam. I saw her in Hate Story (don’t judge, it was before I knew about ErosNow and I just watched whatever I could find on Youtube), and I immediately pegged her as sort of a poor man’s Radhika Apte. Judging from other reviews I have read, which mostly include some variation of “she can act with her clothes on!” her somewhat racy scenes in that movie and others seem to have unfortunately typecast her, but she really can act. Now for the bad things: (1) a lot of the acting by the minor characters is really terribly. (2) The dialog! I don’t think it’s really the dialog because reviews by Bengali speakers praise it, but the subtitles are infuriating! For one (major) thing, they elided the first-person subject from most of them. So people say things like “Wanted to see you yesterday. Felt that we did not understand each other. Will wait for you under the bridge.” I just want to grab the person responsible and say, for God’s sake, they aren’t texting each other! In other places they sound pompous or incomprehensible.
LikeLike
Your Bengali translations are shockingly similar to my Hindi translations. Only, instead of 2 months of lessons, I have 12 years of watching 3 to 12 hours of film a week. And I STILL can’t pick up the language! I am definitely one of those people who is tone deaf to languages. And also to music, I wonder if the two things are related?
On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 11:19 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
I’m actually an applied linguist when I’m not watching movies, and the connection between languages and music is an interesting question. I don’t know if anyone’s studied it, and it would be a hard thing to study, because being “good at languages” is actually not a single thing but a cluster of skills. You can be great at grammar, for example, and not understand anything anyone says to you. I pick up about one word per Hindi film, and I think the reason I can do it is that I have a good ear and distinguish sounds well. So, I can sometimes figure out where a word begins and ends even if I don’t understand the sentence, and I can recognize it if I hear it again and put it together with the subtitles. I also have a fairly good ear for music and can tell when things are out of tune, and it does seem logical that those things would be related. This wouldn’t help me at all with things like grammar, though. So having a good ear for music, if it is related to having a good ear for phonemes, might help with some language skills but maybe not all of them.
Probably more than you wanted to hear about your casual question, but like I say, it’s an interestng question–to me, anyway.
LikeLike
This is fascinating! And it matches well with what I have noticed about myself. I minored in German in college and got straight As in all my classes, but I can speak or understand spoken German for the life of me. But I studied hard and did well on all the quizzes and written assignments so long as I was just being graded on grammar and spelling.
In theory, I should have learned Hindi by now just from hearing so much of it. But without a class and a book to guide me (can you believe there are no public Hindi classes in the entire city of Chicago?), I am hopeless.
Oh, and I also took piano lessons for ten years, 8 to 18, and I can barely play. But give me a test on musical theory, and I am golden!
On Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 8:09 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
Hindi is a tough language to crack -at least grammar wise.Speaking as someone who’s not a native speaker (though I studied Hindi for 5 years in school) it does share certain characteristics with French. The verbs change depending on the number of people involved and the gender. Here’s where it does one over French. Even the objects have gender.Yes that includes pen,paper,Hindi language,car….everything under the sun and including the sun.Now I can speak Hindi fluently (for which I owe more to Hindi films).But a native speaker will immediately spot that I’m not.Because for the life of me I can’t keep track of the gender of the objects.
However since Hindi and Malayalam both come from Sanskrit, I don’t need to worry much about the vocabulary.(Just like English speakers have an advantage while learning any of the Romantic languages).I just need to chop them off in the middle.For eg: the fancy word for flower is pushpam in Malayalam.I chop off the ‘am’ sound and get the Hindi word for floral -pushp. Yes, that’s also Sharmila’s character’s name in Amar Prem- Pushpa. Which brings us to Premam =prem.
LikeLike
Fascinating! As I mentioned, I took German, which has a similar obsession with genders. Different verbs and pronouns for feminine, masculine, and neuter. And for plural of all of them. I never quite cracked it either, but it’s all in the verb and pronoun endings, so I learned to just sort of slur the end of it and hope people would fill in the right one.
But thank you for explaining the connection between Malayalam and Hindi! I wondered about that, with Premam in particular. If it was a Malayalinization of a Hindi word or what. Sounds like they both came from the same root and then split off.
On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 12:16 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
My mother tongue is polish and we have genders, so it’s easy and natural for me, but what we don’t have are articles and I hate them. I have been studying english for years and still haven’t got when I should use them. The same with italian articles. It’s one of the easiest lessons, but I can’t help it – my polish mind just don’t wanna know about it.
But talking about indian languages – I felt in love with malayalam. I know like 2 words, but I find malayalam so melodious. Just like spanish which I love too. I like hindi, but I’ve never been captivated, and maybe that’s the reason I understand so little after so many years of listening to it.
LikeLike
Years ago, in some online commentary on AR Rahman, I read someone say that Tamil and other southern languages are more naturally melodious than Hindi. And it’s true! They have all those syllables and vowels and the words kind of run into each other in a way that Hindi doesn’t. If you listen to some of Rahman’s songs in particular, the original Tamil is just so much prettier sounding than the Hindi.
And I know what you mean about articles, I was an English tutor in college, we had a whole flowchart printed up to help people understand because the articles question was so common. My big take away from tutoring was that I am so lucky to have English as my mother tongue. Because I think it might be the hardest language to learn as an adult, combining all the tricky elements of like 5 different other language groups. And it’s evolved so much, there is “American English” and “British English” and “Indian English” and “Australian English” and so on.
On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 2:25 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
I know this isn’t right, and I am no one to add but I have buried these ideas in me for a long time I want to express it somehow. As someone who casually studied both linguistics and music (my instrument is piano) I think I am eligible enough to add something here. I am a very strong observer of things. From what I observed and studied I can express the following.
There are two things to language 1. Word (Akshara in Sanskrit) 2. Itonation (the tone we speak in or swaraj in sanskrit).
If we carefully observe we see people changing notes while they speak to convey their emotions. That’s exactly how animals communicate too. For e.g try to pronounce the words “I didn’t say that” in two situations. First assume you are a wife accused by your husband. Second you are a child telling truth about something.
You should be careful not to mix tonal changes with volume changes. To best understand this sit infront of a music instrument, or better take a flute or something and try to repeat the feeling you are trying to express through you words in tones. For the two situations I described, the first might have notes going from bottom to top while in the second it is the other way around. Take note of this.
BTW this is how the language of music is conveyed, this is how a feeling is added to words to make it music, how musicians usually compose. Also how you judge a song or its greatness. When you notice this is when you truly hear the song.
Next post will continue this dialogue.
LikeLike
Continuing on my previous post.
Since we spoke of the second one viz. Swara or tone, we should speak of Akshara or words. Words are complicated arrangements of basic simple syllables. Syllables are almost same across all languages. (Music has its own syllables like do, re….. Or Sa, Re, etc. Which requires more elaborate post to explain)
Thankfully God gave us, according to our biological buildup and racial features, a lot of different syllables for different people. Animals have limited sylaballes while humans have this magical organ called thin tongue that changes its features with race. Hence we can roll our tongue like a mat, which is how English is spoken, or we can flatten our tongue, which is how Indian languages are spoken.
The basic syllables are common for all human beings but meaning associated with those syllables change with culture. For e.g Na in English is a pre cursor to No, while Na in Telugu means My. Same Na stands for No in hindi.
These precursors take complex forms to produce words.
So a new language can be built if we can invent a way to give meaning to syllables and itonation them.
A tip from me which is scientifically proven way to learn a new language and rember words. Take a word in new langauge, take its pronunciation and exactly into you language and check out if it has meaning and associated symbol. Then attach symbol to the new word. For e.g. Math in hindi means dont. So, Math can be translated to math which is something we calculate . Now associate the symbol or object of math, like an equation on a board with the meaning don’t. It looks hard in the beginning but this way vocabulary grows significantly and it’s scientifically proven.
I am sorry I can’t go into more detail on linguistic or music, though I want to.
BTW those syllables of basic language are called beejakshara in Sanskrit.
LikeLike
This is all fascinating! Please feel free to say as much on this topic as you choose.
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 12:14 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
A site for Malayalam Movie ratings created by my friend, Taking Ratings from top sites with link to their site and mine ( My rating is given as MalluRatings). Similar to rotten tomatoes for Malayalam movies. Please have a look and give suggestions to improve.
http://malluratings.herokuapp.com
LikeLike
Cool! I was going to say I hope you include my ratings, and then I remembered that I don’t do ratings on my reviews.
On Thu, Apr 27, 2017 at 2:19 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
@mohzin try to add reviews from lensman movie review centre and baradwaj rangan.most trustable reviwers online..
and if possible avoid reviews from firstpost written by cynic anna vetticad
LikeLike
Lensmen already added. Reviews from firstpost.com is from Anna M vetticad. Will add baradwaj rangan, his is filmcompanion.in right?
LikeLike
Hello Margaret. I wanted to expand on the post I said about music and linguistics to dance too.
All the traditional dances you see on the Indian screen or any traditional dance for instance is not something that is all curvy. It has three parts to it 1. Your hand and leg movement 2. Your head movement and facial expressions 3. Your eye movements.
My first challenge is for you to watch a movie or real life incident with no music or voice. Carefully observe how hands and legs are moving.
For simplicity I am going for the same example of “I didn’t do it” one.
For the first instance, the husband wife fight, you can see that while husband says it his hands will be raised to his face and his eyebrows drawn together and there looks like a panic in his expressions while his knees bend a little his spine bends backwards trying to express his helplessness (not confidence).
Now a child takes the same and we can easily see the difference in posture here. Child raises her hand above her head, her expressions are that of agony, knee bent a little but her back bent forward.
Noticing these two scenes I think you can already guess something. You can guess the mood, expression and the message without needing to understand what they are saying.
Like sound dance is broken into subtle and small tiny gestures and symbolic movements, for each part i.e. hand, leg, face and eyes. When you see a wonderful dancer like Madhuri or Gracy Singh you can clearly see these individual movements and expressions connected for a smooth flow, with some fillers just like music, and you can understand what they are trying to play. Dance is a kind of play where you convey something without complete enactment of it. So, for classical dance like Bharatanatyam, or Kuchipudi they are trained professionals to convey this whole idea. As usual, like all artforms the meaning for expressions change with culture. The guesture for asking you to leave your shoes might be insulting in the west bust very signifying in the east.
As time progresses cultures interact, and so does the change in gestures, addition of new gestures. For example.g. the gesture for cell phone is same all across the world but gesture for eating is different in different cultures.
A complete dance form is an amalgamation of all these tiny gestures ( I would like to call them sylaballes), just like it happens in real life, paused and interrupted by dialogues or music. A good dance looks aesthetic and pleasing taking us to another world but bad dance makes us irritated. Like how a language is constructed out of syllables and tonals, with increasing complexity, the dance is constructed out of certain elements too. Sylaballes, speed of appearance of gesture, duration of a particular gesture, the appearance of gesture from where followed by what etc. It is complicated. I am sure this applies to western dances too, but as far as I know is there are no systematic treatises like in India.
To make this simple and make my point, though it’s of no justice to any detail I mentioned, kindly look at Radha kaise Na halke from Lagaan. It has wonderful music, simple lyric and one of the, if not the best, dance choreography in Bollywood with undoubtedly the best dancer in Bollywood.
BTW current Bollywood dances are a fusion of traditional Kathak dance and Micheal Jackson pop dance.
LikeLike
Thank you! Again, this is something I can kind of figure out through research, but it doesn’t exactly click into place until it’s all laid out like this.
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 9:38 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike
I forgot to mention. Baby babble is how most syllables are formed, though not restricted to it. Our basic relationships at conveyed through babbles which is universal across the world. Ma always stands for mother. Pa always stands for father. Also Da and ba stands for grand father and some other relationships. Not exactly in those basic words but an arrangement of them.
As usual syllables grow with body growth as teeth come, fall down and go, throat changes, facial hair comes and our diet changes.
Hope you notice how this babble is universal across all languages.
LikeLike
I think I heard this before from a friend who is a linguist! They were saying that “mmm” and “ddd” sounds are universal across languages for mothers and fathers because they are the earliest sounds a baby can make.
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 9:58 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:
>
LikeLike