I loved Luck by Chance – its a movie I would watch again. Though it is ironic that a movie about Bollywood insiders and outsiders should be full of people who are very definitely in – Farhan Akhtar, Konkona, Hrithik Roshan, the younger kapoor fellow, Rishi Kapoor are all from filmi families. While new directors and female actors seem to get breaks in mainstream hindi cinema, there is hardly a new male lead who is not from one filmi khandaan or the other. I can think of only two male stars who broke into the industry from outside in not-so-recent times – Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar.

(Check end of special features on DVD to get to Khanwalker’s interview–worth wading through the other less-inspiring interviews.)

I loved Luck by Chance – its a movie I would watch again. Though it is ironic that a movie about Bollywood insiders and outsiders should be full of people who are very definitely in – Farhan Akhtar, Konkona, Hrithik Roshan, the younger kapoor fellow, Rishi Kapoor are all from filmi families. While new directors and female actors seem to get breaks in mainstream hindi cinema, there is hardly a new male lead who is not from one filmi khandaan or the other. I can think of only two male stars who broke into the industry from outside in not-so-recent times – Shah Rukh Khan and Akshay Kumar.

The only other movies I watch (other than hindi) are tamil movies. But there is a big difference in sensibility between hindi and tamil cinema. Tamil cinema seems to be extremely male dominated and I don’t just mean that the male lead gets a heftier role. Somehow every aspect of the film – from the way in which the story is told and centered, to the way relationships are portrayed – it all seems very male-oriented at best, and regressive at worst. This is true even of movies like Thavamai Thavamirunda (cheran), chennai 600028 and vaaranam aayiram.

And now, thanks to acting in that film, they are given a chance to get out of it.

And this may be the start of a new wave of slum actors who will also benefit.

Who knows?

it is not about poverty based themes. Many have done it before with a stark understanding of the experience. In my earlier posts on this subject I have written about Jayakanthan’s “Unnai pol oruvan” [someone like you], Durai’s “Pasi” [Hunger] and the Hindi movie it inspired “Chakra”. There is Ghatak’s classic as well “Nagarik” and several others. Everyone of those movies is set in context and not a set of cliches strung together. SDM unfortunately looks like a tourist’s photoalbum, not very different from the absolutely crappy “City of Joy” which has been debunked comprehensively by Dr. Aroup Chatterjee, also the author of the definitive work on Agnes Boiaxhu.

While movie critics and film makers in India and the audiences itself have given it a big thumbs down for its poor script and fanciful quality, social workers have criticised the film for making things up beyond excess.

This big flash and dance style movie is not pan-Indian. Regional cinema has taken on the Bollywood formula and so you will find masala films being churned out of all the woods – Tolly, Molly, Kolly and Bolly, but from day one regional cinema has churned out understated thought provoking films as well and continues to do so.

You can find a number of good regional Indian films on youtube.

This big flash and dance style movie is not pan-Indian. Regional cinema has taken on the Bollywood formula and so you will find masala films being churned out of all the woods – Tolly, Molly, Kolly and Bolly, but from day one regional cinema has churned out understated thought provoking films as well and continues to do so.

You can find a number of good regional Indian films on youtube.