As it turns out, one of the best family bonding exercises is accidentally dropping shrooms and eating pot brownies at a wedding rehearsal, then proceeding to watch the video of everyone’s trip together the next morning. If you don’t know the sensation of having a conga line of ripped men wearing hats dancing through your veins, you have clearly never taken magic mushrooms. Or perhaps you have simply never had a chance to witness the bizarre nature of Bollywood extremism. For me, I got to see my first Bollywood film, Shaandaar, this past Tuesday and the movie was, to my surprise, pleasantly interesting.
After making another trip to Richardson to experience the assimilated Indian culture, I stood in line to purchase the $5 ticket, which I believe is the cheapest price for a movie I have paid in the past ten years. The outside of the theater already hinted at the smell of curry and chaat cooking inside. Upon entering, the theater did not look all that different from a standard local theater, aside from the skin color of the people headlining the posters. After taking a seat, the advertisements began to play, except these advertisements were much different than ones played in American theaters. These involved fast-paced music and seemed to fit closer to commercial style from 2008. Once the movie began, the dread for the next three hours really started to set in.
The film opened with an animated introduction. For awhile, I thought we had entered into the wrong theater or it was just another preview but the story continued until it switched to the actors. Never before have I been more thankful for the advanced film techniques that Hollywood employs and for the little guys in a movie’s production: the sound technician, the lighting manager, and the animators. It was soon clear that the Bollywood films have not perfected the little things that we often take for granted like having the right sound volumes. These little things truly immerse you in the theater and prevent you from getting distracted by the abnormalities. I also likely suffered from a Hollywood bias.
After awhile, I started to notice something. While much of the details of the film were incredibly ridiculous like the gold-obsessed family and the relentless enterprise of Mummyji, I found myself laughing at their extremity and intrigued by the plot. Whoever wrote this movie has the ability to create some of the most creative and hilarious plot development scenes that I have ever seen. One of which being the newfound bond of Alia and her father after an accidental mushroom trip and the othe—wait what? Why are the lights on? Is it over? Where were the credits? Tha—Oh, an intermission? Didn’t know they had those in movies, cool. – And the other being the killing of Mummyji from a ferocious, lethal sneeze. There’s no way that’s ever happened on screen before. Then the family gathered around for one of the creepiest, darkest laughs after the death of a family member.
As for whether I will see another Bollywood film or not, that is to be determined, but I did enjoy getting to experience the film style from a different culture. Although Bollywood films do not have the sort of completeness of Hollywood, they are certainly close and they add their own unique elements to it.