Director: Anupam Sharma
Starring: 
Distributor: Films and Casting Temple
Runtime: 103 mins. Reviewed in Nov 2023
Reviewer: Fr Peter Malone msc

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Rating notes: Mild violence and coarse language

Spanning the years 1897 to 2023, this feature documentary is an informative, funny, musical, and entertaining look at Bollywoodisation and globalisation of popular Hindi cinema through its love affair with Australia and the world.

An interesting and entertaining documentary, especially for movie buffs, but beyond… A subtitle: Australian’s love affair with Bollywood. The screenplay points out that the biggest group of migrants to Australia after the British are Indian. Which means that this is a documentary both for Australia and for India. In fact, the film has three special focal points. First, the cinema; second, issues of trade and tourism; and, third, issues of culture and cross-culture. And, within its hour and a half, all of these issues are dramatised and challenged.

Director Anupam Sharma, of Indian background, graduated from the University of NSW, and has been involved in the film industry since the 1990s as producer and director of several films including the Brett Lee cricket comedy, UNindian.

And on the title – for decades now, Bollywood is the general title for Indian cinema (but it is rightly pointed out this is not accurate). Bollywood applies to Mumbai cinema and its singing and dancing style, but is not really applicable to cinema from such centres as Kolkota and Chennai). But, there are plenty of excerpts from Bollywood movies throughout the film – and quite a long final credits song and dance to keep us in the mood.

Indian culture has been for millennia a culture of images, paintings, statuary. And, early in the history of contemporary cinema, Indian filmmakers realised its potential. The first 30 minutes of this film offers an interesting, sometimes illuminating, history of cinema in India, quite striking silent film footage and, for Australians, the story of Mary Ann Evans from Perth who went from Australia to India, and in the 1930s became quite a movie superhero figure, Fearless Nadia (and clips from her films to definitively prove this). Indian filmmakers had come to Australia but this developed during the latter part of the 1990s. (Again many clips highlight the scenarios, with Indian characters photographed often on Sydney Harbour Bridge, in the Outback, with kangaroos… )

Which leads to the second issue of trade and tourism. Indian audiences became fascinated by what they saw with the movies made in Australia and wanted to visit. With filmmaking, there were possibilities for trade and industry development. To highlight this, South Australian Labor Premier, Mike Rann, welcomed Indian filmmakers, with SA becoming a centre for India-Australia films. But then the emphasis moved to Victoria, especially with Liberal Premier Ted Baillieu enthusiastically welcoming.

There is also the issue of Intermission, always during Indian screenings for some mid-movie socialising. So, a great deal of cross-cultural interactions. But, a number of tensions. Filmmaking style in Indian studios seems loud, brash, everybody involved, contrasting with a more disciplined practical approach in Australian studios. But, the film also emphasises some sad events in Australia, murders of Indian students in Australia, media attacks on Australia, doyen of Indian actors, Amitabh Bachchan, publicly refusing an honorary degree from the University of Queensland (but, with more dialogue and more collaboration, accepting the degree eventually and coming to Australia for a cameo in Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby).

There is a Bollywood festival in Australia. Many cinemas program Indian films – and there is no lack of films from India which has the largest film industry in the world. So, an urge to creative cinema collaboration.