Branding — Bollywood style

By Prakup Iyer

If the attendance and the accompanying frenzy that Singapore witnessed during the recent Samsung IIFA event are any indication, Bollywood as a brand has well and truly arrived. What started off as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the better-known (and arguably more popular) Hollywood has today established a space in the minds of the global cinema viewer. A space that is defined by vibrant color, joyous song and gyrating dance — a hallmark of the Indian Entertainment Industry

But what exactly does the present-day Bollywood — with its global outreach and metrosexual image — stand for? Is it something that has evolved from the work of past masters like Satyajit Ray? Or is it the new wave of cross-cultural cinema spearheaded by the likes of Meera Nair and Gurinder Chadha? Is it lavish, utterly elaborate, musical productions like the Sanjay Leela Bhansali Devdas? Is it something that can be found in the ‘inspired’ works of Baz Luhrmann and Andrew Lloyd Weber? Or stylized renditions of universal predicaments like Mani Rathnam’s Yuva (incidentally, premiered at the IIFA)? What is the defining aspect of Bollywood today?

A strong clue is provided by the doyen Satyajit Ray in his 1948 book, “What is wrong with Indian Films”. As he says, Indian Cinema is wont to "…starting a production without adequate planning, sometimes even without a shooting script; a penchant for convolutions of plot and counter-plot rather than the strong, simple unidirectional narrative; the practice of sandwiching musical numbers in the most unlyrical situations; the habit of shooting indoors in a country which is all landscape; — all these stand in the way of the evolution of a distinctive style" The resultant exotic kitsch is still the basis for numerous productions that fill Indian Cinema halls. Ray however, wasn’t even mentioned at IIFA Singapore.

But a number of things have changed since Ray’s times. For one, the size and scope of Indian cinema has broadened. Bollywood has overtaken even the traditional master of scale — Hollywood — by strength of sheer numbers. Nearly 1000 films are made in India each year, around 200-300 of them in Hindi. Nearly 12 million Indians go to cinema theatres in India each day. Global markets have become the norm rather than the exception. And the amounts of money invested too are now significant: the biggest hit of the 1990s, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun? brought in an estimated profit of $21 million, and the most recent annual revenues for the industry are estimated at around $1.3 billion — extremely large by the standards of a poor country. A truly fitting collective experience for the citizens of the world’s largest democracy!

While the concepts, themes and content may be local, the focus is now more global than ever before. Not only do the actors and actresses look more global than ever before, the directors too have started making (and some would say laughing all the way to the bank with) films that cater predominantly to the Indian Diaspora. The United States is now responsible for some 30% of all box office collections. And markets like Canada, Malaysia, Singapore and even Japan account for a sizable amount as well. While it may seem like this is an attempt by Indian filmmakers to fit into the Hollywood paradigm, there are people who want us to believe that, it is essentially a strategy that successfully enables Bollywood to hold its own against global domination. The Indian film industry has, the argument goes, thus emerged as the most potent resistance to Hollywood imperialism — even if it be by sheer force of numbers.

This is a view that Shekhar Kapur of Oscar-nominated Elizabeth fame seems to agree with. At a press conference at IIFA Singapore last month to announce the launch of his comeback-to-Bollywood film, ‘Paani’, he spoke about reverse culturalism and how it was the turn of India to impart cinematic wisdom to the world. His was a rather tame affront, considering what Alfonso Cuaron — the Spanish Director credited with the success of the third Harry Potter film — had to say. “Hollywood is a machine, 90 percent of whose product is garbage.” He also rejected being labelled as part of Hollywood and also went so far as to declare that it was “a cultural crime to encourage Mexican filmmakers and those of other Latin American countries to produce films with the only goal of entering those markets”. Even gods among directors like Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scorsese are self-confessed Indian-Cinema lovers. Not to forget Baz ‘Moulin Rogue’ Luhrmann. Mavericks and rebels all, but this still brings us back to the crucial question… what is it that makes the Bollywood formula tick globally?

It is difficult to say really. Because in India and for Indians, cinema does not stand alone. Bollywood is a powerful and prosperous industry that encompasses a universe of music, videos, magazines and touring stage shows into which piracy and the underworld are inextricably woven. It is this unique mixture that has insulated large chunks of the Indian population from the effects of foreign media, western television programming and even the omniscient cable television. For Indians hooked to popular cinema, Bollywood films transport them to a make-believe world — a world that they know exists in their dreams. It is more real than the real world, which is why, unlike the once-dominant martial arts films from Hong Kong, they continue to command crowds.

Where now? Despite attempts to corner, critique and classify it, Indian Cinema has been resilient enough to constantly evolve new formulae, adapt to changing tastes (sometimes even setting them) and finding new markets. For the present, the Non Resident Indian seems to be the focus of all attention. The biggest names in the business are busy pandering to his taste for the nostalgic and the existential. Which is resulting in the creation of a new canvas. A showcase that is drawn selectively from Indian and other experiences, embellished with local and global settings, bridging the modern and the traditional but presented in an essentially narrative, native language of cinema. But above all this hype, a dose of realism is needed urgently. And that is: Don’t you ever believe that Hollywood with all its money, machines and magic is going to allow a reverse culturalism to take place.

Ray, if he were alive today, would have provided that reality check.