Cinema Xanadu goes Bollywood!
I am pleased to announce our first Bollywood movie: Lagaan (Ashutosh
Gowariker 2001), which will be screened on
Sunday afternoon at 2pm on 2nd April. The film lasts 3 hours and 44
minutes. As in any cricket match, we will be having a tea interval.
Lagaan was selected by Mel Henry, who has written the following notes:
Lagaan is a very superior example of "Bollywood" i.e.commercial Hindi cinema with its narrative interspersed with episodes of song and dance. Lagaan
received an Academy award nomination for best foreign film in 2002.
The film uses cricket as a focus to explore a number of social, political and cultural ideas. The story is set in 1893. The rains have failed to arrive in the village of Champaneer for the second successive year so the harvest is severely affected. Most of the grain goes in a tax (lagaan) to the local king (Raja) who in turn gives most of it to the British government.
The British government in this the area is headed by the very insensitive Captain Russell. The villagers attempt to petition the Raja who is watching a game of cricket played by the British soldiers. One of them, Bhuven (played by
Aamir Khan, a major Bollywood star who is also the film's producer) is disrespectful and so incenses Captain Russell that he challenges the villagers to a game of cricket - an exclusive English game in which the colonial masters have a monopoly of knowledge, technique, equipment and experience. If the villagers win they will be excused "lagaan" but, if they lose, the tax will be tripled.
Bhuvan accepts the challenge but has to recruit his team in the face of hostility from his fellow Indians at the consequence of losing. There is also the enormous difficulty of no villager knowing how to play the game . . . luckily Bhuven gets help from a most surprising quarter.
A number of themes are explored - distrust between Hindus and Moslems, the Indian caste system and, last but not least, the arrogance of British colonialism. A first class review of the film is given by Prem Chowdhry who emphasises how well Lagaan breaks the stereotype of films that have addressed the relationship of Indians and the British Raj. The "High Noon" of the film is of course the cricket match to decide the villagers' fate. The myths of the classlessness of cricket have already been debunked in Mike Marqusee's book "Anyone but England" and it is a common misconception that the popularity of cricket in modern India is a fond tribute to the Raj - it is not!
Shot in bright primary colours, there are the usual Bollywood caricatures and the narratively implausible musical sequences but the acting is convincing, the cricket scenes are a hoot and the whole film is enormous fun. There are
numerous reviews given in the International Movie Data Base.
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