We
did a gig for Loungerama at the Fly called To
Bollywood & Back, and absolutely loved working
with the vintage Bollywood material we collected and compiled
for that gig. It was just the MOST fun theme we've worked
with, and since then it's become a bit of a trademark
theme for us, including a huge outdoor street party for
the Fremantle Festival.
Some
of the movies that we used and recommend for other VJ's
or anyone else interested in watching some cool old Bollywood
movies are:
1970's
- 1980's:
Disco
Dancer - sort of a Hindi Saturday Night Fever. Excellent
for tacky disco clips, more glitter and flashing lights
than any John Travolta movie ever had!
Chalbaaz
- featuring two of our favourite Bollywood stars, Sri
Devi and Rajnikanth. Story of twin girls separated at
birth, one raised in the slums can kick arse bigtime,
the other raised by an abusive rich family needs rescuing
- and her sister's the knight in shining armour. Has the
most brilliant scene where Sri Devi dances drunk in a
monsoonal downpour, Looks like "Thriller" meets
"Dancing in the Rain" if you can imagine that.
Ram
Avtar - Odd story with almost homoerotic scenes of
two boy's true and noble love for each other - running
through the sunlit fields of Kashmir in slow motion together,
hilarious. Their lifelong loyalty gets torn apart when,
you guessed it, they fall for the same woman.
Mr
Bechara - Yes well, I know if I got washed up on a
beach with amnesia, I'd really want the doctors employing
an actor to play my husband to assist in my recovery.
Some great tacky 80's dance numbers in this one.
Andhaa
Kaanoon - Featuring a very sexy Rajnikant in leathers
on a motorbike, and a female police superintendant who's
particularly cute in her uniform with a leather riding
crop constantly at hand. "The story of the angry
younger man who tore the world apart". Surreal scene
where Rajni's mind flashes back to when his Mum and sister
were raped by an evil gang, then the tension
is broken by a perky song and dance number, gotta love
Bollywood!
1950's
- 1960's:
Kashmir
ki Kali and Raaj Kumar both feature Shammi
Kapoor - sort of a Bollywood Elvis Presley or Rock Hudson.
Wonderful costumes (especially the Kashmiri ones).
1940's
B&W:
Awara
(also spelled Awaara, featuring Raj Kapoor, 1940's) -
Has an excellent scene where the main actor dreams of
heaven and hell (the former features a huge buddha and
the later, giant satanic heads - very odd for a Hindu
movie?)
Anari
and Shree
420
are two more Raj Kapoor movies from the 1940's with some
great traditional village dance numbers.
Devdas
is another early Bollywood classic worth buying.
There
are also some really good compliations of dance/song numbers
that are particularly good for harvesting VJ loops from
- with none of that pesky plot stuff or subtitles to get
in the way :)
We
do recommend buying movies you use loops from. While
using short loops during live VJing is argued within
the industry to be 'fair use', it's still good karma
to buy a copy if there's any chance that the studio
may get some of the do$h (ie, if it's a legal copy and
it's not in the Public Domain)
This
isn't the case with Public Domain stuff - nothing usually
goes to the studio that originally made it, but they're
generally so cheap it's worth buying them on DVD for
the sheer convenience factor.
We
recommend Nehaflix
for inexpensive Bollywood DVDs.
