Bollywood – with its distinctive song, dance and melodramatic story lines - is not known for creating gritty, real-to-life films. This does not mean, however, that there have not been some excellent independent films to come out of the industry that lovers of world cinema would certainly enjoy. Here is a selection from the last decade.
Rang de Basanti (2006)
This film, which received considerable critical acclaim, including a nomination at the 2007 BAFTA’s and was India’s official entry for the Academy Awards, deals with a group of young idealist brought together by Sue (Alice Pattern), a British film maker who is intent on making a documentary based on diaries from her grandfather, who had spent time as a jailer during the Indian Independence movement. When one of their friends is killed in an airplane crash, revealed to be the result of government corruption, the group becomes radical, intent on avenging their friend’s death. .
Black (2005)
A multi-award winning story inspired by Helen Keller, Black tells the compelling story of the relationship between a young blind and deaf woman (Rani Mukherjee) and her tutor (Amitabh Bachchan) and his relentless efforts to educate her. The first half of the film is slow but it is with Mukherjee’s performance that film takes shape and we really begin to really feel for her character. Beautifully shot and with a haunting soundtrack, it is a film that stays with your for days afterwards.
My Brother, Nikhil (2005)
A surprising and beautiful find to come out of a conservative industry, this film looks at Nikhil (Sunjay Suri), a gay man who contracts HIV. A swimming champion, he is unceremoniously dropped from the team and returns to his home in Goa to face his family and friends. The film looks at the delicate family balance and at prejudice and homophobia in the small town. Features some great performances by Suri and Juhi Chawala, who plays his sister.
The Elements Triology: Fire (1996), Earth (1998), Water (2005)
Director Deepa Mehta created these three films as a triology of the elements, looking at controversial aspects of Indian culture. Fire deals with the illicit romance between Sita and Radha, the wives of two brothers living in contemporary India. Neglected by their husbands and caught up in the stifling restrictiveness of the patriarchal society, they find renewed hope in their love.
Earth deals with the partition of India in 1947 as seen through the eyes of a young Paris girl suffering from polio as she watches her Hindu Ayah and her friends from different faiths fall apart. Water looks at the treatment of widows in 1938’s Colonial India. An eight-year-old widow is brought to an ashram where it was expected that she and the other widows make amends for the bad karma that saw their husband die. This was the most commercially successful film, though Fire gained much notoriety for being the first Indian film to deal with homosexuality, causing protests and a boycott of the film by certain groups.
Mr and Mrs Eyer (2001)
This film traces the journey of Raja Chowdhury, a Muslim man and Meenakshi Iyer, a married Hindu woman, as they journey from a village in North India. Caught up between the Muslim/Hindu sectarian violence that flares up in the area, they are forced into complicity in order to extricate themselves. Their enforced intimacy gives rise to forbidden feelings that override Meenakshi’s religious prejudice. A beautifully intimate film.
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
Not strictly an Indian film (it was a co-production between India, USA, Germany, Italy and France), it non the less delves into the realities of a Punjabi family who are preparing for a marriage that will see the clan from the corners of the globe converge on Delhi for the event. It looks, with honesty, at modern middle-class India, at secrets, illicit affairs, the cast system, social norms and expectations, against the colourful backdrop of a traditional wedding.
Other independent Indian films to check out:
- Heaven on Earth, Dil Chata Hai, Lagaan, The Namesake, Salaam Bombay, Taare Zameen Par
Anita Hanson - I've been writing for years without realising from keeping diaries, to jotting down poetry, short stories and novelettes. I studied a ...
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