By Nell Geraets
Hollywood is becoming cynical. That’s what award-winning director Aamir Khan, often labelled the George Clooney of Indian film, believes. Indian cinema, on the other hand, is still filled with hope and optimism – two things that, it turns out, Australian audiences are eating up.
“There’s a lot happening in Indian cinema right now. It’s going through lots of changes and growth,” Khan says. “The younger talent coming in is very exciting, and they have their own strong voices.”
Aamir Khan, often considered the George Clooney of Indian cinema, thinks Indian cinema brings the sweetness that Hollywood fare so often lacks.Credit: Chris Hopkins
In 2022, S.S. Rajamouli’s action-adventure RRR played on over 177 screens and grossed nearly $3.64 million in Australia. A year later, action thriller Jawan made more than $4.65 million. And last year, Sukumar’s thriller Pushpa 2: The Rule raked in $4.29 million.
While these numbers are just a fraction of what recent Hollywood blockbusters have earned – Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, for instance, made more than $23 million in Australia alone – they’re still making serious strides Down Under, so much so that the country established a National Indian Film Festival earlier this year. And the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, for which Khan is currently visiting Australia as the event’s chief guest, is now in its 16th year.
“Indian cinema has retained its innocence,” says Khan, who starred in box office hits like 3 Idiots and Academy Award nominee Lagaan. “It takes you into an imaginary world … It’s quite similar to films made in Hollywood in the ’50s and ’60s, like Frank Capra [It’s a Wonderful Life] – that kind of cinema which has a lot of goodness in it. It believes in the goodness of human beings, it believes in positive values.”
Imaginary worlds and positive values – this may scream “Bollywood”, particularly for those living outside of India. However, Khan says Indian cinema is no longer defined by Bollywood, the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry known for elaborate song-and-dance sequences and melodramatic narratives.
“It may have held true at one time, but not now. A lot of the films I’ve done, they use songs almost like a background score as opposed to lip-sync. So, the actors are not actually singing the songs. A bunch of my films continue to use music, but not in the traditional way,” the actor-director says.
Aamir Khan in the major indian blockbuster hit 3 Idiots.
You need only glance at the highest-grossing Indian films recently to realise many aren’t Hindi (RRR and Pushpa 2 are in Telugu), and they’re generally more thrilling than melodramatic. That’s not to say Indian cinema no longer delivers musicals, Khan notes. Pushpa 2 itself features song and dance despite containing a fair amount of violence and gore.
As one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2013 for using film to spotlight issues like caste discrimination, through most of his work Khan delivers the very optimism to which he attributes Indian cinema’s success. For example, his most recent film Sitaare Zameen Par follows a basketball coach whose outlook shifts after training a group of neurodivergent adults.
There’s more to Indian cinema’s success than sheer positivity, though. Actor and International Emmy Award-winning comedian Vir Das (Delhi Belly) says India’s creative products are increasingly flourishing down under as perceptions around Indian culture itself shifts.
Vir Das believes Australia’s perception of Indian culture is changing, and with that comes greater appetite for the country’s art.Credit: Chris Hopkins
“As audience members begin to experience Indian people in places of equality, it’ll change,” he says.
“I remember 10 years ago, 15 years ago, every joke about an Indian person in New York, for instance, was about them as a taxi driver, a newsagent owner, a Kwik-E-Mart guy or a doctor. Now, we’ll hear jokes about Indian people, but it could be about an Indian being a CEO or about an Indian being at Harvard. It’s just par for the course. As we achieve parity globally with other countries, the comedy [and cinema] around us will become more global as well.”
Perceptions will continue to shift as more Indian cinema lands on Australian screens, something that has become more achievable following the Australia-India Audio-visual Co-production Agreement, which provides filmmakers with access to shared funding and resources.
“[Indian cinema is] unapologetically emotional,” Das says. “We also tell broad stories that offer escape that isn’t all luxury escapes. What an American needs to do with CGI – Marvel and superheroes – we’re able to do the same thing with the heartland story, and without CGI, but the same level of escapism, just with pure storytelling.”
Other foreign-language films have also been performing well in Australia, including China’s Ne Zha 2, which is about to launch an English-language version with A24. Clearly, there’s hunger for more globalised storytelling and different cinematic styles beyond Hollywood.
“I hope [Australia] enjoys our stories,” Das says. “I hope they know what a big deal all these people are, and how cool it is to have them here at this festival.”
The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne will run until August 24.
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