Oscars aren't everything

Oscars aren't everything

Paresh Mokashi, director of India's entry to the Oscars, Harishchandrachi Factory, has shrugged off the disappointment of the Marathi movie not making it into the shortlist of the Academy's best foreign films by saying that American audiences might not identify with such an Indian film. Despite what film-makers would have us believe, he's absolutely right. Movies are a cultural product, and while some short-on-plot long-on-special effects spectaculars might hit the bull's eye around the world, the smaller, more intimate films that actually care about their characters often don't. And when the movie conventions are as different as those of Indian cinema and Hollywood, the cultural disconnect is even larger.

When was the last time an Indian film was a true crossover hit? Slumdog Millionaire, successful though it is, hardly qualifies as an Indian film. The director was British, and it was produced by British and American studios. Ang Lee, director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, makes his films for western audiences, which is why they do so well there. It's true that several big budget Hindi films hit the big time in the US and UK, but that is largely due to the NRI community in those countries. The song-and-dance routine with a three-hour plus runtime is hardly what audiences in the West expect from their films.

It cuts both ways. The majority of what Hollywood releases in India barely makes money. Sure, this year Avatar and 2012 were huge money-spinners, but those are exceptions. Just like western audiences don't expect heroes and heroines to dance around trees, Indian audiences find it hard to relate to talky, introspective films without any musical relief.

Why are we so obsessed with winning a western award anyway? Art doesn't have to have universal appeal to be regarded as art. It is understandable that a great Hindi, Bengali or Marathi film that speaks to Indians about their lives and experiences would utterly fail to move Americans, who don't have the same cultural idiom as their Indian counterparts. The Oscars are one barometer of good film-making, but we have plenty of our own to go around