Introduction

The low point of Bollywood for me personally, was some awful film that decided to use the iconic soundtrack of James Cameron's, Terminator II in the early nineties. I love this movie, and to see it's brilliant score debased, caused me to renounce Bollywood films for nearly 10 years.

Mind you, the use of Hollywood soundtracks was an innovation of a sort in Hindi Films (I prefer the term Hindi film to Bollywood film). Prior to this, in the eighties, Hindi Films used stock music. The same lame piece of music, film after film after film, till the sound of it, was enough to drive me out of the house (my mother used to shoo me out during Hindi Films because I used predict the dialog with annoying accuracy). This is fine example of cutting corners the Indian way. You hire a composer, a lyricist and an orchestra, for bollywood dance numbers, but not for background music.

The Year 2000 was a turning point. I saw a film called Mohabatein, starring Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan. As with most Hindi Films, the story was slight, BUT, it had something, Hindi films hadn't had in decades- Production Values. The photography was good. Lighting didn't come from a bad porn film. The film had pace, careful editing, reasonable dialog and some nuanced performances.

Since then, for me personally, Hindi films have gotten better and better. I have taken up watching them again, and my iPod is full of modern Bollywood Pop. The most heartening thing about the new Bollywood, is that it seems to be evolving along its own path. Film's are attempting to find their own original voices, without being derivative.

Nowhere is this more evident then in the Bollywood song and dance numbers. Bollywood music, which I felt had nowhere to go after the eighties (with a few exceptions) suddenly started sounding very different. Rather than becoming bastardised and derivative with western influences, a new crop of composers, transformed bollywood pop with regional Indian influences. Brilliant composer AR Rahman, got the ball rolling by introducing South Indian Percussion to Bollywood. The sounds of Punjab, found their way into a lot of dance tracks, and boy they keep getting better. Directors like Sanjay Leela Bhansali in Devdas, demanded and got hardcore Indian music tracks inspired by classical, folk musical traditions of Northern India. Films like Dev, used the Islamic Sufi Music. Ancient Musical traditions that were in danger of drifting out of general public consciousness, had an abrupt revival. Lyricists began writing songs in Persian, Punjabi, Urdu and regional dialects of India.

Of course, this doesn't change the fact that most Hindi Films are still lame and in a lot cases pure shite. But they are improving very, very fast.

Hindi films haven't always sucked. Fine films, in quantity were made in the fifties, sixties and the seventies. They declined, like India in general did in the eighties. In the ninteies, India opened up its economy. It also opened up the Media. From one stodgy government Television Station, India now has galaxy of TV stations. New talent sprung up. Indian Films moved away from getting their finance from organised crime syndicates to more legitimate source of funding.

Hindi Films have a long way to go. Even the best films made in India each year are easily outshone by films made elsewhere. Subtitles, while better than they used to, still arent adequate. Also, Bollywood hasn't crossed over to a non-Indian audience. I think it will one day, but it doesn't really matter if it doesn't, provided it continues to have it's current audience.