There’s something I have to mention about Hindi movies.
To start with, both on and off record, I love Hindi movies. Again, thanks to Estere, my wonderful drama teaching friend, who told Fahim that he better make me watch at least one cuz she figured I’d love them. Sometimes, when I reflect on our friendship, I’m honestly and truly scared. She knows me too well.
So with the comments I’m about to make that disparage the Hindi movies, well, it’s out of love. Yeah, that’s it. Love. Okay. So you believe me and we can move forward now?
I’ve mentioned before that, if you took out all the singing and dancing, that it would be a regular Hollywood length of movie. They add an hour or more of singing and dancing. One movie had something like 11 song and dance numbers. The singing and dancing never relates directly to the movie. In other words, if it was taken out, it wouldn’t affect the plot in any way, shape, or form. It’s completely superfluous. But Indians love the singing and dancing, so that’ll never happen.
And again, honestly, I actually enjoy them as well. They’re amusing. They’re addicting. They’re enjoyable.
But let’s get back to the first comment. They’re amusing.
Why amusing, you ask?
Well, during one movie, and no, I don’t remember which one anymore, I started laughing at the dance steps. They were downright goofy and not at all, shall we say, flattering to the dancers.
I mention this to Fahim, and he gives me an explanation.
He says that the choreographers are all trying to come up with different dance numbers than everyone else, so even if it looks goofy, if no one else is doing it or it hasn’t been done before, they’ll do it.
Another movie he was watching – it was in Tamil with Sinhalese subtitles, so none of the languages as understood by me – he started laughing. He pointed out the dancing. I missed it, but he described it as chicken dancing.
I’ve also mentioned before that the dancing is not, oh, sophisticated. It doesn’t take Hollywood or Broadway calibre professional dancers to do their moves. My thirteen year old niece could do them. For that matter, I imagine that my redneck brother could do them.
But you know what? Even at that, I still enjoy watching them. They are strangely addictive.
