MOVIES

Diana is watching a Bollywood movie with her boyfriend Chris. Bollywood movies are filmed in the Hindi language by the film industry based in Mumbai, India. The ‘B’ in Bollywood comes from ‘Bombay’, the old name for Mumbai. Traditional Bollywood movies are not meant to be realistic. They are usually musicals with plenty of dance, romance, action and very often violence. The reason for their popularity is that most people in India are poor and these films provide an escape from the reality of their daily lives. For the middle class, they are a way to live out fantasies of falling in love and marrying the man or woman of their dreams. This is not common in a country where their spouses are usually selected for them in what are called ‘arranged marriages’.  When you watch a traditional Bollywood movie, be prepared for a film, usually not shorter than two and a half hours, whose main purpose is to entertain.

This is Chris’ first Bollywood movie. He presses pause and turns to Diana. “Let me see if I understand this. The ‘hero’ was just shot six times; fell out of a Windows on the fourth floor, got on his motorcycle and came back into the building by crashing through the door. He then escapes with the girl and they are now singing and dancing together?”