Life, the city | Bollywood at a cinema near you

Our journalist travels around Greater Montreal to talk about people, events or places that make the heart of their neighborhood beat.

Tuesday evening in February at the Cineplex cinema in the former Montreal Forum. On the program: the film fighter in IMAX 3D version.

Not the boxing drama starring Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale. Rather a Hindi film directed by Siddharth Anand and starring star Hrithik Roshan and actress and producer Deepika Padukone, who was a jury member at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.

fighter is a barely hidden Bollywood version of Top Gun, featuring an Indian Air Force pilot who defies authority and loses a loved one in the air. The enemy, however, is a Pakistani terrorist with the conflict in Kashmir as a backdrop.

Joining us to see the film: three students recruited from the Art Forms of Bollywood course, given by Dipti Gupta at Concordia University.

Zara Saleem, of Pakistani origin, studies teaching. Having seen many films with her mother, she knows the world of Bollywood and its star system very well.

“These are films that make me smile and that make me nostalgic,” adds Shayne Matabadul, who studies cinema at Concordia and who grew up on Mauritius with a mother of Indian origin.

fighter is only the fourth Bollywood film that Yvonne Léa Carpentier-Wheeler has seen. “The first in the cinema and the first without Shah Rukh Khan,” she says, making her comrades laugh.

Who is Shah Rukh Khan? A living legend in India.

Yvonne signed up for the Bollywood course out of curiosity. After all, it is the biggest film industry in the world, she points out. However, the young woman will later tell us that her father is the artistic director Daniel Carpentier (who has worked on major sets like Arrival And Hochelaga, land of souls). Her sister, Rose Carpentier-Wheeler, television scriptwriter (5^e Rank, Witches), also had Dipti Gupta as a teacher.

Zara Saleem emphasizes that it was at the Cineplex Forum that she saw her first Bollywood film in a mainstream Montreal cinema, namely Ta Ra Rum Pum. “I was 5 years old and I have a very clear memory of it. »

Cineplex has been showing Bollywood films since the 1990s across its theater network. The Forum complex was one of the first to do so, Zara points out.

Like many Bollywood films, fighter is long – it lasts almost three hours. Our verdict? The epic music, the slow motion where the actors take off their Ray Ban Aviator glasses and close-ups as in the soaps Americans make it highly entertaining, in the absence of any concordance with reality.

“Too many abs,” said Shayne at the end of the film where yet another musical interlude showcases the muscles of Hrithik Roshan.

The sung segments almost reminded Yvonne Léa of those in the film barbie.

For Zara, the ending is surprising given that Bollywood is much more chaste than Hollywood. Believe it or not: a kiss is exchanged!

But for Zara, the film detracts too much from the country of her ancestors. “It was very political and it was even embarrassing for me, who is of Pakistani origin. Sometimes I said to myself: “But what am I doing here?” »

It is true that the Pakistanis here come across as shallow villains, although director Siddharth Anand claims to have instead exalted “Indian patriotism”. “The Kashmir conflict is such a delicate subject,” explains Zara.

“Other Bollywood films are much more inclusive,” emphasizes Zara, who recently fell in love with Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani. “I saw him three times. I love the film’s message of breaking cultural barriers. »

For Shayne, fighter is very Americanized and very violent. Otherwise, everyone appreciated the feminist dimension of the character played by Deepika Padukone. Her father hasn’t spoken to her since she became a pilot: it’s not appropriate for a woman, according to him. But will he change his mind?

In class

Five days before going to see fighter with Zara, Shayne and Yvonne, we attended the course they are taking at Concordia. Yvonne was charmed by the film presented, Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayengewhich the Maratha Mandir cinema in Bombay is still showing 29 years after its release.

Professor Dipti Gupta reminded her students of the importance of taking a different look at Bollywood works. If the acting seems exaggerated, we must dive into it as if it were true, even if it means putting our skepticism aside. This is the famous pact of fiction called the “consented suspension of disbelief” (suspension of belief). “We should not judge films, but appreciate them,” argued Dipti Gupta.

It’s all a question of cultural perspective, adds the professor, who has already been shocked to see couples in Hollywood films being in bed from the first night!