Bollywood is taking another step away from its song and dance traditions to tackle more topical subjects, with the release this week of a film about the country’s Maoist rebels.
Red Alert: The War Within, starring Suniel Shetty and Sameera Reddy, hit screens in India on Friday and has been dubbed into English, Telugu and Chhattisgarhi, which is spoken in one of the areas most affected by the unrest.
The thriller is the latest to tackle the realities of modern Indian life, as Bollywood searches for a successful formula to reverse its fortunes after a disappointing 2009 and a lack of box office hits so far this year.
Lamhaa, about life in the disputed Indian Kashmir region, releases later this month, while Peepli Live, a satire on the divide between rural and urban India, the media and politicians, will be released in August.
Film critic and trade analyst Taran Adarsh said that although traditional “masala” love stories were still hugely popular with Indian cinemagoers, audiences now also appreciate contemporary subject matter.
“I think our cinema is getting more real. People are looking to watch movies they can relate to with characters that they’ve seen or heard about,” he said. According to Adarsh, “It (Red Alert) is a very interesting film and very topical at the same time. The Maoist movement is dominating the front pages of the newspapers. It’s portrayed very realistically.”
India’s government has said the Maoists - often known as “Naxalites” after the village where the movement emerged - are the gravest threat to the country’s internal security.
Director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan’s film is billed as being based on a true story and claims to use actual dialogue between police and the Maoists.
It follows a poor farm labourer, Narasimha - played by Shetty - whose life is turned upside down when he is forced to join the rebels to fund his children’s education.
Sameera Reddy said the film had been a learning experience, admitting that, like many people in urban India, she was largely ignorant of the Maoist issue.
Her character, Lakshmi, is raped in the film, and Maoists storm the police station where she is held.
“The system (police) that had to protect her violated her. The Naxalites saw that and took her in their gang. She is groomed to become a Naxalite,” she said in an interview with India FM.
“There is a story behind everything. There are things that drive you to do something,” she added.
RR Patil, the home minister of Maharashtra state, whose eastern border is a Maoist stronghold, has said he hopes the film can raise awareness of the issue — and even deter the rural population from joining the insurgents.
But Mayank Shekhar, national cultural editor at the Hindustan Times newspaper, said real-life subject matter was no guarantee of hard-hitting accuracy or depth and that Bollywood filmmakers were still concerned with entertainment.
“I’m not expecting Red Alert to be incredibly researched. None of these films are art house films in the traditional sense.
There’s element of amusement in these films regardless of what the subject is,” he said.
“They don’t let research get in the way of a good story, so long as the film flows,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2010.
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