Saw my first bollywood film — full-length, that is. It was "I Have Found It," and boy did it take a while! It was 2 1/2 hours long! I'd heard about the crazy length of Bollywood before, but I guess I had to find it out for myself.
Anyway, it's a re-casting of "Sense and Sensibility" ala Tamil village/Indian royalty. With some crazy song and dance numbers. Seriously, the chick who played Meenu, the Marian character. (Aishwarya Rai, BTW, majorly bigtime Bollywood actress who is entrancingly good-looking. I mean ridiculously beautiful, people. But also kind of weird looking at the same time. Which is, I guess, what makes her looks entracing.) There's a scene where she dances in a field with some guys wearing elephant masks and no, it doesn't make a lot of sense. The Edward character does a song and dance number that appears to take part in Egypt (?) and about 200 years ago. It was disconcerting to see Indian computer programming brought into the mix. It was a really lovely watching experience, even the much-expected "rain" scene that, I have read, is what passes for hot stuff in super-puritanical India. I want to do Indian dancing in a sparkly turquoise sari with a troupe of elephant-masked backup dancers in a field.
Also interesting, the actors are very upfront about not doing their own singing, which is accomplished by vocalists with one name. It's mostly classical Indian stuff with lots of shifty changes and tonal slides with clear, beautiful tones. If I could sing like that, I'd do it all the time. And then I'd get fired.
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