Vishnu Rajeevan

Bollywood vs Hollywood

For many years Bollywood has been found to be the highest producing film industry in the world. However, many of their movies are straight remakes of Hollywood movies, allowing the movie to be produced much faster. Usually these remade movies pale in comparison to the original Hollywood version, but some do incredibly well minus their blatant copying. Many of these films are just there to entertain for the moment without leaving much impact. However, every now and then movies such as these will be a great success, and people will look past the fact that the movie was also made somewhere else. The Bollywood film Ghajini, which is based upon Christopher Nolan’s Memento is a good example of this. In some sense, this remaking of movies will be seen as the globalization of film and ideas. I will be using these two movies to compare and contrast the styles of film that come out of each country’s respective film industry, and asses the globalization of film.

Much more colorful than Memento

Memento is a film directed by Christopher Nolan released in the year 2000. The film follows a man with anterograde amnesia, or short term memory loss, as he attempts to find the man who killed and raped his wife. By keeping notes and taking pictures, Leonard Shelby keeps track of what he’s done and where he has been in his search. He keeps a list of facts in order to make sure the man he is trying to get is actually the right man. The movie flows in reverse chronological order with scenes put in that run in chronological order. This has the effect of forcing the audience to make sure they remember what happened in the earlier scene. As stated by Roger Ebert, “Essentially, Leonard is adrift in time and experience, and therefore so are we (Ebert).” Ghajini is a 2008 film directed by A. R. Murugadoss which was released in India. The film is based on Nolan’s Memento but has many stereotypical Bollywood styles within it. Ghajini is currently the highest grossing Hindi film in history. The movie also follows a patient, Sanjay Singhania, who suffers from anterograde amnesia much like the patient in Memento. “It's a fascinating premise for a movie[Ghajini], and a few years ago, ‘Memento', made by Christopher Nolan, gave us a unique hero who suffers from short haul amnesia, while he searches for his beloved's killer (Gupta).” However, the movie flows in chronological order and has scenes in it that would only be found in a Bollywood movie.

Tattoos look very similar to those found in Memento

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vS0E9bBSL0

Memento is a very dark film that chronicles various violent acts such as rape and murder. The movie uses various techniques to keep the audience interested in the story. Ghajini on the other hand takes cues from Memento but is very heavily influenced by Bollywood styles. There are two scenes that show Sanjay’s past and are very entertaining to watch, and seem to stick more to the stereotypical Bollywood style of film. Two people meet, fall in love, choose to get married but then cannot because, in this case, one of them dies. These romantically styled scenes are not seen in Memento and are what I find to be the stereotype in Bollywood cinema. The movie is “Too long, at three hours and some. Too violent (Gupta).” In addition to this, as seen in many Indian films, there is a clear villain, which was unseen in Memento. In Ghajini the villain is a man named Ghajini that has killed Sanjay’s wife-to-be. Anupama Chopra says it the best: “he likes to smash iron rods into human heads and forces young girls into both prostitution and organ trade (Chopra).” Many Indian movies, such as the Tamil version of Ghajini and many other Tamil films, are full to the brim with the most stylized violence in current films around the world, a quality unseen in films to come out of Hollywood. To add to the differences that seem to run with Indian culture, Sanjay’s wife was not raped as Leonard’s was in Memento. It almost seems as though rape is still an untouched topic when it comes to movies that are as popular in mainstream Indian culture such as this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S2aIzCtrik&feature=related

On the other hand, Memento has some parts that are can be attributed to coming out of an American industry. There is a lot of blood, but unlike Ghajini the violence has not been stylized and is shown as it is. Additionally, the movie shows the basic greed that many Americans face. Everyone in the movie wants something, the police office “Teddy” wants a way to kill certain troublesome criminals, Natalie uses Leonard for her own reasons based on the fact that Leonard will not remember later. And Leonard himself allows himself to forget what he has done so that he can continue to live as he does, continuously avenging his wife’s death.

In terms of globalization, nothing is displays it more than the name of India’s film industry. Bollywood is a play off of Hollywood’s name, except they use a “B” as the first letter to signify that it is based out of Bombay (Mumbai). Many movies coming out of Bollywood can be seen as remakes of famous Hollywood movies, displaying the globalization of American film. The main way these two movies display the globalization in film is just how their main plot concept is the same thing. Amir Khan stated that the director for Ghajini wrote the script for the movie after hearing about Memento but not watching it. However, to me, this seems debatable because the tattoos used on Sanjay’s body in Ghajini seem very similar to those seen in Memento, and it is highly unlikely that these similarities are just coincidental. The idea for this story started with Jonathan Nolan’s short story Memento Mori and became a movie directed by his brother Christopher Nolan and went on to the Indian film industry to become Ghajini directed by A R Murgadoss in both a Tamil version and a Hindi version. This shows how one little idea has become a huge movie in one country, and the highest grossing movie in another.

Although Memento and Ghajini take a similar plot, the styles are extremely different. Memento capitalizes on the American love for suspense and thrillers whereas Ghajini sticks to basic themes that have shown that they are what Indians love the most. Each movie takes a similar topic and bends it to the style of cinema that the people in the film’s respective country would enjoy. Memento has violence, but sparingly and it more or less sticks to assessing the psychological areas on the topic of short term memory loss. Ironically enough, Ghajini starts with a team of doctors that wish to assess Sanjay’s pysch but the movie moves onto becoming a violence and romance filled story for the masses. Even with these differences, the similarities can still be seen, and the effects of globalization can still be felt when watching the two movies one after the other.

Works Cited

Chopra, A. (2009). Ghajini. Retrieved from NDTV Movies: http://movies.ndtv.com/reviews.asp?lang=hindi&id=368

Ebert, R. (2001, april 13). Memento. Retrieved from rogerebert.com: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20010413/REVIEWS/104130303/1023

Gupta, S. (2008, December 25). Ghajini (Movie Review). Retrieved from expressindia: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Ghajini-Movie-Review/402773/