![]() ![]() In narratives where the “good” characters triumph over political rivals now reinterpreted as “evil”, the filmmaker can insist that great historical personalities have been accorded the utmost respect and that it was never the filmmaker’s intent to offend anyone’s sensitivities. Here again, the conventions of melodrama turn out to be useful. What such films demonstrate is the usability of the past, but with a decidedly ethical end – this is, quite self-consciously and overtly, intended to be didactic history in the medium of film. Instead, it is much more productive to consider how these films are intended to be seen. However, merely to list such anachronisms and complain about the misrepresentation or distortion of history is to miss the point, either for the films’ makers or for its audiences. ![]() In contrast, a real coat of armour made of chain mail, as it would have been in the 17th century, would have been so heavy as to severely constrain the mobility of its wearer. Pretend-armour is made from fabric to allow the hero to engage in the whirl of action (accentuated by computerised special effects), that is now a stock element of the genre. Moreover, the audiences for Hindi commercial films have come to expect a certain kind of “action” sequence from such films. Whirling Sufis are visually more compelling than the seated qawwals singing of their devotion to the pir and to Allah at a dargah in South Asia. In Jodhaa Akbar, mevlevi dervishes from Turkey sing of devotion to an 12th century Sufi pir from Ajmer. Thus, Bajirao, an 18th century Marathi Brahmin warrior, engages in swordplay drawn from the idiom of kalaripayattu from Kerala. The imperative towards producing such spectacle, arguably itself an object of consumption for the audience, dictates the introduction of anachronisms with that intent. Audiences viewing these films in the DVD editions can now learn of the logistics involved in producing such opulence through footage of the shooting of the film, the construction of sets, the designing of costumes, and the filming of key song sequences. That is to say, social relationships are characterised in terms of moral polarities – good versus evil – so that a desirable social order can be posited in the climax as the ultimate triumph of good.Īmong the features common to all these recent ‘historical’ films are the scale of the visual spectacle and the opulence of their production values. ![]() Subjecting historical events to the genre conventions of commercial Hindi cinema typically involves the addition of several elements – romantic love between the male and female lead actors, songs sung mostly by the lead characters, as well as the narrative structure of melodrama. This is an opportune moment to reflect on other recent historical films in Hindi as well – including Jodhaa Akbar (2008, directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar) and Bajirao Mastani (2015, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali). A lot has been written recently about the opposition to Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s film Padmavati, originally scheduled for a Decemrelease. ![]()
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