..so they dance! (reviews and ramblings on Indian cinema)

• With watching Bollywood, comes a definite attitude re-adjustment. Films are films. If you watch Hindi/Tamil/Telugu/whatever Indian language films (with) and continue to carry the notion that films from so-called "West" are somehow magically superior, you might as well stop watching.
• But the ideas of Western film-making's superiority is sadly prevalent even in the minds of some Indians themselves.
• I'm not sure the audiences at large in the "West" would be so accepting of the Indian manner of making films and telling stories. Some people occasionally might get into, thanks to an Indian friend, a visit to the country itself or pushing efforts by us non-Indian filmi fans,but for it to become something more popular in the mainstream,I just don't see it happening.
• I don't really see Indian films becoming like Chinese films here in the West. Action is very much universal, but breaking out into song for a dream sequence? Not quite as universal. Even in musicals made by Hollywood, they take place in a natural and realistic setting, not up on some mountain in Switzerland!
• Another view: there's no particular reason why Hindi films should want to gain popularity in "the west," there's also no particular reason why "the west" should try to embrace them. We don't all have to love (or even vaguely understand) each other's pop culture. We have to recognize that it's out there and that it's meaningful to some people, but it's perfectly okay to prefer the stuff that is created by the culture from which you come.
• different cultures have different values and modes of expression and they're all equally valid.