Movie Violence Bondian vs. Indian

 

Movie Violence Bondian vs. Indian – A Comparative Study

I am a huge fan of James Bond movies. I also seriously enjoy scenes of violence in Indian movies.

Now that I have revealed my biases, I will try to lay the differences between them (I am clubbing all the movies in any Indian language, including Bhojpuri and Bengali as Indian).

But before I get to that, let me direct my readers a trip to an earlier post of mine, on ‘Q’s importance to the plot. Following that line of thought, I must say the sire of violence in Bond movies is ‘Q’.  In the pan-Indian cinema, there cannot be a single script writer who can be named so universally.

Sad.

I will start with Javier Bardem in Skyfall. This character by itself, is and more than all of the scenes put together in that movie, violence. The way the villain reveals his disfigured face to ‘M’ is a classic scene. It is truly retching, at least to me it was, and I enjoyed it. If you were a parent you would close your ward’s eyes. I have not seen any such scene in Indian movies, perhaps my bad. So, Bond scores one.

Bond assistant, played admirably in Octopussy by Vijay Amritraj being decapitated (not shown, but you get the point) is another one. Is there any implied violence in Indian movies? I have not come across one. But, that is no surprise because, for scenes of violence, I prefer the comical Vijaykanth and it is explicit and impossible (physical laws play spoil sport) violence that brings masses, and me too, to the turnstiles, over those of other heroes.

Oh, yes, I just remember one scene from the Tamil movie Vaali that did have a terrifying scene, Ajith Kumar crumbling a piece of incriminating paper and supposedly swallowing it, and the terror the director brings out in the eyes of Simran. Those who think Simran is all S(l)imran, please take in some other movies of hers that do exhibit her acting prowess. That was an aside. Reverting to the main theme, Indian cinema matches what Bond offers. Score stays still.

The opening (in color) nonsensical scene of Casino Royale goes beyond, in my mind anything that Indian movies can even ever imagine. The stupidity is so unimaginably stupefying. Here, the hired-hand of the villain tries not to be killed by Bond, and what all does he do?

Starts off at the ground level, climbs up a multi-storey steel structure using bare hands, jumps from the top onto the top of the boom of a crane, runs straight on the narrow ledge at that height, jumps to another crane, and, get this, jumps back into the ground even as the chase continues. Why could the sequence not have been done at ground level all through? You see a similar thing in another movie, the chased and the chaser climb up to run on roofs. Stupidity is contagious.

Obviously the sequence is for instant gratification for Bond fans, but it missed me. I have not seen such a sequence of stunts in any Indian movie. Yes, the stunts are terrific. Yet, I cannot forget the nagging, “Why?” question. The answer is, to spread the audacity of the scene to other potential audience for the movie. Talking points, anyone? Bond scores double negative on this. The score now is negative one (1–2 = –1) on Bond.

 Bond movies are, I have mentioned in a post earlier, suckers for stereotypes–Caribbean islanders are Voodoo lovers; East Indians are highly superstitious; South Americans  are murderers and rapists (Donald Trump may have got this talking point from Bond films); East Europeans and Russians lack neocortex–the seat of higher order thinking like analysis, in their brains, with a few exceptions.

Indian movies are no slouches here. Here, it is more like stereotyping within the various regions of the nations–south Indians are honest/gullible (I was told that finding a place to live in Delhi, circa early 1990s, would not be very difficult for me as the landlords are well disposed towards South Indians); North Indians are pawn chewing dirty people–I would have believed this in 1976 when I went to Kanpur; in Delhi, Bengalis are unbearably parochial (as though other people are not); office secretaries and nurses are Keralites, and so on. The score remains at –1.

There is one thing though that ranks Bond movie one point higher. The stunts, to the extent they are shown, do not violate laws of physics. In Indian movies stunts without violation of physical laws do not exist. Antagonists fly around like moth  around fire when slapped/slammed/punched by the protagonist.

The score comes out even in my analysis. Just enjoy the violence in movies, Bond and Indian. That could satiate people’s hunger for violence.

Raghuram Ekambaram