“Deepa Mehta‘s Water fails to win Academy Award,” reads the ticker at the bottom of television screens, as another Oscar night slips into day. Thus, the “Canadian” film that wasn’t allowed to be shot in India by hoodlums joins a long list of Indian films—Lagaan, Jeans, Rang de Basanti, etc—that have failed to bag the golden statuette.
Yes, the Academy Award is not the last word in film appreciation. Yes, it is silly to expect Western validation of our cinematic sensibilities. Etcetera. But if we can appreciate their films, stories, accents, and more, just what is it in our films that puts off the white skins? What do our films lack to win the award that every filmmaker craves?
churumuri 
hmmmm… lets say absence of white skin :))), but in all fairness, deepa mehta’s film sucked
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Reason is quite obvious — B I A S
‘Rang De’ deserved to be in the Top 5 at least!
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What our films lack is plausibility. Martin Scorcese’s “Departed” which won the Oscar for best film is a Hindi film. Except that it is more realistic than any Hindi film. Our films have become albums of picture post-cards of grand locations, stunningly beautiful people, majestic mansions, precision songs and dances, never-ending fights shot with 60 cameras, etc. The hero, who is the son of some rich zamindar, is always in some American university driving a Porsche, playing basketball with girls in hot pants, etc. Result: our films have lost touch with the India as we know it. With an Indian audience, it might work because of the old chestnut of “escapism”. With foreign audiences, it fails because they look at this and ask, “This is India?”
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these made-for-oscar movies suck!
phaniamma may be boring but it offered much more realistic story than this one.
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Actually, I’ve not been disappointed with the Academy’s choices for best film in a foreign language. They are almost always bang on target. The Indian films are selected, not by an esteemed body, but by a bunch of idiot producers who have no locus standi. Ergo, a silly film like Jeans was the Indian entry (but was not nominated). Rang De was not nominated either. Only Lagaan was nominated but did not win.
Deepa Mehta’s films are pretty useless as narratives or works of art. As someone pointed out, Water is the equivalent of The Magdalene Sisters.
They ought to have a serious committee of film makers to send India’s entry over to the Oscars – not some lobbying body.
One has only to see films from Hong Kong, Iran, Central-South America and Europe to note that we, unfortunately, do not break any new ground in film making.
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On a different note, what our films lack is probably also a good film event. I stayed up to watch the Oscar presentation and it blew me away with its class, grace and innovation. Those who watched the mind-numbingly dumb Filmfare awards show the previous evening will be able appreciate the crap we are being dished up.
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What a difference between the two awards ceremony! Oscar’s was thoroughly professional,crisp performances and a relaxed, friendly compere of the Live show . In stark contrast was a show-hogging compere,commenting on all and sundry and ill-mannered throughout because he was not geoing to get the best actor award! Even allowing for the fact we cannot match the technical brilliance, grace and elan are what’s missing in our shows.
The pictures that are sent for Oscars are, most of the times, box ofice films which may not even deserve a look at oscars.We select a grander version of ‘Devdas’ against an earthy’ Iqbal’ or a good regional language film which doesn’t have the pull in Delhi corridors.
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@ E R R:
Mumbai Corridors rather!
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THE SCRIPT, STUPID
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Please even many Hindus cannot sit through any Bollywood movies–they just monkey Hollywood with an Indian touch. When was the last time you saw a great Indian movie?
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