Indian films jump the great divide

Dibakar Banerjee wants to tell real stories. Photo / Supplied

When the censors took their cutting shears to Dibakar Banerjee's latest film, the Indian director was not particularly surprised when they decided to blur and trim a controversial sex scene.

But when they chose to exclude an episode in which one of the characters refers to the low caste of another, he was both stunned and disappointed.

"The elephant in the room was caste," said Banerjee, whose film Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (Love, Sex And Betrayal) features Indian cinema's first, albeit shortened, sex scene. "They would rather that elephant is not there, but it is."

The Delhi-born Banerjee is one of small clutch of directors who experts say represent an important new wave in mainstream Indian film-making, an industry that for decades has been obsessed with thin, escapist productions featuring glamorous stars, glitzy costumes and extraordinary set-piece song-and-dance routines that almost always have a happy ending.

For this new group, preferred subjects are sex and relationships, communal and caste turmoil, and the increasing divide between a thriving consumer class and the traditional rural poor - topics that rarely, if ever, feature in Bollywood.

As one Indian reviewer said after watching Banerjee's latest film: "Hell yeah. Welcome to adulthood, Bollywood."

The 41-year-old Banerjee insists he has not made a conscious decision to reject the typical Bollywood formula.

"I make the films I want to make and that fit into the commercial context of Indian cinema," he said. "It's not that I don't like Bollywood but I did not want to spend my time on that. I'm trying to tell certain stories."

Banerjee said he was most struck by the dynamics between people who lived in booming large cities and those in the mud-hut hinterland.

Director Mahesh Manjrekar is also concerned with real stories. His movie, City of Gold, is set against the true backdrop of the painful 1980s strikes by Mumbai textile workers and their subsequent struggle for survival.

A recent report by KPMG suggested that in 2009 the Indian film industry was worth $2.7 billion. That is expected to grow by 9 per cent a year to reach $4 billion by 2014.

It is estimated around 10 per cent of the industry is based on independent productions. Yet independent directors and producers have long complained that the vast bulk of Indian films, and those which receive the most national attention, are Bollywood blockbusters.

Yet film critic Taran Adarsh said directors such as Banerjee and Manjrekar had shown that films could achieve commercial success and critical acclaim, especially considering the low production costs of independent films, which rarely feature big name stars.

- INDEPENDENT