Here is my account of my first visit to an Indian cinema hall on 3 September 2011.
I chose to see the film Bodyguard because it was the new blockbuster and had just opened on Eid (31 August). It's an action/romance starring Salman Khan (think Schwarzenegger crossed with John Travolta's dance moves).
I deliberately didn't choose a more critical or arty film because I went for the audience, not the film (I can always see the film on DVD).
I also got advice on the kind of movie theatre (or 'cinema hall', as they call it in Delhi) to attend: not an air-conditioned multiplex but an old single-screen cinema, the Regal Cinema on Connaught Place.
The hotel concierge got a ticket for me. It went like this: the cinema has no online booking facility so the hotel sent a boy to the cinema to fetch the ticket in person (and I paid extra rupees to cover this cost). The ticket cost 150 rupees; this is 2 pounds (3 US dollars; 3 Australian dollars). This was the most expensive ticket type: I had a numbered seat in the balcony. There are different prices, as I discovered, for the stalls in the main cinema: 80 rupees at the back, 60 in the middle, and (my usual favourite area to sit in Western cinemas) only 40 rupees (50 pence) right up front. There are also apparently family enclosures at the back in the stalls: enclosures with sofas. I didn't see those, though.
When I arrived at 6 pm for the 6.30 show, there was already a long queue outside, consisting of young men all pushing and shoving up against each other. I felt uneasy about joining this lively line so wandered into the lobby. The lobby itself was a plain, concrete-walled hall, dimly lit by fluorescent strips. I saw a very simple bar which was perhaps a concession stall but I didn't buy anything nor did I see anyone else buy anything. Everyone was thronged near the small entrance. A sign announced 'Housefull'.
There was a security gate with an metal detector. I saw a couple standing there, and two other women, so I joined them at the front of the queue, hoping that this was okay and not 'queue jumping'. It apparently was okay because we were ushered through with cries of 'ladies, ladies'. It seems that no 'lady' is expected to push and shove along with the young men (phew, just as well). I felt self-conscious because even though I was wearing my salwar kameez, I was clearly the only non-Indian there, and I didn't see any other women who had arrived alone.
As I discovered, all the pushing-shoving young men sat in the stalls downstairs. Upstairs, were couples, women, and more sedate men.
After the bottle neck of the security gate, I was waved to a curtained-off cubicle where a female security person patted me down thoroughly and searched my handbag. I then found myself in another very plan, dimly-tube lit lobby where I asked my way through to the balcony, clutching my pink ticket. I must photograph and show you this ticket: it is extraordinary: made of thin paper, with old-fashioned cheap print on it, a stamped on number, the warning that Handbags helmet camera not allow inside na!, and numerous rubber-stamped dates (when it was purchased, I think). Scribbled on in ink was U 21 but I didn't even see this until an usher moved me away from the seat I had naively chosen for myself. Others were in the same boat, though: the usher kept moving around with his torch and ushering people to other seats.
The hall was dimly-lit, unadorned concrete, with no air-conditioning but fans mounted at intervals that provided a whirring backdrop throughout. The seats were comfortable and retracted so that I could slump down, if I wanted to. I sat in a state of high excitement and expectancy. I was at the end of a row. Presently, some young lads came and sat next to me. But after a few moments, they went off and a couple appeared, with the woman seated next to me. Now, I got the feeling that somehow, tactfully, patrons had moved themselves around so that I, as the lone 'lady', would not need to sit next to a man. This kind of subtle respect is something I encountered several times in Delhi, and I really appreciated it. Also, may I just add that the last time I was in Asia was when I was in my late teens, and for a Western woman (and possibly for any woman) it is so much more comfortable to travel when middle-aged...! I did not get any of the rude remarks and cat calls (and bottom pinches and worse), I remember from back in the 1970s.
Anyway, I digress! The film started on the dot! (The only punctual thing I encountered in Delhi!) No ads, no curtain calls: just bang, and the credits. People continued talking on their mobiles; babies wailed; but who cared? Many members of the audience, mainly the young men down in the stalls, made much more noise than any baby: they whistled; they cheered; they laughed; they shouted out; they clapped. This was so much fun!!!! This was what I had come for!!
The interesting thing was when the young men whistled. And these were shrill, loud wolf whistles. At intervals, whistles sounded all throughout the film but they whistle-volume escalated when:
1) Salman Khan the hero first came on
2) every time Salman flexed his mighty abs
3) when Salman changed from bodyguard uniform into yellow polo shirt and jeans
4) when Salman did duck-like dance moves
5) when Salman was shown dancing in silhouette against a sunset sky
6) when the item girl, Katrina Kaif came on
(explanation of an item girl: this is a nubile woman who has nothing to do with the plot but is wheeled on for one song (the item song) where she swivels her hips and bares her midriff, and has fans blowing her long hair about)
7) every time Salman punched or kicked a villain
8) when a hose piped water onto Salman's chest, ripping his shirt from his body and exposing his toned and water-splashed pecs (HUGE WHISTLINGS AND SHOUTINGS at this point: a kind of Salman-adoration climax)
9) during the final scene when Salman finally gets the girl: HUGE WHISTLINGS leading up to this as the audience could totally see it coming
The fascinating thing to me was that, apart from the item girl, no woman was cheered. People laughed at the fat male comic relief but they reserved all their enthusiasm for Salman Khan. (I had already learned from the papers that Salman Khan currently has a huge fan base.) The heroine, Katrina Kapoor, did not get a single clap or whistle. It was a totally homoerotic environment. For those of you who know Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze in Hollywood, making a voyeuristic and fetishised spectacle of the gazed-upon woman: none of this in Bodyguard. Men cheered the baring of muscles of their male hero. It was absolutely extraordinary. I had expected equal whistles for the heroine but it was as if she was respected (or ignored, depending on how one might want to interpret this). What also fascinated me was that action scenes got whistles but also romantic scenes, dance scenes, and (as mentioned above) romantic in-front-of-sunset scene. In fact, anything over-the-top involving Salman Khan got whistles.
Plus the dialogue. This is
10) every time Salman delivered a salient, witty or wise line of dialogue
I didn't catch all the nuances here (because the film did not have subtitles in English!) so will have to watch it on DVD to find out what delighted the audience. I now understand why 'dialogue' gets a separate credit in Hindi movies, besides 'script', because these pithy lines are integral to the audience address.
I can see now why a film like Dil Se flopped in India because mainstream audiences were deprived of their climax of whistling and cheering and going berserk: the final scene where boy finally gets girl. Also, in Dil Se, the hero gets beaten up: not many whistling opportunities. In Bodyguard, Salman performs heroic feats and beats up all the villains: plenty whistle opportunity.
There was an intermission of ten minutes half-way through. Lots of people got up but not everybody, and the film started without announcement: no bell ringing, no nothing, just wham: film.
After the end, everybody got up and moved outside. The man next to me was humming a tune from the film. In the crowd in front, three young men respectfully and in a friendly manner addressed me: Had I liked the film? I replied in Hindi which amazed them, and we exchanged some sentences in a mixture of English and Hindi. They didn't like the film a lot, it was so-so (but they were evidently not of the rowdy pushing-shoving type but probably a more discerning 'we don't like silly Salman and silly plots without social critique' type, judging from their manner and 'student-type' looks). This was another example of what I found over my short stay: people in Delhi are extremely friendly, and these young men were very nice without being 'come-on' types. They then said 'good bye' and I caught an auto-rickshaw back to my hotel.
P.S. Visit my sister blog at http://artincambridge.blogspot.com -- this is where I mostly write these days. You may enjoy reading about Durga Puja (A Bengali Festival coming to Cambridge) or about what's so great about the Cambridge mosque.
Permalink: http://picturetalk321.blogspot.com/2011/09/delhi-cinema-hall-experiencing-film.html
A taster clip at http://youtu.be/gst2UTzz0pk
P.S. Visit my sister blog at http://artincambridge.blogspot.com -- this is where I mostly write these days. You may enjoy reading about Durga Puja (A Bengali Festival coming to Cambridge) or about what's so great about the Cambridge mosque.
Permalink: http://picturetalk321.blogspot.com/2011/09/delhi-cinema-hall-experiencing-film.html
