Indian Series: This is not Bollywood | Culture

It was seen and not seen. In 2018, Netflix was screened The first series to be shot in India, Sacred Games, The starting signal for the hitherto unimaginable audiovisual products on the Asian subcontinent. The platforms exploited a regulatory vacuum: unlike film and television, they were strictly regulated and no legislation was in place. Streaming. In three years, audio-visual myths have sprouted that explore the gaps in Bollywood’s horrific concessions: police brutality, class system, inter-caste conflicts, religious tensions, normal drug use, explicit gender (hetero or LGBTI), the political rot of the world’s largest democracy.

It cannot last when the country is headed A toxic nationalist, Narendra Modi. From this year, the Streaming It is subject to a variety of moral classifications, with the expectation that criminal action will be taken against those who offend the “national feeling”. Not to forget the real intimidation of the mobs, which – remotely controlled by the Modi-reflecting movement – can sabotage filmmaking, ignore companies and commit the worst acts.

All in all, there lived an “Indian summer”, a summer of creativity when directors, screenwriters, actors, technicians were able to create other stories far from scissor-wielding directors. In many cases, they turned to affluent local novelists, whose works were considered too complex for Bollywood cinema. A) Yes, Sacred games In part Sacred Games (Literary Random House), Book by Vikram Chandra Whose cosmology is confused with some fantastic realism (Pincan is more than Garcia Marquez anyway). Immersion in a bomb that oscillates between zodiac and phantom.

What am I going for. You will not find these series on the home screen of sites: you have to search for them. But they are also available in dozens in the corners and corners of Netflix or Prime video listings, including undoubted gems. They are easily recognizable by their saturated colors, over-acting actors, script twists that are shown as coincidences and, above all, their characters jumping from Hindi to compelling English. Note that they usually require extra effort: they have no dubbing and, in some cases, you have to read the verses in English.

But it is better not to complain. They put you in a kind of parallel universe, with mutations of fully recognizable television genres: predictable – qualified police officers are forced to hand over their badges and guns – mixed with shocking moments, for example, when the gruesome hero escapes in fear. The bodyguard of a villain. It happens Song Lock (Prime), This aging agent from Delhi travels between family troubles and the suspicion that the newly discovered plot to assassinate a deported TV presenter should not be another evil of eternal rival Pakistan. His travels to Chitrakoot, a poor rural district, reveal that there is no such thing as union solidarity in land invisible to the invader bandit.

Rewind button should be used frequently for Indian series. And maximum focus on capturing the nuances that reveal religious affiliations of the untouchable caste. The country can be a force in information technology capabilities Digital India Government advertising, but it is still killed by homemade guns made from hammers or car wrecks (illustrated in one product Mirzapur, Bonus) And obscene ancient rituals such as the collective rape of the enemy’s mother are in practice.

One cannot even relax Created in heaven (Prime), A romantic drama about a company dedicated to arranging luxurious weddings for the middle and upper class of Delhi. Here Bollywood aesthetic is very much in dance, songs, dress, make-up. As the characters pick up or argue the lines in the music played by the DJ, confusing subplots emerge that show common hypocrisy, greed, impunity of the powerful, the habit of torturing in police stations, and the persistence of superstitions even among the cosmopolitan population.

In the current context of self-censorship there are reasonable doubts as to how long this iconoclastic breath will survive. Thus, Prime Video has dropped the shooting of the second season Song Lock, Despite its enormous success and its reality Performers They left enough loose ends. But the human and professional relationship between the mere devout Hindu and his Muslim aide approached a barrier zone for those outraged by Modi. Take advantage of the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of a few years when obstacles are ignored.