|
Vinod's Blog Random musings from a libertarian, tech geek... |
|
|
Vinod's Blog Random musings from a libertarian, tech geek... |
|
|
...And now a taste of nouveau Indian ("Desi") culture. Sort of. A while back, I blogged about the "Mundian Tu Bach Ke"/ "Knight Bhangra" video by Punjabi MC. It's a really cool piece of work - proof that you can create a "modern" aesthetic without automatically building a "Western" one. The video is a superb example of the new stuff that occasionally pops out of the Indian diaspora's otherwise cookie-cutter culture factory. What's fascinating is that a good % of this work is actually coming from outside the subcontinent (Monsoon Wedding being another great example) I now point my vast readership at Absolut Vodka's Mulit. The 4 min trailer + 12 min video are AMAZINGLY high quality, tongue-in-cheek spoofs of 1970s Bollywood. The eye for detail is AMAZING and the casting superb. The producers dissected and analyzed the cookie cutters in force & applied a special, humorous twist to every cultural stereotype. There's the seemingly dashing but actually dorky leading man. The improbably attractive gal he mysteriously manages to seduce. The Salieri-figure who seeks to ruin his life and interrupt his game. The heroine's all-powerful father and his corrupt functionaries. A host of classic Desi character actors lend their considerable, self-deprecating humor to this flick. They might not seem like they realize they're being made fun of - but they actually do. And that's what makes this so sophisticated. And then there's the production value - lavish costuming, outrageous scenery, bad subtitles, and out of synch audio tracks. The music deserves a special mention - it's FANTASTIC. 2-3 signature riffs are elegantly & repeatedly integrated into the storyline in classic Bollywood fashion. I watched the closing credits in entirety just cuz the tunes were so evocative. And that's where I saw what's perhaps most impressive about this piece -- it's produced / directed primarily by Westerners. Director Ivan Zacaharias along with a US / European leadership team produced this clip as a promo for Absolut Vodka (with a LOT of native help, of course). The marquee bottle shape is buried in literally hundreds of almost subconcsious references throughout the film inviting repeat viewing (which I've been doing quite a bit of). These guys really knew what they were doing. Perhaps great parody occasionally calls for an outsider's perspective? Kisko Mulit Se Pyar Hai! I do.
UPDATE: My friend Kiran contacted Absolut to find the link to the video (it's been taken down since I posted this article) and got this response:
Reminds us all of just how ephemeral the nature of Great Art can be UDPATE2 - It's back up!
Comments [
] :: Main :: Archives
|
||||
|
| |||||
![[Image]](../Article_Images/mulit_collage.jpg)
![[Image]](../Core_Images/smiley.gif){kind=small}
. Luckily, I've saved a copy of the 100+MB film on my laptop for posterity. Sorry folks, I won't be posting it on the site since it will nuke my disk quota... but, if you've some storage space + a web/ftp site, I'll gladly shoot you a copy of it.