Bollywood Cinema: temples of Desire
Vijay Mishra
At long last a worthy addition to academic studies on the Hindi film industry. Vijay Mishra an English professor at Murdoch University, Perth filters Hindi cinema through the twin prisms of postcolonial studies and film theory. En route he takes in the texts of the all-time classic Mother India, auteurship and romance, the superstar Amitabh Bachchan and the effects of newly arisen fundamentalism in India on film. But Mishra's greatest contribution through this book is his look at the new diaspora markets for Hindi cinema. He devotes a whole chapter to this crucial phenomenon. At a time when Bombay filmmakers are targeting films at overseas markets rather than homegrown ones resulting in the 'Non Resident Indian (NRI)' school of filmmaking, Mishra's study becomes all that more important. As Sumita Chakravarty, the author of National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema says, the book is a "masterly synthesis of existing scholarship on Bombay cinema as well as a timely exploration of the growing importance that this cinema is assuming in the Indian diaspora"..
Naman Ramachandran
