Hollywood gets a passage to India

Film policies are a-changin’. Or are they? Recently, the ministry of information and broadcasting announced a laissez faire policy for international movie shoots in India. It seems a special cell — whatever that means — will expedite the go-aheads, and reduce the cumbersome procedures. In effect, the clearing authorities will no longer play the roles of arbitrary super-censors.

By contrast over the decades, most countries — the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Singapore included — have welcomed Bollywood with open arms, even offering hefty subsidies and conveniences like booking hotels and flights. With Bollywood’s worldwide reach and influence, the hosting countries have gained an incalculable amount of exposure essential for attracting tourists.

That the late Yash Chopra mapped Switzerland and London as prime destinations for the Indian traveller is undebatable, while Singapore courted Rakesh Roshan to film Krrish (2006) on the island’s streets, parks and supermarkets.

Employment for the local population as well as a sizeable rise in the hotel and transport revenues are quite smartly achieved — not so smart, at times, because at least half a dozen Bollywood film producers are no longer welcome in the UK. Reason: They haven’t cleared their pending bills for years.

Be that as it may, the ministry’s open-door policy for international film shoots is belated but rational, since it will prevent lobbying by agents and middlemen in New Delhi’s corridors of power. Indeed, the withdrawal permissions to shoot the last Bond adventure Skyfall — on the Goa bridge and in Rajasthan — were withdrawn at the last hour.

And there is the little-known but lamentable case of Martin Scorsese, who hung out at a New Delhi hotel, with his producer, for a green light on his project Kundun (1997), a take on the life of the 14th Dalai Lama. It turned out to be a wasteful experience. On receiving a rejection slip, Scorsese simply shot his film in Morocco and at the studios.

The first recorded case of permission-denied was none other than an adaptation of John Masters’ evocative novel, Bhowani Junction, set during the British Raj. Directed by the stalwart George Cuckor, it narrated the story of an Anglo-Indian woman’s romance with a British Colonel. Fearing a distortion of the Indian reality, in the wake of India’s Independence, the 1956 film’s crew was literally told to take a walk, which it did to the Longmoor military station in Lahore, passing it off as an Indian railway junction.

The Ava Gardner-Stewart Granger film turned out to a cult classic. Yet, the Indian Central government’s attitude remained indifferent if not openly hostile to global productions shot on Indian soil. In fact, Mark Robson’s Nine Hours to Rama (1963) —– on the assassination of the Mahatma — remains banned to this day and age. Indeed, the issue was exacerbated. The film displeased the policy wielders of the time, sparking the firman to place every future project under a strict scanner.

That was impractical though. The French nouvelle vague filmmaker Louis Malle shot his seven-part documentary Phantom India, covertly, inciting a major controversy. Banned instantly, it led to Malle being denied a visa for years, till he sneaked in with his wife Candice Bergen, who was shooting for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. Both Ms Bergen and Mr Malle were nervous, and requested that an embargo be placed on their interview till their departure. “I don’t want to create any trouble,” Malle had said. “Neither do I want to face any trouble.” He felt that his documentary was empathetic towards India, but had been misread.

Roland Joffe’s City of Joy (1992), filmed in Kolkata, had evoked protests which were quelled. Before that, Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) had been banned too for depicting Indian tribals, led by Amrish Puri, as cannibals feasting on eyeball soup, chilled monkey brains and baby snakes. Shot in Sri Lanka, which often stands in for India, the adventure movie led to a storm of protest —– in this case a deserved one — from the Indian authorities. On Spielberg’s visit to India earlier, however, he wasn’t quizzed about the Temple of Doom excess. Time erases unpleasant memories perhaps.

Intermittently, a clutch of Hollywood and British products has been shot in India without raising eyebrows, be it The Darjeeling Limited, Slumdog Millionaire (quite surprising that, given its harsh content), Life of Pi, The Exotic Marigold Hotel. Eat, Drink, Pray, Love, Trishna, and the Ivory-Merchant films like Heat and Dust, or the TV series The Far Pavilions. Ironically, A Mighty Heart and a section of Zero Dark Thirty used Indian locations, to give the impression of Pakistan.

All the aspects of the chequered history between India and international film productions, considered, it’s obvious that the scanning of scripts and the insistence on conveying a fair and rosy picture of India, have become archaic and redundant. The ministry’s resolve to opt for a “take-it-easy” policy deserves a cheer. Now, let’s hope that Indian tribals will no longer be depicted as addicts of monkey brains, chilled.

The writer is a journalist, film critic and film director

Hollywood gets a passage to India