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Traditional Indians cold to bold film on marriage
Bollywood's latest film about troubled marriages is showing to packed houses in India's cities, but it has not gone down well with millions in the conservative countryside where marital vows are still the basis of family values.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:00 August 21, 2006
Bollywood's latest film about troubled marriages is showing to packed houses in India's cities, but it has not gone down well with millions in the conservative countryside where marital vows are still the basis of family values.
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye) suggests that true love is more desirable than a bad marriage, a brave departure in an industry that has survived on making sacharine love stories with picture-perfect endings.
Critics say urban, multiplex audiences may have been able to identify with the film's taboo theme but in India's more conservative heartland the response has been cold.
"It's mature, bold and dares to say it loud and clear that a man and woman both trapped in loveless marriages have the option to start all over again. Or at least try to," film critic Khalid Mohamad wrote in the DNA newspaper.
In the past, Bollywood's attempts at examining marriage and its shortcomings were subjects touched only by art house movies with little mass appeal.
Kabhi Alvida is about two seemingly happy couples who meet their soulmates outside marriage, forcing them to look at their relationships from a new perspective.
It is set in New York and revolves around the lives of a set of rich Indian immigrants, something that rural Indian audiences may also not have been able relate to.
The film was certain to have raised the hackles of elderly Indians, but the young generation would identify with the stark realities of modern-day marriage, critics said.
"The film made a magnificent start, and is doing fabulously at big centres, with business at multiplexes proving to be superb," said trade analyst Taran Adarsh.
"However, it is not as strong at smaller centres."
Kabhi Alvida features two of Bollywood's biggest stars Amitabh Bachchan and Shah Rukh Khan and cost $4.5 million to make, expensive by Bollywood standards.
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