Gone For A Song

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday August 29, 2008

Reports Erik Jensen

Musicals dominate the Indian Film Festival, reports Erik Jensen.

WONDER is the subject of Taare Zameen Par, which opens the Indian Film Festival in Moore Park tonight. Darsheel Safary plays an eight-year-old boy - dyslexic but a brilliant painter - saved by an art teacher who is played by the film's director. There is much singing in between.

"There is a very different language [in Indian cinema] from Hollywood films that's quite interesting," says Mitu Bhowmick Lange, a director of the festival. "They have their own structure, their own rhythm. It's quite addictive once you start watching it."

Most of this selection are musicals, though the subject matter may be serious. The emotional content is strong, she says, and the social conscience obvious. In a throwback to a bygone era, the 16 films in the festival - a mixture of dramas and romantic comedies - all have intermissions.

"The audience is extremely unique. There are second- and third-generation Indians who bring their spouses. Then the Greek and Italian community who like the family values, the innocence and the sentiment of the films," Bhowmick Lange says. "Then there is a large proportion of the gay community. And a lot of film students."

A retrospective of works by the Oscar-winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray forms the apex of this year's event. Five of Ray's films will air, all in Bengali and made between 1958 and 1984. In Devi, nominated for the Palme d'Or at Venice in 1962, the worship of a false idol turns to tragedy.

In Ghare-Baire, celebrated for its costume design, politics and romance collide as Ray explores social mores.

Six more regional films made in languages other than Hindi and remarkable for their diversity will be played in Australia for the first time. This year the festival enters its sixth season and spreads to every mainland capital but Darwin. The audience is about 11,000 - which, Bhowmick Lange says, makes it the largest foreign film festival in the country.

INDIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Until September 7, various times, Cinema Paris, Moore Park, $15.50, www.hoyts.com.au.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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