I ♥ Spanish Film and Bollywood

Over the spring festival vacation I watched a bunch of movies. Even though work has resumed, no juggling this week plus no improv this week means that I have spent more evenings chilling out at home, so my high rate of movie watching has continued.

I started off the spring festival vacation by watching some Spanish movies, which consisted of an excellent film by Pedro Almodóvar, Todo sobre mi madre. I next saw a couple of films with Penélope Cruz, such as Jamón, jamón and Volver, both of which I enjoyed. Although these three movies may not be representative of Spanish cinema, so far I really enjoy what I've seen. I had seen The Girl of Your Dreams during my senior year of college and I enjoyed it a lot too. Of course, if I restrict myself only to the cream of the Spanish cinema crop, I have no doubt that I will enjoy what I see. I look forward to seeing more of Pedro Almodóvar's movies, as well as movies featuring Penélope Cruz.


But I got a lot of cinematic excitement from outside of Iberian Peninsula as well. I don't remember why I downloaded several films from India, but ever since watching 3 Idiots a few months ago I have gained a new appreciation for Bollywood. Such an appreciation, in fact, that I am now telling all my friends that they should watch 3 Idiots. In the past two weeks I have added greatly to my knowledge of Indian film by watching Lage Raho Munna Bhai, then followed by a couple of films featuring Aamir Khan, who is currently one of the biggest stars in Indian film. I didn't enjoy Taare Zameen Par quite as much as 3 Idiots, although I saw a lot of similarities in the ideas portrayed by the two films. I just finished Lagaan this afternoon, which was really a behemoth of a movie at nearly four hours. I can see why it was subtitled as Once Upon A Time in India, as it was a very epic film, encompassing a colonial/imperial struggle, a clear personal rivalry and some very strong emotions throughout. Not Epic like Lord of the Rings or the Matrix. I mean more like epic as in Ben Hur, although I find myself unable to put into words exactly why I draw that connection. No wonder this is considered a modern classic in Indian film. I really enjoyed it, and I highly recommend that everybody checks it out.


There are still a few other films with Aamir Khan that I have on my computer that I haven't gotten around to yet, but they are definitely a priority for my as far as watching films go. It has also piqued my interest in other Indian film, and I have just looked up a list of highest grossing Indian films and started to download a bunch of them. I have high hopes for Bollywood and I. For my language-learning future, perhaps Urdu/Hindi is in the works after Portuguese. I can think of nothing more appropriate to end this post than to say that I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.