It is a matter of pride that two Indian productions won Oscars on Sunday night in Los Angeles, the home of Hollywood. a telugu dance track called grandson grandson from the movie RRR won the award for Best Original Song, while Karthik Gonsalves’s 40-minute watch, elephant whispering, won the coveted statuette for Best Documentary Short Subject at the 95th Academy Awards. As the stated goal of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of America is to advance the “art and science” of films, we can assume that its jury accomplished both functions. The song and dance sequence won is quite catchy. Its lyrics stir with metaphors of energetic motion – a raging bull kicking up dust, for example – and the moves on display are an acrobatic wonder of originality, especially the furious footwork. In contrast, the documentary goes along, but only with the story of an elephant adopted and raised by an Indian couple to sneak inside our hearts. They keep talking to the calf, which gives us a surprising response to all the caressing and nagging of its adoptive parents. While it’s no tragedy, the film does have one lump-in-the-throat moment that gives it its poignancy and poignancy. Overall, this is an ode to our capacity for compassion. These two winners deserve applause, as does any such praise. Still, it’s hard to shake the hunch it was more about Eastern exotica than artistic cinema for many audiences in the West, perhaps even for the Oscar jury.
We don’t have a large enough random sample of perceptions to draw any conclusions, but some of the Western talk on social media is quite revealing. For more than a few people, the main attraction of grandson grandson—literally ‘dance dance’—is Where? This prank was shot. This marvel of choreography was filmed in front of the Mariinsky Palace, the obscure official residence of Ukraine’s president before Russia’s invasion last year catapulted Zelensky into the spotlight as democracy’s latest hero. The choice of this particular location in Kiev was surely a coincidence, but it clearly enhanced the video clip’s appeal. In fact, it sounds so upbeat that some listeners even had to point out that its title has nothing to do with an alliance called NATO. Nor was it some kind of backed-up chant; Just a call to dance, that’s all. But then again, all works of art are open to interpretation, including wasted effort, so perhaps it’s best to let people hear what they want.
Audio association matters. For example, a tusker’s trumpet still rings ‘India’ in much of the West, thanks to Raj-era lore, although elephants are found elsewhere as well. so it shouldn’t surprise us elephant whispering created a stir around the ancient Indian tale of the six blind men and the elephant. In this story six blind men try to describe the animal. Touches a leg and says it is like a tree. Another feels the trunk and compares it to a snake. A third identifies the ear as a type of fan. The fourth finds his tail like a rope. Feels your side as the fifth wall. The sixth depicts his tusk as a spear. As a parable, it is meant to illustrate how elusive subjective truth can be; Also, the danger of a monocle-view being better than different perspectives. As a trope, it suggests a heavy sigh about how hard it is to simultaneously grasp this exotic land of everything and vice versa. Here’s the irony: Uncle Oscar’s lens may no longer be ‘orientalist’, but, according to the description of its focus, it is still not wide enough for a full-spectrum view of the artistic best of Indian cinema.
catch all business News, market news, today’s fresh news events and Breaking News Update on Live Mint. download mint news app To get daily market updates.