India’s action movies: 5 things you can learn about India from dishshum, dishshum
India's action movies are not exactly chop-socky. They're more like kung funky. Nobody seems to pay any attention to whether the blows look like they're landing, while somebody off camera makes a noise that sounds like "dishshum, dishshum" to imitate the sound of punches hitting flesh (or wood?).
Sometimes, though, a clueless foreigner can put things in context better than an expert homegrown film critic, as Robert Brockway proves via cracked.com — complete with STUNNING VIDEO EVIDENCE. Here's Brockway's Five Things You Can Learn About India from its action flicks:
#5 Physics Need Not Apply
As in Tamil movies of the genre made famous by Superstar Rajnikanth, in which "you can't pass the salt in a Tamil movie without accidentally sending somebody's creepy uncle hurtling through a window."
#4 Time Holds No Meaning
Well, first of all, these movies go on for more that THREE HOURS. But that's not all, according to our analyst, who clarifies: "when I say it's a three-hour epic, you need to understand that means three Tamil hours, which translate to American chronology in roughly the same ratio as dog years. This is 20 hours of movie shoved into 168 frantic minutes. Watching Enthiran is like learning kung fu in The Matrix; there's just no way this much information should be delivered to your brain that quickly. It's unnatural, and there are sure to be repercussions."
#3. Love Like You've Never Been Hurt, Rape Like Nobody's Watching
Here, Brockway defies paraphrase, I'm afraid…
There's only one main female character in Enthiran, Sana, and she has two jobs: to be compared (not always favorably) to foodstuffs via song, and to almost get raped. Seriously, every musical number insists she's an overripe kumquat or mayonnaise in chocolate, and for every single one of her actions there is an equal but opposite attempted gangbang. She's nearly assaulted by the Indian Backstreet Boys, a cult that worships boomboxes, a mildly retarded farmer — even the titular robot character gets in on the action, and the movie makes it explicitly, repeatedly clear that he was not built with a penis. At that point, he's just raping her on principle.
#2. What the [Word Omitted to Keep GlobalPost Rated PG13] Is a Context?
"Whereas Bollywood movies will often segue into relevant musical numbers, Enthiran will slam on the brakes to make you watch random music videos at the drop of a Haatim (that's the mustachioed fellow who just got booted through the cinder block wall behind you)."
#1. There Are No Rules
This is where you really do learn something about Indian society, because the precept applies just as universally off screen.
In short, this movie is the best thing that I, or anybody else, has or indeed ever will see in the aggregate of human history. And if this masterwork is at all reflective of the society that produced it, then I am forced to conclude that India is a terrifying, time-skipping, physics-defying amoral chaos dimension.
Looks like cracked.com just recruited about a billion new fans. But Brockway better not go to Tamil Nadu anytime soon. They take Rajni pretty seriously down there, hairpiece and all.