I guess everybody has heard atleast once about "bollywood" but there are still many people who have no clue what "bollywood" actually is. So, in this post I'll try to explain and give you an short idea about it.
Bollywood is the name of the colorful and romantic Indian film industry. The name itself is a mixture of the words "hollywood" and Bombay because the first bollywood movies were nothing else than copies of american films. The first part, the "bo-" of the term "bollywood" refers to the Indian city Bombay which could be described as the core of this film industry due to the fact that most of the films were filmed here or atleast used to be.
Even though my parents left India and settled down in Austria, I was still tought the indian culture which is even today, despite of living in Austria with a completely different culture, very important for me. And even if there are many people who think that it's rubbish I have to say that not watching bollywood movies as an Indian is unthinkable^^
In Austria, the films are seen as "kitschig" like my Austrian friends describe it. The austrian audience is simply not used to several songs that are about five minutes long and occur half-hourly. Apart from these features, it usually takes you about three hours to watch one bollywood movie which, I guess, is quite exhausting if you are not used to it. Also, there is mostly the same main plot: the first part is an introduction and you could describe it as "positive" part. The storyline continues until there's a sudden turning point which is usually very dramatic and could be seen as the "negative" part. After that, the plot continues again and in the last part which is again "positive", the problems of the "negative" parts are solved and in most cases there's a happy end.
I think that bollywood is a kind of film category that is not suitable for everybody as for example the Austrian audiences are used to hollywood which is different to bollywood. Nevertheless, the Indian film industry has become more and more famous in the last few years even in Europe and there's a small but still a number of people who enjoy watching these movies despite of not being Indian.
This is Sharukh Khan, the most famous Indian actor. He has played a role in many Indian blockbusters which have been translated to many languages and have even been on RTL 2.
"In guten wie in schweren Tagen" is probably one of the best and most famous Indian movies starring Sharukh Khan, who falls deeply in love with a girl but his parents are against their marriage.
Finally, the following video is one song taken from this movie which shows Sharukh Khan dancing and singing surrounded by a colorful and impressive setting.
I hope that now you know a little bit more about bollywood and feel free to ask me questions if you are interested about this topic! :)
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