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Rina Chandran

NEW YORK, May 10

SPIDER-MAN may have moviegoers across the country caught in his box office-shattering web, but Aamir Khan has movie critics in the Big Apple bowled over.

Lagaan which has opened at the Film Forum in Manhattan, has received glowing reviews from mainstream publications such as The New York Times and New York Daily News to the niche weekly, Village Voice.

"This is a movie that knows its business (pleasing a broad, popular audience)," said the Times review. "And goes about it with savvy professionalism and genuine flair." The Daily News called the film "a spectacle fit for a rajah." The Village Voice was even more effusive: under a sub-head that said, "Bully for Bollywood," the article read: "Lagaan transcends the generic pageantry of Bollywood's masala moviemaking … Viva Bollywood! Viva Lagaan!"

Lagaan is being screened with an open-ended run and an unusual 15-minute intermission at Film Forum, known for its offbeat and classic fare. While some critics fear that the theatre's regular patrons may turn their noses up at the film, it is a good move, said Gitesh Pandya, Editor and creator of boxofficeguru.com.

"The very limited release should bring out a good amount of foreign film lovers and art house patrons who want the big-screen experience," he said. The challenge, he added, would be to co-exist with the film's official video that is available at American video stores. The film's distributor, Sony Classics, will expand the release depending on the response.

Already, on the Internet Movie Database Web site (www.imdb.com), Lagaan scored an initial average viewer rating of 8.2 on 10, compared to the 7.4 rating for the recent Jodie Foster thriller, Panic Room. (The Bosnian film, No Man's Land, which beat Lagaan to the Foreign Film Oscar, had a rating of 7.9.)

Movie critics also unanimously expressed the hope that Lagaan would be the "crossover" film - much like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon for Chinese and martial arts films - that would make Bollywood fare palatable to Western audience. The Times said: "(It) is perfectly positioned to be the first crossover Bollywood hit to make it into mainstream American theatres." The Village Voice agreed: "(It) could be the film that hoists Bollywood from the cult fringes of American pop culture toward a wider acceptance by the Western mainstream."

Sara Henkin, a university student interested in non-traditional fare, said her interest in the movie was piqued by her viewing of Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding recently, and her one-time experience with Basement Bhangra, a monthly disco popular with young Indians and Indophiles alike.

She expects the film to be fun and colourful with a strong kitsch element, but is was also wary that she might feel excluded because the film is about a culture that she is not a part of. "It'll be something to talk about, but I don't know if it will work for me," she said.

Interestingly, movie critics muse that Lagaan, with its epic length, song-and-dance sequences and elaborate choreography, plays out more like an old Hollywood musical - which can only be seen now on Broadway.

The Village Voice said Lagaan's ultimate appeal is in its brilliantly composed song-and-dance sequences. "Once the music starts, it hits like a drug, and one wishes it would never end… the movie serves up samples of a musical cinema long forgotten in America."

New York magazine promised: "If you've never experienced a Bollywood musical before, seeing Lagaan will be like watching Gone with the Wind without ever having seen a Hollywood movie." The Daily News said Lagaan is the answer to those who ask why they don't make movies like they used to. "They do, but in India."

As for Aamir, he is holding centre-stage even in the cocktail circuit on Tony Fifth Avenue, hailed as "India's hottest new import," his appeal likened to that of Clark Gable's in the 40's. Other reviewers have called his performance a blend of Tom Cruise's cockiness and Tom Hanks' virtue.

Aamir's appeal and Lagaan's wide acceptance seem to confirm the globalisation of the Bollywood genre. New Yorkers are particularly good at rooting for the underdog and, as the Times said: "If a bunch of impoverished farmers can humiliate the British Empire, why can't an Indian film do the same to Hollywood?" Indeed!

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