'Tiger' may burn bright

India's "Hey Ram" may well fade into oblivion as it vies with impressive works from the rest of the world for the Oscar nomination, writes GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN.

IT is the same story every time. Year after year, India sends one of its worst movies for a possible Oscar nomination in the foreign language category. This January, the Film Federation of India submitted Kamal Haasan's "Hey Ram". Its blurb - which will form part of the publicity campaign to try and catch the eye of the 5,000-odd voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences - reads: "The Partition era events of India as seen through the eyes of the man who was commissioned to kill Mahatma Gandhi".

"Hey Ram" is far more uninspiring than this synopsis. Badly directed, poorly edited and unimaginatively crafted, it can well be a grand example of what narcissism is all about. If Kamal Hasan finds it almost impossible to let the camera turn away from him, his own acting appears so jaded and predictable that it seemed like the end of the road for one whom I still consider has the fire and range to produce magic.

It was this "Hey Ram" that the Federation deemed fit for Hollywood, completely ignoring at least half a dozen far better works that India produced last year.

What about, for instance, Buddhadeb Dasgupta's excellently visualised and splendidly narrated tale of "Uttara", which won him the Best Director's Award at Venice a few months ago.

I am not surprised that this did not go. After all, the Federation's earlier choices centred on annoyingly inferior movies like "Jeans", "Indian", "Guru" and "Kuruthipunal", despite the fact that much better stuff was available.

Well, does "Hey Ram" stand a chance of being nominated in the best foreign lingo slot ? Hardly, one would say, in the face of some extraordinary fare from the rest of the world.

Here are a few examples: Hong Kong's "In the mood for love" (by Wong Kar-wai), Korea's "Chunhyang" (Im Kwon-taek), Poland's "Life as a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease" (Krzysztof Zanussi), Sweden's "Songs from the Second Floor" (Roy Andersson) and Taiwan's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (Ang Lee).

Lee has been making waves. His film has been a hit in Asia, it won rave reviews at Cannes and Toronto last year, and it has all the ingredients to seduce the Academy into nominating it.

So what if it is in Mandarin. It can still sneak into the big league of being nominated for the Best Picture in the general category, not just foreign language.

It is true that in the 72 years that Hollywood has been presenting its Oscars, only six foreign movies (in tongues other than English) have won the nomination for the Best Picture.

The earliest was the 1938 "Grand Illusion" by Jean Renoir which got in on the sheer strength of brilliant notices, though the Best Picture Prize went to "You Can't Take It With You".

The latest to hit it off with the Academy was the 1998 "Life is Beautiful", by Roberto Benigni, which set a record by clinching seven nominations, including the one for the Best Picture. It did not win this prize, but got three others, including those for the Best Foreign Language and the Best Actor (Benigni).

In those six decades that separated the French Renoir from the Italian Benigni, European works garnered all the attention in the Best Picture category.

Greece's Costa Gavras not only took four nominations, thus breaking a 31-year-old drought, but his "Z" (1969) was also named the top picture by the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. "Z" did not take home the Best Picture Oscar, but it did the one for the Best Foreign Language entry.

Sweden's 1971 "The Emigrants" (by Jan Troell) earned altogether three nominations (Best Picture included), and Ingmar Bergman's 1972 "Cries and Whispers" (also in Swedish) attracted five nominations (Best Picture as well).

There was then a dry spell of more than 20 years before the 1995 "The Postman" (Italian) snagged the Best Picture nomination, though not the award itself. In a scene that has remained focussed on Europe, L, Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" from Asia assumes a special significance this year. If it is nominated as the Best Picture, it will be the first in an Asian language.

In fact, even in the other top categories, only two Asian movies have won nominations: Akira Kurosawa's "Ran" (1985) and Hiroshi Teshigahara's

"Woman in the Dunes" (1964) - both from Japan - for Best Direction.

Lee has proved to be a favourite, at least till now. His creation got a pat from the audience at Toronto, usually considered a launching pad for the Oscars. The Los Angeles critics honoured "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", the first time they have extended such recognition to a non-English work. They also adjudged Lee the Best Helmer.

Lee enjoys a couple of more advantages. Although his "Crouching Tiger.." has not been released in a dubbed version, those who have seen it hardly seem to remember the subtitles, which is a very good thing. Besides, the story has a romantic angle, which most Academy members just adore.

Lee, who earlier gave us "Sense and Sensibility" and "The Ice Storm" (both in English), this time draws his plot from an 80- year-old novel, written by Wang Du Lu. The story itself takes place a hundred years before that in the Qing dynasty. Its last decades have often been looked upon with a sense of nostalgia, because they signalled the end of a purer and more heroic age, which Western influences destroyed.

Sweet and sentimental, this is perhaps Lee's most wonderful creation till now, and the Academy might just about fall headlong in love with it.

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Section  : Entertainment