Bollywood cinema remains home to a great paradox, as it is the most produced in the world, but its presence in major festivals or in criticism studies is far less than its size, and this means that it does not receive the same appreciation from critics as it does from the spectator. There was an unspoken conviction that its components had been mastered, and that everything that resulted from it was nothing but a variation on a single principle, lacking originality and only arousing simple tastes. This opinion needs to be a subject of thought. Perhaps the movie “Jersey” in its final version (2022) by Indian director GautamTinnanuri, which achieved great commercial success, will be a sample from which we can start delving into this cinematic film.
The film mixes drama and sports, setting the focus of its story on a cricket player who returns to the playing fields after retiring for a while, to confront his financial problems, and to fulfill his son’s desire to see him carry the national jersey, and takes the spectator to the playing fields to arouse his enthusiasm with the facts of the interviews and their ups and downs and with the details of the life of the cricketer “Arjun.”Talwar” to arouse sympathy for his plight.
Bollywood a Cinematic School That Surpasses Hollywood And Falls Short of it
The stereotypical Indian film industry is referred to as Bollywood, and the word is a derivative of the words Bombay, which is the former name of the city of Mumbai, the entertainment capital of India, and Hollywood, the center of the American film industry. It expresses the film industry’s attachment there to the American film production style.
There is no doubt that we all know that this industry has become huge today, constantly sweeping new markets, but specialist reports go further than that, confirming that it has now surpassed American cinema itself on many levels, as it produces today – in addition to documentaries – about a thousand films. feature film production annually, and sells approximately 800 million tickets to its films. On the financial level, in addition to creating many stars, it represents the main source of income for only about ten million citizens in India.
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But it remains inferior to Hollywood cinema, of course, in terms of resources and influence in shaping public opinion, because it is limited to almost certain types of films, targets specific segments, and lacks media and economic arms to support it or political, which makes it a tool for cultural conquest and for shaping the minds and perceptions of the people of the world, according to a predetermined vision. As is the case with Hollywood cinema.
Overwhelming Love Wild Stories That Create The Magic of Consumer Films
Bollywood brings together unifying elements that permeate its various films, bringing them together and giving them a special identity. The most important of these elements is the emergence of interesting stories that take the viewer into the worlds of imagination and push him to dream of another life, an ideal life often with exemplary heroes.
The overwhelming love that rebels against outdated norms represents the theme of this cinema. A poor young man falls in love with a high-class girl, or vice versa, and social disparity represents the main barrier that prevents this love from crowning with a stable marriage.
As happens in consumer cinema in general, the two lovers share a lot of beauty and kindness, and the boy has extraordinary physical abilities that allow him to overcome the most severe difficulties, and then the ending is poignant, often happy, sometimes sad and frustrating, but it remains imposed on the course of the story, in line with the melodramatic tendency. Which stimulates the viewer’s feelings to sympathize with the two heroes, and the story often develops without raising the thorny issues of society due to its keenness for watching to be pure pleasure.
“Arjun” Fragments of The Glorious Past Tear Apart the Exhausted Present
The movie “Jersey” makes the good fortune in cricket its main subject. This English team sport has a special impact on its followers in the Indian peninsula, in which the bowler hits the ball with a bat, and the player of the opposing team must block it using a bat that is thinner than the bowler’s bat, and this is an intense competition. Enthusiasm builds and intensifies.
The film takes “Arjun Talwar,” the fictional character that the script creates as its hero, and presents him as an exceptional Indian player in the history of this game, when he reaches the peak of glory with his team, “Chandigarh,” when he is 26 years old, and achieves the highest batting average after the 1985 Duleep Cup finals. In 1986, he was chosen to represent the national team, then he was dismissed due to an error in printing the list of invitees. He decided in a moment of anger to retire from playing, and from here his life was turned upside down.
The film begins ten years ago, and tells us about the glorious past through flashback shots, but the present is completely different. Today, the hero, “Arjun,” is unemployed after a malicious accusation of corruption caused him to lose his job in the food sector, and after the hesitation of the lawyer who wants a large sum of money on the pretext of bribing judges. To return him to his work, the house he lived in was ruined.
All of this is in addition to the torment he is experiencing because he feels that he has failed his beloved Vidya, the daughter of the upper class. She defied norms and married him despite her father’s objection. Today, she is struggling through her work as a receptionist in a hostel to manage the family’s expenses. Today, he feels that he is letting his son “Keto” who is fond of sports. Cricket, who wants his father to give him a national team shirt for his birthday, which is too expensive for an unemployed and broke man.
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The Struggle of The Stadiums Creating a Smile is Fraught With Thorns in the Road
The director is trying to make “Jersey” more than a film about the sport of cricket, so he opens the story on more than one axis, and makes it a praise of fatherhood with the redemption and giving it carries. Despite the poverty and oppression that “Arjun” experiences, he was only concerned with one thing, which is how to make… His son is proud of him and happy with the shirt he requested for his birthday.
The film appears to be on a second level, praising the social and educational role of sport. Arjun, who was disappointed in the game of cricket ten full years ago, returns to the field again and joins the Punjab team, then defies the laws of nature, the opposition of his wife, and the machinations of his colleagues who are trying to get rid of him, and to be careful. The team leader who wants to give the opportunity to compete to young men who will be the pillar of the future.
