Bollywood in Germany - How a German sees Hindi movies
or what makes me run some Bollywoodblog.de in German.
Sooraj invited me to write some little article here in IndiBlog about me and my most-of-my-freetime eating Passion: Bollywood . (After finishing i see its not a short article - sorry)
Me
Michael, 30 years old german, lawyer but on the other hand normal. Some year ago RTL2, german lower class tv station, started broadcasting “Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham” in synchonized version. The first time Bollywood entered german stage (some low spectator broadcasts on little stations are not worth being not mentioned). Allmost 2 Million spectators watched that movie. A trend was born. Since then, bollywood is in german mind, if there are some comparing with it or such way - bollywood growed to some trend who had at least hit and stroke down germany. Since then, RTL2 broadcasted once in a while some synchronised version (in the moment one or two times a month), and some community of 1 Million of truehearted watchers join each show.
The way i discovered Hindi Cinema
Me for myself discovered bollywood for some other way. For my girlfriedn making some private audio book reading pankaj mishras novel “Benares oder eine Erziehung des Herzens” i searched for indian sound files. In my little hometown i didn’t find some, but discovered DVD Version of K3G. Bought it. Used it, searching for soundfiles, saw the movie, was fallen in love. Thats how i became BollyManiac. My former private blog developed to some Bollywoodnews only blog called “Bollywoodblog” with german languaged news and reviews (and some videoblog as latest feature). In Germany nothing equal could be found these days. Parallel i bought dvds in original sound, cause there are much to less movies synchronised yet (and allmost only shahrukh khan movies, in low quality, to make fast money out of the trend, the dark side, you know). And thats it. Here i am, watching allmost only bollywood movies, searching the net to get latest, hottest and best news, translate them or work with my own words. thats me, thats bollywoodblog.de
Why Hindi (and other Indian) Cinema
Germanys cinema is so mind-orientated or only humouros style. Hollywood is much of effects and sometimes deepminded. But all lake in draining in emotional ways. oh, i (as male) cried watching “whale rider” or “iris”, but only bollywood made the way direct to my (in business days lost) emotional trueness. someway naiv, but hey, thats me. Bollywood stroke me the way i am, not the way i should be (as german or american cinema try to make me)
Its so more fascinating, bollywood. Of course there is some special about it what hollywood lost in all the years watching it on tv or in cinema. But the most most is, as i’d written before: Bollywood made me wear my feelings in my eyes, on my tongue, in my heart. And thats what i am. Thats me. And so we met each other, brothers, someway, but the older one helping me being myself.
Sounds someway crazy, doesn’t it? But in my years of studying i got someway what me german cinema teaches: Mind orientated. Bollywood leads me back to myself (but doesn’t forget to talk to my mind)
What it is for me
Bollywood is so much full of live, not only bad thought, teaching audience orientated. Bollywood is entertainment- the way german (and european) cinema doesn’t work. Interesting, as much as Bollywood (or indian cinema) copies ideas from hollywood, hollywood looks for me less ideas having than bollywood. Of course its only a question of somes point of view. But i am writing for myself, don’t i?
German Community
German (and european) Bollywoodcommunity is growing, also some what to tell us that the trend will (or has) end soon. There is still much to discover, also the international community, and that way i am grateful to Sooraj giving me this opportunity to talk to international (indian) community. Whats some internet-world without internationalization? Nothing. But as for us not english native speakers its not easy to get as much stuff as we need to live with: we’d to import it from the us or india paying for that high fees. But hey, there must be any reason for me working, dont you think so?
One problem in germany is also that (made by tv) bollywood has only shahrukh khans face for many spectators. Many fans only know him and are not able to explore the fantastic, much more coloured bollywoodworld with different directors, heroes and heroines. they think - and the less interested more than we fans - that bollywood is some genre with three or four hands full of movies made ever and don’t imagine there are movies with charactors the name they don’t are able to speak out loudly. They don’t know much but with that less knowledge they’re able to speak out loudly stupid opinions - often dvd or movie magazines or newspapers take these opinions and carry them. i call these things YASBA, yet another stupid bollywood argumentation. For example, bollywood, as i understand it, is no genre like western or musical or science fiction - cause these genres are available in Hindi cinema too. But as many shows on tv or dvd are sold as “love and song and dance” movies with shahrukh khan and kajol (sometimes rani mukherjee or preity zinta) many think THAT is bollywood. Its like visiting germany in winter, when snow falls thinking germany is a cold, cold, cooooooold country. Or its like first time eating ice-cream thinking all food should be cold. Just ignorant and stupid. But this way germany is an underdeveloped country, and we bollywoodbloggers (some write often about bollywood, especially my friends oliver, maria and mirie and german speaking bollywoodguru marco, who has seen more than 800 bollywoodmovies yet, much more than i have) try to spread our opinion, our joy and the emotion, what we like what bollywood is - bollywood is color - out in our world.
For some of the words Sooraj named i could speak about
I for myself liked India for some long time, reading newer indian authors like rushdie, mishra, kesavan and some others. Started with indian food and more i’d lately. Some years ago i didn’t like these freaks who like all about some foreign country. Right now i’d explored in myself the same for india. As time goes by. Religion, someway i am impressed the way bollywood works so easy with such heavy themes. As india has had (and / or has) some problems with fanatics i am allways wondering how superb actors change their religious behaviour. The same with directors. It doesnt matter which religion some in some movie has. Not the same here, any other than christian religion is someway foreign. Thats the way it is. I dont want to speak about some fanatics who you can find in any community, in any country, in any religion. I am born as catholic and i will die the same way. I can’t imagine to take religion as some trend you can change as often as you want to.
Thats all for now, hope you enjoyed these point of view from some indian and bolly/kollywood loving german.
greetings to you all
michael
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Comments
Hi Sooraj, thank you for reading the article - some friend of mine told me some time ago about my bad grammar in it, so its no pleasure in reading it 
Germanys Bollywood Community went from a hand full of freaks to a trend only one year ago - but right now we’re discussing about the trend has ended or not. Germanys largest board at molodezhnaja.ch has 1.000.000 hits each month. Its not much at all in country with 80 million people. But its also not less. Mosty women enjoy bollywood, and much of them are not native germans - but thats one really big point: bollywood manages with typical (from a german point of view) asian color to connect different cultures (as germany is not really some multi-cultural country, foreigners are not yet integrated as much as it should…)
Shahrukh: In germany its the problem that shahrukh introduced Bollywood to germany. So he is the face bollywood has in germany, more than in india and the rest. Every Shahrukh Film is synchronised (some really bad) cause you can sell these things to hordes of fallen-in-love-teenies 
But Shahrukh can also play wonderful. His appearance eats many other actors, only if he stays someway calm like in “Swades” than he is great.
Movies, so much to explore. I’ve seen less than 100 right now, none in telugu, none in malayam, none in kannada. But germany doen’t realize that there is some other indian movie industry than bollywood in mumbai. Right now they sell 12B with simran, jyothika and shaam as Bollywood movie - cause bollywood sells.
its some risk with this low quality high prices sells: they can make bollywoods call become bad, but we’ll see that. We fans mostly buy un-synchonized dvds.
thats all for now,
thanks again for your reply
michael
Hi Michael - You being a foreigner to the English language, you are not expected to be perfect, so no worries.
If you are interested in seeing movies in other languages, I suggest Malayalam movies. I think they have so much more depth than many Tamil or Hindi movies.
But I’m hearing that Bollywood will become more popular in the West because of India rising in the world scene. Right now the entire Southeast Asia, Middle-East and Japan are nuts about Indian movies. It’s about time the trend spread westward.
sooraj,
Last heard that Tamil movies are already popular in Japan and Korea..hopefully this will expand towards southeast Asia too
Michael,
Its interesting to read abt your interest in Indian films. Btw, I am a fan of European cinema and I like a lot of German films and directors like Rainer Warner Fassbinder, Herzog and Hirschbiegel. I aspire to be a filmmaker and hence I watch all the great movies. That said, yes, the naiveness/simplicity, fun and entertainment values of Indian films are difficult if not impossible to find anywhere and am sure should impress a lot of foreigners and not just Indians
Well i to all the european fans of bollywood.I am shocked to see all these praise for bollywood.I am an Indian and naturally have seen bollywood from my child hood days. But as i grew up i started watching hollywood movies beginning with action movies (james bond and Jurassic park). It was around that time when i started reasoning and thus naturally fell out of love for bollywood. i had all the nasty things for bollywood infact i still regard it as one of the most uncreative movie industry in the whole world.Though i have seen just the hollywood and have never been exposed to other cinemas except chinese which i think are definitely much better then bollywood.It has only been 2-3 years that bollywood has come up with some good movies especially this year where even very low budget movies like “Khosla ka ghosla” have infact come out to be better then some of those big budget moview which try to copy hollywood(DHOOM 2,KRISH). I cant understand how can anybody like that stupid movie named K3G.It was full of popmpous display of wealth of man and had a pathetic story and screenplay.The only think worth mentioning would be its songs.And i tell you if you really wnat to see good SRK movies then watch “YES BOSS”, “KABHI HAAN KABHI NAA” and “SWADES”. These are the two SRK movies which boost of some substance Which most of his movies lack. SRK movies are nothing but big budget indian weddings.
which are nothing but fake.
Apart from SRK the actors that i like the most and i believe are of internatinal standards are ‘Saif Ali khan’ and ‘Ajay Devgan’.A movie named ‘OMKARA’ was released this year which is an adaptation of ‘OTHELLO’ in which both these actors starred. If you want to watch some good indian cinema then i would reommend you OMKARA. The director of the OMKARA has directed the indian part of the latest movie being directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
Comments are welcome.
Thank you, Michael. That’s simply a wonderful article you’ve written straight from your heart, I can’t thank you enough!
I loved the words: lawyer but on the other hand normal, and also some of your constructions like “BollyMania” and “YASBA”.
I didn’t know that there was a sizeable German community watching Bollywood movies, and to see you also mention Kollywood - the Tamil movie industry - another great film industry.
As you say, Shah Rukh Khan simply fogs the rest of Bollywood, which is a sad situation because I don’t consider him as a great actor at all. But some of the movies like those of Salman Khan’s are so boring and frustrating, I have to say that Hindi scriptwriters don’t have any idea of comedy at all.
On the other hand, there are some excellent heavy-weight movies, recent ones being Family, Rang De Basanti etc. Your point about Religion is indeed very true - a character of any religion is accepted by the Indian community if the acting is good.
Your piece opens a window to us Indians into the German and European community that watches Bollywood films.