rss feedChasing celluloid dreams in Bangladesh – among crowds, poverty, buses and trains
Spain-based elegant mob films has released an enthralling clip from its look inside Bangladesh’s movie industry – Welcome to Dhallywood! – and the people who want to make it big.
I haven’t seen the entire film about this country’s movie industry.
But the colors, characters and storytelling elements are attention grabbers, especially since the country’s industry stands in the shadow of the more well-known Bollywood in India.
Among the documentary’s characters:
- Animesh, the director, who is pursuing his first movie and works the phone while sitting in a van and walks in an alley with a motorcycle zipping by him.
- Nasreen, who wants to become a top movie actress and says an influential mentor is necessary to reach her goal.
- Kabir, who has written songs for movies for two decades but – get this – can’t support himself this way so he works as a journalist at a prestigious newspaper.
But the scenes - of people on boats bobbing on water as the sun sets, of train passengers rolling by wooden shacks and others lining up at a theater - instantly give the viewer the context out of which these movies and dreams are rising.
I don’t want to romanticize the country - which has an estimated 160 million people - because certainly there are personalities there that are similar to other places in the world.
But if the country was filled with sleek suburban shopping malls and shiny automobiles from Germany and Japan, the context for this documentary would be different.
Certainly, improved economies bring in more money, which give birth to higher incomes, better housing and pursuit of the modern.
I wonder, though, how many people – both online and in person – who live outside of Bangladesh would pause to notice this fascinating moment in time in the attention economy.
The clip on Vimeo caught my attention after I spotted the row of long-distance buses waiting for passengers, as well as the motorcycles, trains and people bobbing boats at sunset.
It reminded me of my own travels in China over the years.
As we have seen, the world’s most populous place has undergone dramatic changes in a short period.
But I appreciate the elegant mob film crew for posting the clip and their other work online.
On the company’s blog, which is written in Spanish, it looks like the Madrid crew is tracking the places where online visitors live.
So, please add the Greater Seattle Area from the United States.
In terms of color and context, the clip reminds me of the rich work that some Guardian staff members produced in China – when they looked at red lanterns.
