National Award-winning filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan feels Bollywood is different from Hindi cinema as the former follows a stereotypical pattern of stories. The director says there are people making attempts to come up with content-driven Hindi films as compared what is happening in mainstream. “I wouldn’t call the cinema made in Mumbai as Bollywood. That’s a different kind of cinema. In Hindi cinema, there are people making better films. There are attempts being made,” Adoor said. “But Bollywood cinema is a different world. It is badly stereotyped. It is like a mould where everything fits in.”
The director’s first film Swayamvaram in 1972 is credited to have started the ‘new wave’ cinema movement in Kerala. Even in south, the films have become commercially-driven, says Adoor. “The audience is going towards films that have violence. In Malayalam cinema, it has become a commercial element with a lot of bloodshed. There is an audience for that.”
He says that when he saw some films with high violent content, he thought they wouldn’t work with the audience, but he was proved wrong. “In the past, women would not turn up to see those films, now it has changed.”