According to film trade analyst Komal Nahta , the recent Rakesh Roshan’s film 'Kites' , starring son Hrithik Roshan and Mexican beauty Barabara Mori , is the blunder of the century.
“It’s like in your examination you get an English paper when you’re hoping to get a Hindi paper. It’s shocking. How can they do that?” asks Nahta.
Nahta is one of those who went to watch 'Kites' in Hindi but was surprised that there are hardly any dialogues in Hindi.
“I think the makers of the film overestimated the literacy rate in India,” says Nahta.
The makers of 'Kites', on the other hand, say that the film is mainly for the overseas market and for our desi audience there are subtitles.
And yes, there are subtitles, but in English.
“Why should I watch a film with subtitles in the first place? After all, it’s not a documentary,” says Shailesh Gupta, a regular moviegoer.
“The other blunder,” Nahta adds, “was to translate all the Spanish dialogues into Hindi for small centres and forget about those lines in English, which are kept as it is. Why would anyone from a small town like to watch a Hindi film with English subtitles even if he understands English?”
Agrees film critic Indu Mirani , “First of all, subtitling is not a part of our movie-watching culture, it’s not something we are used to watching, that too on the big screen. The other problem is that the subtitles are in English. They would have dubbed the film in Hindi for the Indian audience. If they can have three versions of the film, why not one more in Hindi?”
Ravi Niranjan, a marketing professional, too feels that it’s almost impossible for him to watch a film with subtitles.
“It’s just so distracting. I keep looking at the subtitles, forgetting about the movie I’m supposed to be watching. I would definitely not like to watch a mainstream Bollywood film with Hrithik Roshan in the lead with English subtitles. Why should I?” he asks.