The international film sections of most video stores are often the most overlooked by American audiences, evident by the thin layer of dust which clings to the skimpy selection of videos filed in the foreign section at mainstream video stores such as Blockbuster Video.

But as the popular cinema of India, known as Bollywood, begins to gain international popularity, this may soon change.

Cinema in India started with the traveling film shows of the Lumiere brothers, innovators of the motion picture, who brought the medium to the attention of a number of countries, said Dina Bangdel, visiting associate professor in the history of art department. Bangdel is teaching a course dealing with issues of identity in Bollywood cinema.

“Film for India has always sort of been at the cutting edge, and presently they make more than 900 films a year,” she said.

Ron Green, professor of film studies, said the film industry in India is serious business.

“It is the second largest industry in the world and has been for decades behind the U.S., so it is an enormous industry,” he said.

Indian films must contain a mixture of elements, such as musical dance numbers and action sequences, to properly create the formula of a popular Bollywood film, Bangdel said.

“The other thing that’s really interesting about Indian cinema is it has to have a certain, what they call, formula or ingredients, and the term that popular films use is what they call masala. And masala means the spices that one uses in cooking,” she said.

The Indian Students Association is one student group which uses the films of Bollywood for entertainment and recreation.

“I think we do it because it’s like a connection for international students who are coming here, and it’s something that still connects them to India,” said Aparna Donthi, president of the Indian Students Association.

A major difference between the Western moviegoing experience and Indian moviegoing experience is the audience reaction to the films.

“It’s definitely a different environment,” Donthi said. “It’s a lot rowdier, people make a lot of noise. It’s not like you have to be quiet the whole time like theaters here. It’s more than just laughing out loud or something. It’s like whistling at a pretty girl or making comments about what just happened, loud comments so everyone can hear it. It’s a lot more enthusiastic, I guess.”

Bangdel said during action sequences the audience often cheers and interacts in a way that would be unusual to the Western filmgoer.

Several important characteristics of Indian films set them apart from American films.

“Even before the films come out, the soundtracks are released so everybody knows the songs,” said Chris Stults, curatorial assistant in the film and video department at the Wexner Center. “Then it’s a much more interactive experience when you’re watching the film, since everybody’s kind of familiar with the songs already.”

The vocalists, called playback singers, are stars even though they never actually appear on screen, Bangdel said.

Western filmgoers might be turned off by the singing and dancing and far-fetched scenarios, but these things are what give the films their entertainment value. Kerry Brown, a graduate student in art history who is taking Bangdel’s cinema class, said she was initially turned off by the idea of Bollywood films because of the singing and the dancing, but after one film she was hooked.

“There’s always a happy ending. There’s always this sort of escape from reality,” she said.

Brown said Bollywood cinema focuses on escapism and not on the graphic depiction of reality, as it often is in the West.

Genevieve Reiner, a graduate student in art history, said a Western viewer must suspend disbelief to enjoy this kind of entertainment because of the fantastic scenarios and non sequiturs in the films.

“They’re not made to reflect reality; they are made to make you forget your life and to forget the everyday. We tend not think like that,” she said.

This approach to filmmaking has a value beyond a simple escape from reality, Stults said.

“A lot of Westerners, they think of it as really hokey, cheesy fun, but there’s more to it than that. It’s another type of filmmaking and with a good film it can just be a rapturous, transcendent experience where it doesn’t obey the formal boundaries that a Western film would. It’s just completely unchained,” he said.

In the past, it was difficult to find subtitled versions of the films, making them inaccessible to a non-Hindi speaking audience. With an increased number of Indians living abroad, and DVD technology, which allows for multiple subtitle tracks to be encoded, this problem is vanishing, Stults said.

American audiences seeking Bollywood films can find the more popular titles in most video stores, but enthusiasts or those seeking less popular titles can try Indian markets and the library, Brown said.

The films of Bollywood are a welcome change to some people.

“We all get swept up in what Hollywood expects us to watch, and society tells us what’s good or bad,” Reiner said. “Every now and then if you go outside of the box, you’ll find a gem of a movie.”