Dhallywood drama

An award-winning photographer Sarker Protick’s Love Me or Kill Me series captures the Bangladeshi film industry in all its flashy glory

The Bangladeshi film industry — based in Dhaka, and so known as ‘Dhallywood’ — has been churning out movies since 1956. Dhallywood movies have fallen out of favour among the richer classes, who prefer foreign films. The growing influence of Bollywood (Hindi cinema) films in Bangladesh has also had an adverse impact on the local industry. Yet the Dhallywood industry produces around 100 movies a year, and still enjoys the support of many ordinary movie-goers.

Love Me or Kill Me is the title of a Dhallywood film, one that expresses the extreme emotions that define the genre. Love and revenge are the core ingredients of our movies. The stories do not change much — boy meets girl, falls in love, bad guy takes the girl away, and hero fights to get her back. There is always similar climax and a happy ending. People love it.

When I was growing up in Dhaka, there was no cable TV except the national channel. Bangla film was for us the height of entertainment. Slowly, other films and TV channels took over. We didn’t think Dhallywood movies were cool anymore; they no longer played a part in my life. In the process of taking photographs of Dhaka city, I visited a film studio and was captivated by the colours, the light and the atmosphere. The events and details were odd, sometimes bizarre. The costumes are flashy, the sets and effects are cheap, and the colours are daring. There seems little contact with reality but I find it full of life.