IN THE opening scene Gauri, a young television producer, is waiting for her married lover. Instead, her lover’s wife arrives to announce that the affair is over. Gauri later drowns her sorrows in alcohol and hurtles towards self- destruction.

Unlike traditional Indian film heroines, however, she at no stage bursts into song or prances around a bed of petunias. She and the rest of the cast also speak in English, rather than the customary Hindi.

Despite these apparent impediments in the Indian market, the film, White Noise, has been a success. Playing to packed houses in its sixth week in the cities, it is now being released in small towns where such low-budget movies are usually never shown.

A study of relationships, family and office politics, it reflects a new genre of Indian “crossover” films that marks a radical break with the operatic tearjerkers that have been a Bollywood staple for decades.

Made for a fraction of the cost of mass-market movies, films such as White Noise tackle themes that resonate with educated urban audiences who, having been exposed to Hollywood films and cable television, are looking for more sophisticated fare than the standard musical extravaganza.

“I had a gut feeling that the time had come for a movie like mine,” said Vinta Nanda, the director of White Noise. “There is a whole new momentum now because these movies have set a precedent. They’ve shown that low-budget films on issues such as Aids, career women and modern relationships can be successful.”

These films have come not a moment too soon for India’s £1.9 billion movie industry, which has suffered flop after flop with its mainstream productions — known as masala movies on account of their spicy mix of whisky-guzzling villains, clean-cut heroes and winsome damsels. Desperate directors have thrown in more sex and titillation but to no avail.

“The old formula just doesn’t work now,” said Amod Mehra, a prominent Bombay-based film critic. “The Indian audience has matured and wants something sensible. All these flops have created a space in which new directors have emerged who offer fresh stories and characters.”

One of the crossover films, Page 3, is a satire of India’s celebrity culture. It takes its name from the page in newspaper supplements where the parties of the rich and famous are featured.

“I never imagined it would be such a hit,” said Madhur Bhandarkar, the director. “It shows people are tired of clichéd potboilers and are hungry for something new.”

Unknown actors appear in many of the films, such as Vinod Pande’s Sins, the story of a Catholic priest’s sexual relationship with a young woman, and Manu Rewal’s Chai Pani, about idealistic university graduates confronting government corruption.

The newcomers are increasingly being joined, though, by the superstars of traditional cinema. These include Amitabh Bachchan, a Bollywood legend with more than 100 films, who was voted the biggest star of the millennium in a BBC online poll in 1999. In Black, the biggest of the crossover hits, he plays an ageing alcoholic teacher who tutors a blind, mute and deaf student.

Pritish Nandy, a well known producer, said that actors such as Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, the former Miss World who starred in Gurinder Chadha’s Bride and Prejudice, are increasingly prepared to appear in such films. “They want to do something intelligent and they also hope such films might be shown internationally,” said Nandy.

None of these new films would have been possible without the relatively recent arrival of the multiplex in India. The country used to have only 1,000-seat single-screen cinemas. To be a commercial success a film had to fill these halls and no distributor wanted to touch a serious subject because it could never attract such a large audience.

In 1997, as India entered a retail boom that saw the proliferation of shopping malls, the first multiplex was built. More than 100 have since opened, with another 20 due to be completed this year.

Built in cities and small towns, they have created a new niche audience. Since a graduate is no longer compelled to sit in the same seedy hall as a rickshaw-puller, directors can make movies aimed directly at people like him.

Moreover, the multiplex’s smaller theatres and more expensive tickets mean that a serious low-budget film can be seen by fewer people and still be economically viable.

“The multiplex has transformed the dynamics of the film industry,” said Bobby Bedi, whose film American Daylight, about a call-centre romance, was premiered at the London Film Festival last year. “For the first time we can make focused, niche movies.”

The trend is making even traditional directors think differently. Recently, one masala movie director who recorded six songs for his film — restrained by the standards of the average musical epic — decided to remove three of them. “Black has shown that if a film is well made but has no songs, it can still work,” said Mehra.

Not everyone is happy about the changes. Venkateshwar Rao, a film buff and freelance critic, dismisses the new movies as “pretentious”. He added: “They don’t reflect Indian society, they are just pale imitations of Hollywood. When I go to see a movie, I feel short-changed if there aren’t at least eight songs in it.”

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