India, Oct. 11 -- When Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) was attacked for its depiction of India, director Steven Spielberg must have felt blindsided. Yes, he had depicted it as a place in need of a White saviour, and one where chilled monkey brains were considered fit for a banquet. But he was hardly the first filmmaker to exoticise India.

The late Amrish Puri, who played the villain Mola Ram in that film, stood by Spielberg's creative choices. In his autobiography, The Act of Life (2006), Puri wrote: "I know we are sensitive about our cultural identity, but we do this to ourselves in our own films. It's only when some foreign directors do it that we start cribbing."

I was reminded of Puri's assessment while watching Kantara:...