Notes from a sub-continent... (Monsoon Wedding (DVD))

Member Name: andrewl

Product:	Monsoon Wedding (DVD)
Date:	25/08/09 (57 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Strong performances and brilliant direction

Disadvantages: Tedious idiots will moan about subtitles

The mainstream success of Monsoon Wedding in the UK, followed a couple of years later by Bride and Prejudice, was heralded as the coming of age of the Indian sub-continent's film industry - or Bollywood as it tends to be known. While the commercial success of such an ambitious and unusual film is certainly to be applauded, I have certain concerns about the publicity surrounding the film, which I shall make clear.

Anyway. The film does exactly what is says on the tin. It recounts the events surrounding a wedding during Monsoon season in Delhi. According to much of the press coverage, it's also a chronicle of the friction between India's traditional values and its emerging dot com philosophy. However, this aspect is definitely not as interesting as the rest of the film, and is thankfully restricted to a few shots of golf courses, chat shows and people struggling to get a signal on mobile phones. In keeping with the Bollywood tradition, the film contains a lot of music and colourful scenes, of which more later.

So then. India. A country where arranged marriages are frequent. Arranged marriages are heavily criticised in our Western world. I don't have the time to debate it here, but I'll give you a few thoughts.

1) Spiralling divorce rates. If so many marriages are so inherently unhappy, does it really matter how the spouses meet?

2) Open your eyes. It's true that in extreme cases, young people refusing to participate in an arranged marriage are disowned or even physically abused. We all know 'Christian' families who aren't talking to each other because someone married someone else the elders disapproved of.

3) In any case, it makes a very pretty film.

The other major complaint against the arranged marriage is usually a feminist one about being stifled by patriarchal values and stuff. There's probably quite a lot of truth in this, but it's interesting that Mira Nair (the director) chooses to make her film very much from the female perspective. In this film, it's the daughter who asks her father to arrange the marriage when she realises that her lover is not going to leave his wife. The daughter is in control almost all of the time, and the groom that is provided seems out of his element - partly as a result of coming over from the States. Despite the intensely ritualistic framework of the wedding (which dictates the structure of the film), it seems to me that this particular arranged marriage is actually a blistering bit of feminine empowerment. All the singing and dancing is arranged by the women, and many of the rituals see men chased from the room. All the men do in the film is pay for stuff.

Just so as not to alienate the reactionary audience, however, Nair throws in a secondary, spontaneous romance. The wedding planner is not Jennifer Lopez this time, but an initially unappealing man called Dubey, who falls deeply and sweetly in love with the family's dreamy servant. A refreshingly innocent and smooth courtship involving sweet gestures with marigolds helps take the sting from the family politics and murky dramas involving the richer family. It's the equivalent of Friar Lawrence and the Nurse gettin' it on in Romeo and Juliet (You missed that scene at school? Oh well).

The filming style is distinctly documentary. In this evil age of 'docu-soaps' I was dreading a voice to actually come out and say 'Two days before the wedding, and the cracks are beginning to show.' For much of the film, the narrative is completely subordinate to painting a snapshot of contemporary India. The young girl's final meeting with her arrogant ex-lover is less about her character development than it is a chance to hint at massive police corruption and brutality in Delhi, for example. This isn't so much about the impact of the digital revolution really, but the idea of Westernisation is introduced as a potential problem. The businessman is failing because of his refusal to get a computer, and his blatantly gay son is doing nothing but watching cookery programmes on TV. The monsoon, when it arrives, provides a particularly rich sequence of images.

When the narrative is allowed a chance to shine, most of the dialogue scenes are shot with a hand-held camera, adding to the documentary feel. It's at this point that we are supposed to be listening to what is said, rather than the walls behind the figures. Nair directs the viewer's attention with consummate skill throughout the film. As for the dialogue, most of it is in English, although often with heavy accents. Subtitles are employed for the odd exchange in Hindi, and I gather there's some wit going on there. There were quite a few Indian guys watching the film with us, and they laughed their heads off frequently.

When, to put it delicately, 'words are not enough', and the various couples in the film embrace, Nair employs a couple of tricks, such as jump-cuts and multiple takes. At the moments at which our sense of escapism should be heightened, we are therefore reminded of the film's fictionality. At no point until the very end are we truly allowed to let our imaginations run too far, not while the director still has things to say.

The most striking thing Nair has to say is even more of a tricky subject than arranged marriage. The taboo of child abuse is raised, with all the disgust, disbelief and outrage it inevitably brings. The culprit is overwhelmingly obvious from the outset, and Ria's reaction to the man is one of genuine suppressed loathing, which only finally boils over when it becomes clear that he is repeating his crimes on an even younger cousin.

When 'Uncle Tej' enters the house on the day of the wedding, following a confrontation, it is with the assured smirk of a man who thinks his money has made him untouchable. He represents the exact type of evil patriarch otherwise absent in the film. Just in case anyone was confused about Nair's message, however, his face is lit from below as he enters, and his close-up features are revealed to be nothing short of demonic.

In this, the film's real climax, traditional values of 'selective blindness' come head to head with women's liberation. The suspense is heart-stopping, all the more so because we are never really shown the abuse taking place. Nair spells out her ideal India in a few short scenes, and then it's on to the dancing and stuff.

Now, I have nothing bad to say about this film. I thought it was wonderful. But I think it should be recognised that you're not watching an Indian film as such. This is a film that's aimed squarely at the Western world, as various rituals are described in a fair amount of unnecessary detail so you always know what's going on. It's no more an Indian film than Notes From a Small Island was a British book. Both are the work of people passionate about, and yet faintly amused by their subjects, yet both have an eye on international sales. If you enjoy this film, as indeed you should, take it as an introduction to Indian culture and values, and sample some Bollywood films produced for the domestic market. My worry is that people assume that this film will provide all they think they need to know about one of the world's largest countries, just as Amelie seems to be regarded as French Cinema-Lite.

I have to put up my hand and take the bullets here. I've not seen anything like as many Bollywood films as I'd like. But I'm going to try.

Summary: The Amelie of Indian film