Monsoon Wedding

Saw this at a comfortable little place near Canal St...

Quite an excellent movie. I didn't realize how much influence the British had left on the Indian upper class. The movie is wholly Indian, but about 65%, I would say, is in English. But as far as portraits of the modern Indian gentry, you can't beat it with a stick.

There are several plots dashing and weaving throughout the movie, but none is complex at all. The woman ambivalent about her arranged marriage, the father who resents his son's femininity and the son who wants his father to understand him, a blooming love affair between servants/hired help...it's not Chinatown. The film is made up of characters and emotion. Many good performances by an ensemble cast. For some reason it's rated R, although it was deemed appropriate for six-year-olds in France and seven-year-olds in Sweden. Maybe because of one memorable line: "The betrayal of your Erect Dick...how does it feel?"

Tengentially, you might notice that many of the of the characters in this film do not look entirely "Indian". Many could pass for Italian/Greek/Generally Mediterranean. You may also be familiar with the strict caste system of India, which rigidly divides the classes.

Well, interestingly enough, the Hindi word for caste is "varna", which means "colour". The lightest are on the top, and the darkest are on the bottom. Furthermore, while this may not be entirely substantiated, one source suggests that the darker people of India are the indegenous, while the lighter are of mixed indegenous and European blood. There is much more for me to learn about the world.

there's a couple of "fucks" and "shits" here and there, but otherwise it's a family film.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

Its one of the few "art films" that even mainstream watches would like also. It shows western culture intertwined with native culture that is prevalent all over the world and also the class systems that almost everywhere in the world has.

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2002/02/22/monsoon/

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it's so far from being an "art film"… it's totally populist, almost a popcorn movie. however, if it ain't from America, they call it "art film".

interestingly enough, Monsoon Wedding would probably be called an art film in India, too, since it doesn't feature the usual lineup of stars, has no song-and-dance production numbers, has frank talk about sex, etc. etc.

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

i was almost expecting it to be 4 hours long with plenty of song and dance. but when i looked at a review and it said @ 2hrs i was shocked.

always does something different. her first film "Salaam Bombay" was pretty controversial at the time, and it had been a while since any non-Bollywood films had been seen outside of India.

my favorite of her films, of course, is Mississippi Masala, featuring the always alluring Sarita Choudhury. though Kama Sutra is a classic in my book, too... the story was so-so, but come on!

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The man who thinks at 50 the same way he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life - Muhammed Ali

...see Lagaan. Yes it's 4 hrs, with song and dance, and centers around cricket. But anybody who enjoys movies will love this... it's one of those feel-good, audience-satisfying affairs that'll leave a big smile on your face for a while after the film ends...

i just saw that recently and i think that's where my mind was for monsoon wedding. i wasn't thinking correctly.

hum dil de chuke sanaam

thats a very good flick..but it too is an epic..like 3.5 hours or something

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all of those were pretty good, cept the one you named ... the story line for that might of had potential, but they sure killed it.

.:::KIX:::

is that where you saw the movie? i saw it there sunday w/ a friend and we both really enjoyed it. two things really struck me. the love developing between dubay and alice and the fact that the daughter really could fall in love w/ her arranged husband. when they were in the driveway after the argument about her interlude w/ the ex you could almost pinpoint the moment when she was thinking "hey, this man may be good for me after all". i thought the movie was great. i would buy it to own.

I agree with what you say about skin color and the caste system. I am indian. I was born there. Western culture has greatly influenced eastern culture over the years. The females in Indian movies these days are all light with brown hair and light eyes-- a huge misrepresentation.

However, there has always been a divide in India in terms of the caste system. You are correct, people of a lower caste are usually darker in color. Southern India is much poorer than Northern. There is more farming in the south and the climate is much different. People with darker skin color are usually from the south. It is taboo for a person from the north to marry someone from the south. However, things are rapidly changing over there.

The misrepresentation in movies over skin and hair color is not changing though. Two beauty products have almost tripled in production and import in India; they are skin bleaching creams and hair dye.

** the darker the flesh-- the deeper the roots**

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Philippines, the Caribbean, Iran, etc........

<rant>

there's definitely an inferiority complex in South Asia. if you look white, you're put on a pedestal. there's an underlying desire to be white (especially british). just take a look at that self-loathing bastard rushdie.

it's sickening how some are such anglofiles. some people actually try to speak with British accents. it's a messed up place full of classism and racism, they still have colonized minds - all courtesy of the british.

</rant>

I;m not saying that the British weren't a huge influence but classism and racism existed before colonization. It wasn't a paradise for the pariahs( the lowest caste) until the British came over. The whole caste system was implemented for centuries.

It wasn't a paradise for the pariahs( the lowest caste) after the
British came over either. and, the favoring of anything british of course didn't exist pre-colonization. the british exploited the differences in indian society and took it to a whole new level.

also, the caste system is relegated to Hindus, but you see the similar things in Pakistan as well.

but i don't want to make it seem that it's only the british's fault. south asians are responsible as well for the state that the subcontinent finds itself in.

The cast system is implemented in hindu and sikh religions. It's more farmers vs servants vs aristocracy vs etc. Hinduism is like one of the oldest religions out there, so I think the cast thing came before colonial times.

.:::KIX:::

I'm not Indian, but my parents are from around that area .. and I've heard of the lightening creams and all. And if you see all the Miss Universes and Miss Worlds they're all olive skinned (more the greek portugese look). A lot of that cast stuff has changed a bit i thought though, cuz now the seperation is just different religions. There's so many different religions in India (branches or each other i guess). Like Sikh ppl are light cuz of European discent. And then there's the Christians in the south that are super dark. I have some Indian friends and their mom's don't like them going in the sun much cuz they're get dark, and I guess that's "bad" for when they want to get married cuz guyz won't think of them first. It's ridiculous, but that's what history made.

.:::KIX:::

You are right about the caste system. However, the system is interpreted differently in different regions. The caste system wasn't very prevalent in my family. One can also argue that there is a caste system in America as well, its called social economic class. I am not going to go as far as to that, because you can achieve social mobility here.

As for the caste system now-- India has changed quite a bit over the past decade. People are not refered to by their class status, as they once used to be. Weddings are not mostly arranged. Also caste status does not affect one's career completely. However, caste status there is just like racism here--It's still alive.

the caste system exists everywhere .. i mean to a low degree, but it's just history passed to a watered down level .. there used to be kings and queens, hierarchical subdivisions of power ... it exists in india, exists in china, exists even here .. nothing is as tense anywhere anymore, and some countries are tighter around it than others .. but if you think about it .. a son gets daddy's big company and keeps his place in the country club for his son to take part in after ... and these ppl are still unaffected by the ppl on welfare and such, where they're kids have to drop out of school to survice ... i mean i know i'm getting extreme, but it's still everywhere

.:::KIX:::

I wonder if she was speaking self-referentially in "Missisippi Masala" when she says on the telephone, "You can be light and not have any money, or you can be dark and have money, but you can't be dark and not have any money"?

Ha ha, I like her films.

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write, or do you only write?