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Monsoon Wedding
***
Cinema Releases - January 18, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. 114
minutes. Directed by Mira Nair. Written by Sabrina Dhawan. Starring Naseeruddin
Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vijay Raaz, Tilotama Shome, Vasundhara
Das, Parvin Dabas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda.
My father's side of the family is Indian, and
there are characters in "Monsoon Wedding" that I recognise
from life. The spoiled, tubby little boy, with his obsessive interest in
the arts and his parents' suggestions of boarding school -- that's the younger
me. The bride-to-be who bobs her head in anxiety, worries about frivolous
middle-class dilemmas and thinks that every problem is the end of the world
-- I have cousins like that. Dubey, the shifty, skinny events organiser who
comes across like an Asian version of Del Boy -- you meet those guys in every
marketplace, always with the winks and the amateur pantomime slickness. The
worrisome father figure, the gossipy old women, the fat old men, the relatives
in from America -- characters like these are always around.
Mira Nair's film is a sweet, poignant and richly
perceptive piece of work about a family from Delhi planning a wedding. The
bride frets about where her life is going, and if she can make a clean break
from her married lover. Her father wanders round with hand clasped to forehead,
stressed out from the planning and the cash-flow problems. Extended family
swarms around the grounds like refugees, munching hors d'oeuvres, reminiscing,
performing traditional rituals. And in the servants' quarters, employees
engage in dramas on a smaller scale; that rascal Dubey even falls in love,
and finds himself looking dumbstruck and toning down his
voice.
"Monsoon Wedding" is a farce in documentary style,
full of dead-on observations, like the way speakers drift between Hindi and
English depending on the tone of the conversation, the way different family
members harass and embarrass their kids with different types of body language,
and the irony of how even in India, elderly women will bug their unmarried
sons about not giving them grandchildren, despite the dangerous overpopulation
right under their noses.
Balancing out the comedy are a few serious plot
threads, such as the father's financial worries, the confessions the bride
has to make to her fiancé, and the fact that one of the visiting cousins
keeps suspecting an uncle of child abuse. Nair, the director, has a command
of tone, and never seems to be ringing false notes or touching on the
inappropriate. "Monsoon Wedding" doesn't hold our attention for every minute
of its two hour running time, but it does manage to feel like life, where
anything can happen, at the same time as nodding to Bollywood by feeling
rich in texture. No, the characters don't break out in song or make romantic
speeches, but the cinematography is colourful, and Nair manages to sneak
in a couple of musical numbers near the ending. People do, after all, sing
and dance at weddings.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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