Sunday, March 13, 2005
The Memsahib
"East meets West in expatriate Gujarati's film" - The Memsahib. I just read about this film and hope to watch it some time.
Without a watch I can't review the film, but from comments by the director like "a Gujarati student in Britain, falling in love with a British woman", "a king, married to a British woman" and "dialogues in English and a couple of garba sequences", " and "backdrop of colonial rule", I have figured the theme.
I keenly watch movies and read literature of the second-generation expat Indian directors and writers. I am kind of weary of their themes. Most of which are exotically storylined - the love story between a white man/lady and the Indian. The presentation of India as a distant land of unfulfilled dreams, a painful mirage and the clumsy self-realization that even though your Indian in color your part of the larger white family and the smell of your mother's spice mingling with the smell of fat melting steak. The latest of course is for some movies is to use large smattering of Bollywood style dress and dance to represent a colorful Indian identity.
I do wish there were more movies like "Just a Little Red Dot" where the movie doesn't explore internal dilemmas of a national identity but makes peace with it and shares it with the larger diverse community.An entertaining movie for children, but with a wise and deep understanding of human nature and culture .
Just a little Red Dot
Racial understanding is not something we find, but something that we must create. Through education we can create change. - Martin Luther King Jr
I found this quote on the "The Peace Tree" film site.
A still from the film Peace Tree
Without a watch I can't review the film, but from comments by the director like "a Gujarati student in Britain, falling in love with a British woman", "a king, married to a British woman" and "dialogues in English and a couple of garba sequences", " and "backdrop of colonial rule", I have figured the theme.
I keenly watch movies and read literature of the second-generation expat Indian directors and writers. I am kind of weary of their themes. Most of which are exotically storylined - the love story between a white man/lady and the Indian. The presentation of India as a distant land of unfulfilled dreams, a painful mirage and the clumsy self-realization that even though your Indian in color your part of the larger white family and the smell of your mother's spice mingling with the smell of fat melting steak. The latest of course is for some movies is to use large smattering of Bollywood style dress and dance to represent a colorful Indian identity.
I do wish there were more movies like "Just a Little Red Dot" where the movie doesn't explore internal dilemmas of a national identity but makes peace with it and shares it with the larger diverse community.An entertaining movie for children, but with a wise and deep understanding of human nature and culture .
Just a little Red Dot
Racial understanding is not something we find, but something that we must create. Through education we can create change. - Martin Luther King Jr
I found this quote on the "The Peace Tree" film site.
A still from the film Peace Tree
Comments
Post a Comment
<< Home