The 2001 award-winning movie, Monsoon Wedding, is an interesting film that blends international themes about love and how confusing it can be, with the more “Indian” themes of pre-arranged marriages and family issues. The merging of the two ideals lends the movie a certain uniqueness that makes it seem familiar, yet exotic. It was a slow-paced movie, up until the end, but it was beautifully done, with many vibrant images spread abundantly throughout the scenes. One major problem I had with the movie is that I could not sympathize with the bride or groom. Aditi (the bride) seemed to be a very shallow character and somewhat of a "whore." The groom as well seemed too accepting of his promiscuous wife. However, I did feel for the father, who had to plan the whole wedding (due to having a daughter getting married instead of a son) and his pain of his children leaving him. Also, the wedding planner who falls in love with the servant girl were both very believable and it was beautiful to see their impromptu wedding. The subplot of Ria and one of her uncles was somewhat disturbing how the other family members treated it as a "small matter." Treating child molestation as a small charge is something I cannot agree with, and I hope the director was just exaggerating the situation, and this is not a common occurence in India.
Overall, the film was very well done, but the main characters seemed to be somewhat emotionless and I could not sympathize with them. Minor characters (such as Ria, Dubey, and the father) contained more personality and emotion than the bride and groom, while other characters (the Indian returned from Australia and the girl who flirts with him) seemed to just add more sexuality to the tale, instead of really contributing to the movie. Other than the characters though, the movie was beautifully done with vibrant colors and exotic locales.
3 comments:
I would have to agree with pretty much everything that you wrote. As I was watching the movie I too thought the bride was too shallow, and I also was surprised at how no one took any action despite the knowledge that Ria was abused as a child. It did paint a picture of these Indian people as being naive at times and a bit behind the times. I think that relates only to these people portrayed though, not to all Indian people of course. It was certainly an interesting movie, one that had many different international and local themes. I thought your last comment where you talk about how some characters do not add much to the story was an interesting observation. I wonder if this story had been done by a resident Indian who had been in India his or her whole life if it would have been different? I am not sure that it would have, but it would be interesting to compare a NRI's take on this movie to someone who has been in India.
That it true, I did not feel as though I could sympathize with the bride and groom's plight throughout the film. However, her affair was just as significant as any of the other subplots in bringing social issues to light. Here everyone believes that everything is fine and dandy, but people do not care to scratch beneath the surface and look further into the matter. The arranged marriage is more a matter of convenience to the family while they remain completely oblivious to what the bride may have wanted.
There were some other social issues that the film attempts to address, such as homosexuality, class division, NRI maladjustment and a number of other things that the Indian media do not dare to cover.
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