Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 27-September-09
Spoiler Rating: Medium

Monsoon Wedding (2001)

There is a twofold pleasure in watching a movie that takes place outside your own country and involves people not your own countrymen. It is a treat to observe exotic sights and customs, and a comfort to recognize universal experiences and emotions. Monsoon Wedding exemplifies this dichotomy of foreign film.

Bolstered by a stellar soundtrack, the movie immerses the viewer into the color and chaos of New Delhi, where nuptials have been hastily arranged for a local woman (Vasundhara Das) and an émigré who has been living in Houston (Parvin Dabas). Coming off an affair with a married man, the bride sought the wedding as solid ground on which to build a life. Although her father (Naseerudin Shah) suffers the major expenditures and stresses known to his western counterparts, the four-day event he orchestrates will delight anyone who finds "traditional" American weddings wearisome (and suspects these "traditions" were created within the last half-century for commercial purposes). At one point the father chastises his event planner (Vijay Raaz) for erecting a white tent. "Is this a wedding or a funeral?" he demands, referring to the Indian preference for vibrant tokens of celebration. The wedding itself involves brilliant saris, a marching band, a caparisoned horse, and an ocean of marigolds. My one quibble is that the film does not show enough of the culminating ceremony when it finally arrives.

But there are other more personal claims upon the movie's time. The concept of two families uniting by marriage is certainly universal, where each family is an aggregate of intertwined clans. The viewer becomes a fly on the wall watching budding and established couples, successful and less successful parenting, and reunions both welcome and grim. One part of the story involves the bride's cousin (Shefali Shetty) who shares a disturbing secret with an honored guest customarily called her uncle (Rajat Kapoor). The revelation of this secret leads to the biggest challenge for the father of the bride, who chooses ties of parental affection over tribal loyalty in a moving and cathartic scene. Even a peripheral member of the family, the maid (Tilotama Shome), is affected by the energy so palpable to the fly on the wall. Monsoon Wedding draws you in by being both alien and familiar, and by allowing you to participate in a dynamic ritual that helps define those who practice it.

Copyright © 2009 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.