Mira Nair is a distinguished Indian film director, now based
in New York. Her debut feature film ‘Salaam Bombay’
(1988) won the Golden Camera Award at the Cannes Film Festival,
and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Today, the movie is considered a groundbreaking film classic,
and it is standard fare for film students. ‘Mississippi
Masala’ (1991) starred Denzel Washington. The film successfully
studied a family of displaced Ugandan-Indians living and working
in Mississippi. Mira Nair’s popular film ‘Monsoon
Wedding’ (2001) comically and poetically depicted a
hectic Punjabi Indian wedding. The movie was awarded the prestigious
Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Mira Nair’s
‘commercial’ venture into ‘English-style’
costume drama, with her film adaptation of Thackeray’s
novel ‘Vanity Fair’ (2004), starred Reese Witherspoon,
and the movie also enjoyed considerable critical acclaim.
With a track record like that, it is no wonder that Mira Nair’s
newest movie, ‘The Namesake’, has been awaited
with much anticipation. With her latest film, Mira Nair never
fails to please. Working with longtime collaborator, screenwriter
Sooni Taraporevala, Mira Nair adapts Jhumpa Lahiri’s
Pulitzer Prize winning novel, of the same name, into superb
cinema. ‘The Namesake’ finds Mira Nair again contemplating
the predicament of displaced Indians. Commencing in Calcutta,
with the arranged marriage of the educated intellectual Ashoke,
and his music student bride Ashima, the film follows their
emigration to America, and Ashima’s adjustment to her
perplexing life in New York City. Along the way they give
birth to a son, Gogol, who matures into a thoroughly Americanized
architect. Eventually, Gogol must decide to which culture
and heritage he belongs. Unforeseen events and circumstances
trigger and accelerate his decision. Mira Nair creates a gentle
and gradually developing drama, which she allows to progress
at its own inherent pace. She never forces or ‘telescopes’
the plotline, rather, she allows the twists and turns of the
movie to naturally emerge from its absorbing narrative. The
cinema-photography in the movie is absolutely outstanding,
especially when it is contrasting the chaotic and frenzied
life of Calcutta, with the coolness and superficiality of
middle-class suburban New York. Mira Nair is also able to
elicit stunning performances from her Indian cast. In the
leading roles Irfan Khan is correctly ‘formal’
as the intellectual professor Ashoke, while the incredibly
beautiful Tabu conveys an amazing depth and warmth within
the reserved and restrained Ashima. Playing the adult Gogol,
Kal Penn instills an exciting sexuality to his portrayal of
a ‘Sensitive New Age Gentleman’. Mira Nair, together
with her cast and crew, has created another fascinating and
sublimely poetic film.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I have just finished reading the latest, and the final, novel
in the Harry Potter legend, ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly
Hallows’. I have an over-whelming desire to tell you
how it all turns out. But, I will resist it. And, instead,
write a little about the new movie, ‘Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix’. This film is the fifth cinematic
adaptation, and installment, in the popular literary and movie
serial. What started out as a light hearted and whimsical
magical fairy-story for children, has gradually evolved into
something much more sinister. The latest ‘Harry Potter’
is actually a rather dense and somber movie, and much of it
is pretty creepy and scary. It is not really suitable for
impressionable young children at all. Missing from the new
movie are those wonderful moments of inventive magic that
gave the other films their charm. The plotline of the new
movie whizzes by at an alarming rate, and there is a lot of
pointless blah-blah-blah. If you haven’t read the book,
you can be a bit in the dark about what is basically going
on. At least, skim through the novel again, before experiencing
the movie, so that you are entirely ‘up to speed’.
Also, the director of the movie, David Yates, seems intent
on giving the new movie a curious political edge. His vision
of the ‘Ministry for Magic’, and its machinations
with the evil ‘Lord Voldemort’, is a startling
interpretation of any present-day British Government Ministry,
complete with its own underhanded politics. Anyway, for better
or worse, Harry Potter is back again, together with his companions
Hermione and Ron Weasley. Along for the ride are Sirius Black,
Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall. However, it
is Imelda Staunton, as the sweetly sinister professor of ‘Defense
against the Dark Arts’, who steals the movie. I guess,
in a couple of years, when all the seven novels have been
turned into celluloid, we can throw ‘Harry Potter Weekends’,
drink lots of ‘Butterbeer’, and watch the entire
movie collection in sequential order. If you can’t wait
that long, and you are desperate to find out how the literary
saga ends, then send me a brief e-mail, and I will be only
too pleased to enlighten you with all the gruesome details.
Griffin & Phoenix
Dermot Mulroney plays Griffin, a handsome and vigorous man
who has just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. At a lecture
concerned with tackling death, he meets the beautiful and
intelligent Phoenix, irresistibly played by Amanda Peet. How
could fate be so cruel? Right at the moment of Griffin’s
greatest torment he is to experience all the excitement of
a new found love. Surprisingly enough, Dermot and Amanda give
heartbreaking performances in Ed Stone’s sentimental,
uninspired, and over-romantic tear-jerking movie.
