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Monsoon Wedding
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Hindi, Punjabi, and English language.
India/USA/France/Italy, 2002. Rated R. 114 minutes.
Cast:
Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vijay Raaz, Tilotama
Shome, Vasundhara Das, Parvin Dabas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Kamini Khanna,
Rajat Kapoor, Neha Dubey, Kemaya Kidwai , Ishaan Nair, Randeep Hooda
Writer: Sabrina Dhawan
Music: Mychael Danna
Cinematographer: Declan Quinn
Producers: Caroline Baron, Mira Nair
Director: Mira Nair
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of the sorcery of movies is their ability to transport you to a place you've
never been. Even more magical is if, when you're done marvelling at the unfamiliar
land and culture, you discover that the people inhabiting this strange world
are not that different from you. Love, anger, hate, pain, guilt, longing, and
loss--these basic human emotions have no cultural limitations. The humanity
pulsing beneath the trappings and traditions of any society is common to us
all.
With Monsoon Wedding, director Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay, Mississippi
Masala) returns once again to her homeland. If you're as unfamiliar with
modern India as I am, then the education in Punjabi culture alone should be
a treat. Modern India is a bewildering mix of the age-old and the contemporary.
Cell phones appear in the middle of traditional courtship rites and preparations.
Third world power outages plague modern homes. Characters don jeans in one scene
and ancient garb the next. Panelists debate the corrupting influence of Western
entertainment on a modern talk show. Families send their children off to college
in Australia and America and then complain that they aren't "Indian" enough
when they return. Virtually everyone uses English interchangeably with Hindi
or Punjabi. None of this is bewildering to the Indians themselves, who don't
seem even to notice the apparent contradictions. The contradictions, however,
find ways of making themselves noticed, creating tensions over the course of
the film that require difficult choices by some of the characters.
Set during the rainy season in Delhi, Monsoon Wedding is a romantic
comedy/drama that unfolds during the three days that elapse between a traditionally
arranged engagement and planned wedding of two young people who have never met,
Aditi Verma (Vasandhara Das, an Indian recording artist) and Hemant Rai (Parvin
Dabas).
Concentrating two vast families in a confined space, the celebration causes
an explosion of subplots, some comedic and romantic and some decidedly not.
To get to the point at which the movie begins, Aditi and Hemant have agreed
to allow their parents to choose their lifelong mates. The anomaly is that there's
seemingly nothing traditional about either one of these young people. Aditi
is getting over an affair with her married and somewhat smarmy ex-boss, a TV
talk show host. Hemant is an engineer who lives in Houston, Texas. The Western
mind wonders, why would these two agree to an arranged marriage? Heck, why would
anyone agree to an arranged marriage nowadays?
Nair and writer Sabrina Dhawan never spell out an explanation, but the bitter
taste of the affair may have something to do with Aditi's motives. As for Hemant,
he doesn't think there's any substantive difference between meeting in a bar
and being introduced by one's parents. He means that any marriage is an act
of faith. The foundation of a successful marriage lies in the kind of trust,
communication, and intimacy that takes years to build. Any marriage is a risk,
and even if it is born out of romantic passion, the partners can never be certain
that their foundations are solid enough to build a lifelong union.
Is he right? Aditi's parents, Lalit (the great Indian actor Naseeruddin Shah)
and Pimmi (Lillete Dubey), are an illustrative example. A product of an arranged
wedding themselves, they seem to be a typical married couple--but is that a
good thing or a bad thing? They seem distant, and they argue about their young
son Varun (Ishaan Nair), whom Lalit sees as too soft and wants to send to boarding
school. We don't get a sense of their marriage's health until the end of the
film.
The bride herself is having second thoughts. Sensing Aditi's apprehension,
her unconventional cousin Ria (Shefali Shetty) begins to stir up trouble. Meanwhile,
alongside the arranged wedding proceedings more modern romantic liaisons develop.
Another cousin, sultry young Ayesha (Neha Dubey), sets her eyes on Rahul (Randeep
Hooda), a college student home from Sydney. The abrasive, talkative tent/catering/decorations
contractor, P.K. Dube (Vijay Raaz) is suddenly smitten with the Verma family
maid, quiet Alice (Tolatama Shome).
Even when exploring difficult areas, Nair keeps the tone light and lively.
With her premise, she has given herself a great deal of room to explore her
own culture and the full palette of human relationships. One can argue that
the presentation of some of the conflicts and unions is a little facile, particularly
given the short three-day time frame.
With overwhelming beauty and charm (not to mention great music), Monsoon
Wedding gets you not to care about any of that. Even the most improbable
storyline, P.K. and Alice's courtship, is delightfully rendered, with a picture-perfect
ending that will resonate for lovers of romance for a long time. Explaining
that she wanted to make a movie about a complex, thriving society free of "colonial
complexes," Nair has characterized Monsoon Wedding as an attempt to invoke
Bollywood (Indian film) conventions in order to capture the masti (the
intoxicating zest for life) of modern India. Without knowing India first-hand
it's hard to say for certain, but it sure seems like she has succeeded.
Review
© February 2002 by AboutFilm.Com and the author.
Images © 2002 USA Films. All Rights Reserved.
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