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LATEST AUSTRALIAN BOLLYWOOD SCREENINGS

Also catch the latest and greatest bollywood films on SBS TV

QUICK REVIEWS:

   DARR (1993)

Hmm..probably one of the most bizarre bollywood films I have ever seen! Supposedly a re-interpretation of cape fear this story takes the stalker idea to new and unusual twists. A number of the wonderful song sequences are actually between the terrified girl (well not terrified in the songs) and the stalker who murders and terrorises his way through the film. These are I guess dream sequences based on his disturbed "love" for Siran.

I also read that the film was intended to end differently originally, with the angered husband forgiving the stalker and understanding the intensity of his love.. it certainly seems like the film was heading in this direction...but the ending was changed. I suppose from a western point of view you could characterise this film as a bit "sick", then again it could be an attempt to understand rather than judge which to my mind makes it a much superior ideal.

   MONSOON WEDDING (2001)

I saw Monsoon Wedding for sale on DVD in Kmart a little while back, and whilst I was initially pleased to see a new Bollywood film in a regular retail shop (usually to get Bollywood films down under requires long, complicated and expensive mail order mucking about) the list of Americans in the production credits immediately put me off.

I've also been rather dissapointed with more recent Bollywood flicks. I enjoyed for example Bend it like Beckham, but missed the song sequences. So...I waited until Monsoon was on TV (in Australia SBS has been airing a lot of Bollywood films past and present) to give it a go. It started off like a bad remake of Father of the Bride (Steve Martin) and I began to groan, but such vacuous comparisons quickly vanished.

Certainly the film dwelled on the father-daughter relationship in a pleasant way, but so to did Bend it Like Beckham (and for that matter Hollywood films like Coyote Ugly!). But luckily the Americans just put up the money and let Indians get on with making a wonderful film.

Monsoon quickly leaves these comparisons for dead and examines the whole idea of marriage and family in a contemporary sense. It has many themes on many levels exploring concepts such as the lack of cultural knowledge among "NRI's". This cultural gap is closed however with a climactic merging of cultures in one of the weddings dance sequences - dancing at a wedding is somewhat like dancing in a "melbourne night club".

Also the film takes a new look at the idea of child marriage and a fathers role being one of protector to his children first, even before kinship; although in a manner thankfully devoid of the harsh, despotic feminist overtones creeping into modern Bollywood. (Critically such a view could indeed be pandering to a western viewpoint and a misundertanding of some of the norms of traditional child marriages in previous eras.)

There were song sequences of sorts in the film, although great effort seemed to be taken to mould them narratively into the story - which was not what I expect from a proper bollywood film! The sequences were not nearly the labors of love of previous Bollywood films (even up to the late 1990's) and came up rather lacking - although they did at least exist unlike within films like Bend it Like Beckham.

There was one exception: the actual rain soaked wedding itself. This was perhaps one of the most joyous and spontaneous pieces of film that I have ever had the pleasure of watching. The child-like enjoyment of dancing in the rain was the best climax to a film I have seen in any film of recent years. I don't give stars, but if I did this film would get all of them!

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