Modern Indian movies that find fan bases in the west have a good track record with me. It doesn't hurt that they pretty much all, whether comedic or dramatic, have musical scenes and happy endings. My main caveat is that they tend to run long -- in this case, 3 hours and 15 minutes. But I had a lot of time on my hands, so I actually chose Swades in large part for this reason.
Oddly enough, the story begins in my vicinity: NASA HQ in DC, where protagonist Mohan is a project manager. He soon takes a vacation to India to try to persuade his former nanny, Kaveri, to come back to the U.S. with him, ostensibly for her benefit but also for his own. Unfamiliar with her present home village, he nevertheless makes several amiable acquaintances before long, including an eight-year-old boy in Kaveri's care, a postman who wrestles, a cook who wants a business partner in the U.S., and a female teacher big on female advancement. That last one, Gita, introduces some...emotional complications.
Advancement in general becomes a focus. Partly there's the matter of technology: Mohan didn't expect such unreliable access to electricity. Also, school gets little priority, and some of the village elders don't welcome the idea of doing anything to help members of lower Hindu castes. These cultural contrasts are primarily on the serious side, but they also lend themselves to moments of humor.
Mohan changes the community enough that it almost evokes a "white man's burden" story, minus the live presence of white men. But he has a few things to learn from them as well -- particularly where his heart lies. For all his popularity as an accomplished figure, he keeps getting accused of losing touch with his roots. Neither Kaveri nor Gita wants to leave the village, even for him. In the end, he asks his boss to let him work in India. You could say it's a love story, only the love extends far beyond two people.
Compared to other Indian films I've seen, Swades gives more screen time to women. On the minus side, it doesn't offer many surprises. That's why I included as many "spoilers" as I did: You can see them coming a mile away. Ultimately, I give it high marks, but not enough to put it in my top three from India.
One more thing: The subtitles need work. Mostly they just have sloppy punctuation and extraneous capitals, but sometimes they get words wrong, most obviously when the speakers mix English with their local tongue (a common practice, at least in these movies). "Come on" should not be "Common." Also, all the songs are subtitled with Elizabethan English, probably because older dialects seem more beautiful, but of course it makes way for even more errors.
No comments:
Post a Comment