The Run of the Mill!
I happened to watch three movies of late. Each had a unique style of its own, each was called Great, Excellent and what not. However, there is this feeling about each of them, which you know will happen, which you know that this is how it ends, and that in this knowing there lies a not so great term – ‘Formula’.
Those movies – Rang De Basanti, Dor, The Namesake.
Each movie has a special place in my heart – Rang De Basanti for a kind of feeling it raked in youth (if atleast for a moment), Dor brought out constructive selfishness, or objectivity for a person, that has been missing in Hindi movies and The Namesake brings out the nostalgia called Family, that you hated and you still lived with.
But all said and done – Rang De Basanti falls short dramatically, when the boys are killed by ‘clever’ politicians. A good plot, with intelligent intermix of past and present psychologies, goes down to prove a point that could have been proved otherwise.
In Dor, one of my favorites, Nagesh Kukonoor, who is known for his excellent approach towards dealing with reality, disappointed me no ends. The dialogues, like khud ke liyo jiyo (live for yourself) are used to make bold statements and only to change a person, rather than inflict awareness in the character. Suddenly a wonderful story, becomes a preachy stuff that is generally seen at the end of children stories.
And The Namesake it just keeps telling a tale, without bringing why the characters behave the way they behave. It remains true to the theme of book, but fails the characters by not defining them well, in a hurry to tell the story. It looks like the present tense which Jhumpa Lahiri used in her novel, caught up with the screenplay. The story of coming of age of various characters is seen as an undeniable eventuality, as if no body controlled them.
And if Mira Nair wanted her audience to ponder about this “undeniable eventuality” then she has succeeded. But somewhere, may be all great stories aim at fighting ‘this eventuality’, and Mira Nair’s ‘The Namesake’ shows the American born Indian boy slowly accepting their ‘destiny or fate’ as an excuse to comeback to India, and that Indians, no matter where they go, will remain Indians, not people who can mold into situations and people who can change as the situation demands. Sticking to sentiments is shown as sticking to values. Somewhere I believe that is an Imaginary India, not the India of Vedas, of Yagas, of a Lord Krishna who talks of detachment.
But then you can always disagree. I would like to see why probably I’m finding fault in these movies, that have been a phenomenon, atleast for a period of time.
I have no comments about RDB and Dor, but I sure have to say about Namesake.
You spoke about the film not dealing with the question- why the characters behaved the way they did. I guess you are a little confused while asking such a question. Mira Nair has fleshed the characters out very soundly, what else can a director do? it is up to the audience to draw some logical character graph out of it. And I seriously think that neither the novel nor the film has a story as such to say (therefore the director was not in a rush to say the story). The novel and the film is about a patch of life and the story continues even when the film or the novel ends.
And every person’s coming of age is associated with certain incidents or life-experience. For Ashok- it was the accident,
for Ashima- it was her marriage and the living abroad, for the two kids it was their father’s death. So how can their coming of age become an ‘Undeniable eventuality”? People fight with this eventuality only when they are experiencing it and not when they have achieved it, I suppose.
Namesake is in and out about loss of a dear one and nostalgia. Both the novel and the film do not claim to be anything else. Pls do not restrict your understanding by saying that Indians are “not people who can mold into situations” and sorts. The content says about how people are caught in an identity crisis (irrespective of their being an Indian) and how they slowly start relating to their defined cultures where some part of them at least has an identity. It is crazy but “all successful journeys are those that bring you back home”. I am sure you can trace that sentence out.
As an answer to why you find such a movie at fault is that your horizons of understanding looks quite restricted sometimes, I don’t know why exactly but it is sometimes. Try to think loud before you conclude. it helps. and sure you can not ignore the director’s aim for the movie. I would like to see a much more balanced review of Namesake from your side. think again, talk to people to see what you haven’t seen.
Sowmya
9 Apr 07 at 12:47 am