Family matters
by
Chris Dashiell
Nothing provides a better pretext for multiple storyline
movies than a wedding. All the characters are in one place, and the
themes of love, sex, family (happy or not), among others, are ready
made for the director to combine into whatever form she requires. In
the case of Monsoon Wedding, Mira Nair's ambition even
extends to the portrayal of a certain economic group in India - the
upper middle class awkwardly juggling Western and traditional values,
to comic effect. The result is in some ways impressive, but Nair also
has the ambition of making a "crossover" hit movie. Although it looks
like she may have succeeded in doing that, the film suffers for it.
The
story covers four days of a wedding gathering in Delhi. Lalit (Naseeruddin
Shah), the harried father of the bride, worries about every detail of
the upcoming ceremony, haggling with the eccentric wedding planner (Vijay
Raaz) over costs. Aditi, the bride (Vasundhara Das) prepares to meet
her fiancé (Parvin Dabas) for the first time - it is an arranged
marriage, and they will move to America - but unknown to her family,
she has been having an affair with a married TV talk show host. The
bride's cousin Ria (Shefali Shetty) has an unpleasant reaction to the
arrival of an old friend of the family, which leads to a crisis. Meanwhile
the wedding planner falls head over heels for the family servant Alice
(Tilotama Shome).
There
are quite a few other people in the story, and two or three more plot
threads to contend with, as Nair puts us in the middle of things and
lets us figure out who's who. This richness and variety of character
and incident is one of the movie's strengths. Everyone speaks both English
and Hindi, and the dialogue switches back and forth between the languages
(and occasionally Punjabi) with amusing facility. It's not easy to film
such a crowded story and give all of the characters their due, but Nair
doesn't seem to break a sweat. Sometimes she cuts away to dreamy, verité-style
scenes of street life in Delhi, and it's an oddly effective counterweight
to the story.
Monsoon
Wedding is at its best when it reveals the more painful truths underlying
the celebration. Aditi's secret affair, evidence of such a different
person than what her father sees; Ria's ambivalence about her role as
adopted daughter in the family; the younger son's interest in dance
clashing with his father's ideas about masculinity - these elements
ring true. Most impressive is Shah in the central role of Lalit - he
creates a complex character, admirable, not always likable, the humorous
aspects never overshadowing his believability.
However
- and it's too bad that there's a "however" here - the movie succumbs
to the formulaic in the act of tying together its many strings. The
sense of nuance is lost as the problems become resolved in soap opera
fashion. The whole subplot with the obnoxious wedding planner and his
love for the servant is patronizing. At the end we can see Nair and
screenwriter Sabrina Dhawan trying to match everyone up with her soul
mate, slapping a happy romantic ending over the proceedings with a big
brush. Of course we know things will turn out well - this is not a tragedy
- but the story's complexity leads us to expect a little more subtlety
in the resolution.
I would put Monsoon Wedding in the category of
"OK romantic comedy" - there are a lot worse films you could spend your
money on. But the fact that I can put it in a category at all is a measure
of my disappointment. It promised more.
Nanni
Moretti is arguably Italy's most influential film director, but he's
barely a blip on the radar of the average U.S. filmgoer. That's largely
due to the general neglect of foreign films in the States, but I also
think that Moretti's style - plain, direct, thoughtful and low-key -
is practically the opposite of the style of entertainment audiences
have become accustomed to. Although his latest film, The Son's
Room, which took the top prize at Cannes last year, is in many
ways atypical of his work, it still has that trademark simplicity of
style, an implicit respect for the audience that helps make the film
engaging. And as it turns out, the story needs all the help it can get.
Moretti
plays Giovanni, a psychiatrist working out of his home, with a beautiful
wife (Laura Maurant) and two adolescent kids, a son and a daughter (Guiseppe
Sanfelice and Jasmine Trinca). The film opens with the son being accused
by his school principal of a petty theft. He denies it, and the father
isn't sure what to think. In the meantime, we see Giovanni interacting
with his patients, including an obsessive compulsive, a sex addict,
and a man who is suicidally depressed. All of this is presented in a
very matter of fact way, not as drama but as a portrait of what ordinary
life is like for this man. But then the son is killed in an accident.
The rest of the film follows the family as they grieve and try to put
their lives together.
The
loss of the son exposes the psychiatrist as a somewhat distant personality.
Moretti does this without either moral judgment or sympathy - this is
just the way it is. The father finds himself blaming the suicidal patient,
who had called him away on the day of his son's death. He keeps replaying
the event in his mind, wishing that he had stayed and asked his son
to go jogging. His feelings interfere with his work, and in the end
the patient is acting with more integrity than the doctor.
The
characters of the different patients form an interesting counterpoint
to the doctor's personal drama. Accustomed to organizing his life into
rational segments, the father find himself unable to cope with his tragedy
in a reasonable way, whereas the messiness of his patients' feelings
seems like an enviable alternative. I had difficulty, however, believing
in Moretti as a psychiatrist. I didn't get a sense of this man's engagement
in his profession, and therefore the loss of balance after the tragedy
didn't have the effect that I think was intended. It feels like a writer's
theme that has been imposed on us for the sake of an idea, rather than
something organic to the material. And that points to an overall problem
with The Son's Room - all the elements are so carefully determined
that it's hard to accept them - the wife and kids are too perfect, the
upper middle class sensibility too studied. If it weren't for Moretti's
limpid style, the story's sentimentality would turn this into an outright
bad movie. As it is, it's an interesting but flawed attempt to map the
lineaments of grief.
Maurant
brings a wonderful energy to the role of the grieving mother. And Trinca
is very appealing as the daughter - there's a key scene in which her
sudden change of expression pierced me to the heart. But I found Moretti
himself rather dull in the main role - there's not quite enough to this
decent, reserved husband and father to make me care. The rewards in
The Son's Room come from the quieter moments, peopls's flaws
and ordinary qualities highlighted by extraordinary circumstances. The
film's essential modesty helps me to forgive its narrative shortcomings.
Artists
like Mira Nair and Nanni Moretti are tender-hearted in their approach
to theme and character. It's not saying anything against them to assert
that there is also a tough, astringent view of life that should be given
its due. French director Catherine Breillat is one of those "difficult"
artists whose work poses a direct challenge to any cultural assumptions
the viewer might bring. Like strong coffee, her movies are bitter, but
they sure wake you up.
For My Sister, Breillat's latest film, was
even advertised as a "provocation," which is a funny way to promote
a movie. If the audience feels provoked, I suppose the temptation is
to blame the filmmaker. But any work that turns a critical eye on the
world - which is to say any work of rigorous intelligence - is bound
to provoke somebody. Rather than trusting in conditioned reflex, one
should just try to see what Breillat is showing us. Later we can argue
about it.
The
film is about two sisters, 15-year old Elena (Roxane Mesquida) and 12-year-old
Anaïs (Anaïs Reboux). Elena is thin and beautiful. Anais is
pudgy and unattractive. Or rather, to speak bluntly, this is the unavoidable
thought that arises on seeing them side-by-side. You might conclude
that Breillat is critiquing this thought, or this assumption about the
meaning of appearance, but in fact she is more interested in the way
the girls think about themselves, each other, and their place in the
world.
The
sisters are on summer vacation with their family. Elena acts in cruel
and dismissive ways towards Anaïs, who sullenly tags along with
her sister as they discuss losing their virginity. When Elena takes
up with a young Italian student, Breillat turns the magnifying glass
on the gradual surrender of the girl's defenses, as the young man pressures
her to have sex with him, with the younger sister lying in bed in the
same room, listening in disgust. It's a remarkable extended sequence,
finely in tune with the way Elena makes choices without really being
aware that she has them. The film as a whole constitutes one of the
most incisive takes on the theme of adolescent female sexuality - the
messy, painful drama of "deflowering," with all the contradictory
social messages and resulting self-talk that it entails.
The
apparent dichotomies - beautiful/ugly, thin/fat, older/younger - are
ultimately a smokescreen for conditions and states of mind that are
shared between the two girls. Each mirror the other, and it's clear
that Elena's supposed advantages don't give her any more freedom than
her sister - in fact, quite the opposite. While Elena flirts, Anaïs
kisses the ladder in the swimming pool in a make-believe romance, and
this is ultimately less naive than Elena's misguided belief in the Italian
student's love - although we are used to thinking otherwise.
Breillat
plays with this identity throughout the film. The sisters are like two
aspects of the same problem - how does a girl get through all this?
The compelling Reboux makes the younger sister's choice - stubbornly
refusing to fill her assigned role - seem very real. The movie doesn't
really judge either sister. We are invited, rather, to observe them,
as it were, from the inside, which involves letting go of both our assumptions
about them, and their own. Their father is uninvolved, and their mother
is less capable than she pretends. Neither have a clue about their daugter's
inner lives, or their secret, symbiotic aspects. The ending sequence,
in which the mother must take charge, points up her insecure psychological
position - her "identity" as a woman divesting her of supposed
authority.
The
story eventually culminates in a shock, and that makes it difficult
for me to discuss the ending in anything but the vaguest terms. Afterwards
we can see that the story began, in a sense, with the ending. Nevertheless,
the turn was hard for me to believe after the naturalistic style of
the rest of the film, and more importantly, I don't know if I completely
agree with Breillat's point of view. The limited ways that women view
their own capacities and choices leave them vulnerable to danger. Are
we to believe that Anais' psychic damage is so great that she can only
be liberated by catastrophe? Or that she somehow redeems her subjugation
through an act of choice? It's difficult, however, for me to argue that
Breillat should have made a different choice, since her intention is
not to merely present a slice of life, but to present a radical critique
of female psychology.
For
My Sister doesn't have the deft, layered style of Romance,
Breillat's previous film. There's a stark, clear-eyed quality to this
picture, and it's also a bit chilling. Breillat keeps returning to female
sexuality as a kind of flash-point for all her concerns about women's
relationships with themselves, the way they try to survive. This movie
seems to me like a portrait of failure, an expression of anger about
powerlessness and missed opportunities. Some things about it still puzzle
me, but I'm sure of one thing. There's no compromise here - the vision
is purely that of the artist.
©2002 Chris Dashiell
CineScene
