With the world’s eyes fixed rigidly on the Asian subcontinent, it is quite fascinating to note the powerful contrasts that exist in the region. In India, the world’s largest democracy, there still exists a semblance of the age-old stratified caste system. In the streets of its larger cities, Hindi is heard spoken beside English?that leftover remnant of British colonialism. This land of opposites is one that is both simply and intricately explored in Mira Nair’s new film, Monsoon Wedding.
The Indian director of Mississippi Masala and Salaam, Bombay focuses her sights this time on the Delhi wedding of a family’s eldest daughter. The film covers the days leading up to and including the elaborate ceremony, itself one of the premier events in the life of an Indian family. All the typical wedding film difficulties are present: the runaway bride, comic-relief wedding planner and assorted familial conflicts.
Much of the drama arises from the father Lalit’s attempt to keep his family together and pull off a perfectly traditional wedding in light of the ever-encroaching forces of outside popular culture. Some of the family frequently travel back and forth between Delhi and America. One nephew studies in Australia and comes back having assumed a thug-like persona, first appearing to the loud bass of rap music and answering all questions with the word “chillin’.” Lalit’s son lies on the sofa all day, watching TV dance videos and cooking shows, while his father worries about his overly effeminate qualities.
Nair accentuates these elements in order to further demonstrate Delhi’s large disparities. A new, modern culture exists beside the old, ultra-traditional one practiced by the elderly aunties and grandmothers. In many scenes, cell phones are glimpsed during customary ceremonies and dances while servants are surprisingly aware of e-mail and computers. In this film, which is strictly upper middle class, it would be easy to forget those Indians who know not of such technological advances, for the country is inhabited by millions upon millions of dirt-poor families. Nair does, however, insert transitional scenes between those at the family house and those in the city that display Delhi street life?merchants, sidewalk cooks and beggars. In a particularly blatant juxtaposition, the extended family’s BMWs drive in the streets next to plentiful rickshaws and cows.
Monsoon Wedding is a welcome departure from the few prototypical Bollywood musicals that escape the Bombay-Delhi vacuum into the rest of the world every year. Not to say that there isn’t a good amount of singing and dancing, but these elements are appropriately placed within the context of a well-written drama rather than that of a melodramatic love story. Yet, all the elements that make Bollywood musicals so attractive remain, namely, the lush, visual beauty of Indian traditional culture. The colors jump off the screen with their vividness, such as the bright orange, reds and yellow-gold of the ever-present marigold marriage flower. Nair wisely gives the audience ample time to soak it all in, letting the handheld camera float freely in smooth continuous shots, a welcome reprieve from the seizure-inducing, quick cut style that is so common in Bolywood film today. But at the same time, though, Nair maintains a palpable sense of excitement during the dance and party scenes that engages the audience.
Due to a constant need to draw recognizable connections, critics have labelled Nair “Woody Allen-esque” and “Altman-esque” because of her wry and ironic observations of family life as well as her ability to handle several simultaneous and interlocking stories at once. Neither comparison should so frivolously be made, as her talent stands on its own. If one had to choose, however, the latter director would serve as a more appropriate precursor. The sound mix of the film is superb; music, dialogue, and ambient noise all come together to form an aural picture well worthy of Robert Altman.
In the 1970s, Altman utilized groundbreaking audio recording techniques in such films as Nashville and McCabe and Mrs. Miller. In these two movies, he used off-screen sound and overlapping dialogue in such a way as to make the movie-viewing experience one that tried to mirror reality. He was not concerned with the classical Hollywood method of sound hierarchy, where only the necessary sonic components of the primary narrative were focused on. Rather, he allowed a vitality and complexity to seep into his films that necessitated multiple screenings in order to catch all the subtleties of character.
Monsoon Wedding fully takes advantage of Altman’s advances. In an appropriate meeting of function and form, the multi-layered dialogue tracks mirror the cacophony of voices, dialects and noises that one would imagine dominates an Indian family gathering. In several scenes, while the camera focuses on one particular exchange, several conversations can be fully heard in the background. This banter, while not visually focused on, subtly adds to the audience’s knowledge of the individual characters and of the family as a whole. The sound mix, viewed in a well-equipped theater, also gives the feeling of being within the film, adding a sense of intimacy that is strengthened by the aforementioned handheld camera. When so much of contemporary cinema consists of pointless and eardrum shattering soundtracks, there is a joy to be had in experiencing a purposeful and deliberate handling of this part of filmmaking?one that can so easily be overlooked in lieu of the visual.
Overall, Monsoon Wedding is a wonderful and welcome diversion from the dregs that the studios regularly release at this time of year. Nair has crafted a mature and invigorating story of family and modern life, an enlightening peek into a culture that is so often stereotyped. Here, however, one can briefly feel a sense of the impressive and complex society that is modern-day India.
