Totally Filmi

Meet the Patels (dir. Geeta Patel, Ravi Patel) 2014

 

After breaking up with his American girlfriend, Audrey (who his parents know nothing about), Ravi Patel goes on a trip to India with his family, and decides to allow his parents to arrange his marriage.  It sounds like a simple enough concept, but the documentary Meet the Patels shows us that nothing about marriage is ever simple.

This is a story, on one level, about the challenges of the children of immigrants as they try to bridge what is for them two competing cultures, both of which they belong to, both of which are important to them, both of which define who they are.  The film highlights the contrasting views of the immigrant family and their children – for the Patel parents, the system by which they got married is still viewed as the more appropriate one for their culture, to ensure that their children end up with spouses who will be compatible with the *whole* -- and by whole, read extended – family.  And there is a point to this notion, as Ravi contemplates during those moments he spends with his extended family.  He sees the love and the care and the joy that they experience together, and on some level, he knows he wants this.

Perhaps he’s vulnerable because of the breakup with Audrey, but Ravi realizes that these things are important to him, too, and he decides to allow his parents to set the arrangement of his marriage in process.  He has rules, though – he definitely wants the girl to be American born, like he is, thinking that in this way, she’ll share some of *his* values, too, and will understand both his love and need for his Indian family and culture, but will also fit in with his American side, with a range of friends of different ethnicities and experiences.

The film serves as an excellent explanation and analysis for those non-Indians who might not be familiar with the process of arranged marriages.  It also serves to outline the frustration both of Ravi and his parents:  Ravi, for going through this process, and not really finding anyone who could be “The One”, and then finding himself moving to reconnect with Audrey; his parents, because they see their children getting older, and other people’s children getting married and having children, and this is precisely what they want.  And they feel that Ravi really isn’t invested in the process – a feeling that only ends up confirmed when Ravi finally confesses to them that he’d had the relationship with Audrey -- his mother, in particular, ends up feeling betrayed, not so much (she says) by the idea that he was seeing someone outside his culture, but more because she sees this omission on the part of Ravi as a lie, and she hates the thought that he could lie to her.

Meet the Patels reveals the Patel parents to be smart, loving, funny, and definitely a product of their culture, which they safeguard, and they still contribute to life back in their hometown in India, through a charitable foundation they run.  So it’s important for them that their children have this kind of experience of family, one which involves placing importance on the value of that culture, and the value of family, in a way that they don’t see in American society, perhaps.

The film ties Ravi’s narration of the story to the footage shot by Geeta Patel (Ravi’s sister, and a writer/director in her own right) through the use of animation – the animated portions are just the storyboards for the animation, which they liked the rough finish of, and which suit the “home video” feel of the film – a quality that came about because, essentially, it was Geeta trying to learn to use a camera, and it shows -- but the film owns this, and it becomes just another of the film’s charms, and serves to emphasize the notion of the film being about family in the broader sense, and not just about this Indian family – we all know family vacations like these, and can relate to them, and that helps us relate to the things that are perhaps not as familiar and which are more culturally specific.

Ultimately, though, Meet the Patels reveals some broader truths about the nature of family, and the relationships we build both within and outside our families.  Parents want their children to be happy.  Children want to make their parents happy.  How that happens, though, is often messy and complicated – and the happy endings we’re seeking are often not the ones we originally had in mind.  And, as Ravi’s story reveals, sometimes we just have to let go and let our stories take us where they want to.

 

 

Mosayile Kuthira Meenukal (dir. Ajith Pillai, 2014) (Malayalam)

 

I had a feeling watching the trailer for Mosayile Kuthira Meenukal (Swordfishes of Big Tides) that it would be my cup of tea.  Starting with the cinematography by Abinandhan Ramanujam – I fell in love with his work in Lijo Jose Pellissary’s 2013 film Amen, where he made me long to visit the backwaters around Kumarakom.  Here he does the same for Lakshadweep and Andeman – I can’t imagine a more beautiful setting and Ramanujam makes it look ethereal.  It’s probably no surprise that I also feel the same way about the film’s music – hello, Prashant Pillai, also of Amen fame (The film’s music deserves a post of its own, so beautifully does it support the film). 

What I didn’t expect, however, is that Ajith Pillai’s film would totally bowl me over like the billowing ocean waves of the film’s title.  I watched with some trepidation, just waiting for the moment that would spoil it all.  And it never came.  My heart just kept swelling with the happiness of watching the stories of Alex and Akbar Ali; of Akbar Ali and Isa; of Alex and Deena play out on the screen.

When we first meet Alex (Asif Ali), he’s making yet another attempt to escape from prison – he quickly fills us in on his history as he prays for some help to get him out of the dark tunnel he’s got himself seemingly stuck in.  Alex is the 14^th son of a father who comes from a large family himself – in fact, his is a family that prides itself on the number of its offspring.  The irony, of course, is that despite coming from this enormous extended family (Alex’s nephew, ten years older than he is, is the warden of the prison he’s escaping from), Alex finds himself alone, leading a dissolute life, doing nothing except drinking and partying, and trusting the wrong people altogether, the latter of which lands him in the prison he keeps trying to escape from.

 

Did I mention that Alex is the 14th child?  Irony.

 

Alex’s saviour comes in the form of Akbar Ali (Sunny Wayne), also trying to escape from prison at the same time.  Akbar Ali is a man with a mission, and that mission is to get back to Lakshadweep to divorce Isa (Swati Reddy) before she heads out to a fisheries job in Singapore.

 

 

Alex discovers, however, that his name has ended up on the list of prisoners to be pardoned on the upcoming Indian Independence Day.  In order for that to go ahead, his nephew the prison warden insists not only that Alex return to prison so that his escape can be covered up; as well, Alex must return with Akbar Ali, so as to keep the prison’s record intact (in one of the film’s fine details, a fellow prisoner tells Alex that only two people have managed to escape from this prison – a man named Jeevan and some foreigner, a reference to the Mohanlal film Season, as well as to the Shawshank Redemption).  This leads Alex to follow Akbar Ali to Lakshadweep.  On the boat journey there, Akbar Ali tells him the story of how he met Isa and how he married her – or, rather, how she asked him to marry her.  Before Alex can learn more, Akbar Ali has literally jumped ship.  Alex, in an attempt to find Akbar Ali, seeks assistance from the newly arrived post office employee, Deena (Janani Iyer) – Alex and Deena have met on the boat to Lakshadweep, where they both arrive on deck suffering from seasickness and try to help each other through it.

 

 

Alex eventually tracks down Akbar Ali, where he learns the rest of his story with Isa.  Turns out Isa had been divorced from her first husband, Hashim (Nishanth Sagar), and having decided they made a mistake and want to remarry, tradition demands that she can only remarry after she has married and been divorced a second time.  That she asks Akbar Ali to marry her turns out to be less romantic than it seems – she wants Akbar Ali to help her so that she can remarry Hashim.  Isa’s father grudgingly agrees to this, but only if Hashim pays a mahr – and in order to do that, Hashim asks Akbar Ali to help him illegally catch and sell a whale to raise the amount.  The police come to get Akbar Ali in the middle of the ceremony performing the divorce from Isa – and Akbar Ali decides that instead of letting Isa remarry a man who clearly isn’t worthy of her, that he’ll give her the divorce when he’s released from prison.  In the meantime, Hashim, who proves Akbar Ali right, abandons Isa a second time; but Isa finishes her studies and gets a job in Singapore.  Because of that she needs to leave before Akbar Ali is released from prison, so he escapes in order to give her her freedom as she moves on to her new job and her new life.

 

 

Mosayile Kuthira Meenukal is, I would argue, a most perfect example of New Gen Malayalam cinema at its best, with lessons that span the generations.  Even its title harks back to the Golden Age of Malayalam cinema, with its poetic and metaphoric film titles, such as Padmarajan’s Thoovanathumbikal (“Dragonflies of the Spraying Rain”).  And although it represents the realities of a younger generation of Malayalees, it also holds the past in high regard, referencing that Golden Age of cinema most obviously with Padmarajan’s cult film Season; in fact, clips of Mohanlal’s escape attempt from that film are intercut with those of one of Alex’s attempts to escape from prison. As well, it pulls from the best of world cinema – that Shawshank Redemption reference cannot be accidental – using the language of cinema to tell a story unique to Kerala.  It’s fascinating to see how the framing, in particular, shifts as the film progresses.  The first half of the film, focussing on Alex’s time in prison, and his escape, is all shot in ways that emphasize the fact that Alex is trapped, confined, that he needs to break out.  This shifts dramatically at the interval – just before the interval card goes up, Alex and Akbar Ali are shown at the doorway to the ship’s stern.  They step out onto the deck, and view the expanse of water as the ship leaves for Lakshadweep.  Freedom awaits them, as do events that will change both their lives.

 

 

Ajith Pillai’s film is, in essence, a study of human nature, of selfishness, of self-interest, and, ultimately, of sacrifice and selflessness.  It is, as well, an exercise in redemption, at least for Alex, and of the redemptive power of a place like Lakshadweep.  Akbar Ali tells Isa of a foreign tourist he guided once, who told him that he was lucky to be from such a beautiful place; the two of them agree, they live in the most beautiful place on earth. Alex’s journey is like a rebirth, out of the drainage tunnel under the prison, out to Lakshadweep, on the way meeting first Akbar Ali, and then Deena.  From Deena he learns that one of the secrets to life is making others happy; from Akbar Ali, he learns the importance of love and self-sacrifice.  Akbar Ali’s nickname on Lakshadweep is “swordfish”, like the swordfish of the film’s title.  Swordfish, Alex is told, are selfish fish, thinking only of themselves.  And although it looks as if Akbar Ali is acting in his own self-interest, by making Isa wait until he’s out of prison to deliver his talaq (divorce), Alex learns that, in fact, everything Akbar Ali does is to ensure Isa’s happiness – even if that means sacrificing his own relationship with her, even if it means going to prison.

In the end, Akbar Ali’s friend Sulaiman (Jijoy) makes the most important observation about human nature:  everyone, everywhere has moments when they are selfish, when they look out for their own self-interest.  At some time in our lives, we are all like the mosayile kuthira meenukal, those selfish swordfish, and really, in the end, what is wrong with that?  Nothing, as long as we balance it with the advice from Deena’s mother: that the most important thing we can do is to make others happy along the way. 

 

This post is part of the Beach Party Blogathon hosted by Speakeasy and Silver Screenings.

Mardaani (dir. Pradeep Sarkar, 2104) (Hindi)

 

There was a moment, sitting in the theatre watching Mardaani, when I knew that I was going to be swimming upstream against opinion in my view of the film.  I’ve walked out of precisely one film in my long film-watching life, and quite honestly, if it hadn’t been for three things, I might well have walked out of Mardaani as well.

First, we’d driven a long way to this theatre, and I wasn’t alone.  If I walked out, I would have had to leave Mr. Totally Filmi behind, and since he was the one with the car keys, I figured I should just sit it out (aside:  Mr. T.F. liked the film, and I think he was a little surprised at my reaction to it).

Second, the themes the film deals with – specifically the issue of the human sex trafficking trade, but also the idea hinted at in the title, that “manliness: what does it mean to be manly, not only for the women in this film, but for the men themselves?  I have very little respect for men who think it’s “manly” to bed little girls, or for men who think it’s quite all right to kidnap them and force them into those beds.  I’m also quite sure that I don’t think female empowerment has much to do with being “manly” – behaving like men (to be fair, I saw that clip where Rani explained the title as translating more to “warriorlike”, and I won’t disagree that sometimes women need to learn to stand up for themselves and take care of themselves, if that’s how we’re going to define “warriorlike”).  But those are interesting ideas to think about, and I wanted to see how they played out in the film.

Thirdly, Rani Mukherjee.  I have to say, the key thing that kept me in my seat was Rani Mukeherjee’s fine, fine performance.  Rani truly gets into the skin of her character, Shivani Shivaji Roy.  Roy is a sub-inspector with the crime branch in Mumbai.  She’s also a wife and a surrogate mother to both her niece, and to Pyaari, an adolescent whom she has rescued from the railway station and on whom she keeps a watchful eye.  When Pyaari goes missing, Shivani begins to investigate her disappearance, and what she finds is the tip of a very deep iceberg of trade in young girls.  When Shivani is contacted by Karan Rastogi (AKA “Walt”, in a hat tip to the very popular television series Breaking Bad), his intention is to offer her a bribe to get her to drop the investigation.  He offers her a penthouse apartment.  She refuses, asking him how she’ll get to it when the elevator is, inevitably, out of service.  What Shivani demands is the return of Pyaari.  When Karan refuses – Pyaari has seen too much of his operation, making her a threat to it – Shivani lets him know that she plans to hunt him down and take Pyaari back.

 

 

There is, actually, a lot – quite a lot -- that I like about Mardaani.  I love Shivani Shivaji Roy – love that she’s a tough cop, that she’s respected by the other cops she works with.  She’s smart, she’s knowledgeable (the scene where she delivers a tight slap for every infraction she cites serves cleverly to underline this).  She’s also a typical working woman, bringing home take-away when she’s arriving home too late to cook, combing her niece’s hair before setting off to work – thankfully, Mardaani gives us a central female character who feels real, and Rani Mukherjee takes her and makes us want to cheer for her at every step of the way.

 
There are a lot of smartly written scenes and clever dialogues, as well as a few really fine supporting performances.  I love Shivani’s coworkers and her relationship with them – they treat her as an equal, as evidenced by the banter they share as well as their well orchestrated work relationship.  Shivani is a tough, honest cop, but she also knows that some methods work better than others at getting information.  One of the film’s fine moments involves her trying to get information out of Rehman, who she and her team recently busted.  He knows she’s trying to bribe information out of him by offering up some biryani.  She knows he knows it.  He offers her what she needs, not because of that bribe, but only because, as he tells her, of the children involved.

So it’s an enormous frustration for me that a film that can get these kinds of details right – that has characters that step beyond a stereotype, that has scenes and dialogues so deftly and delicately written – can also get so much wrong.  There are just as many performances here that strike a wrong note as those that soar.  Shivani’s husband is nothing more than a blip in the film – frankly, it felt as if he was only there as a kind of convenient vehicle for a bit of payback/warning for Shivani when she gets too close to Karan’s operation (irony:  the husband is treated just like a heroine in a typical hero-centred film might be).  Karan himself is kind of an interesting character, and played beautifully and with restraint by relative newcomer Tahir Bhasin.  But most of the villains in this film, those involved in the illegal drug and sex trades, well, they’re stereotypes and cyphers, too.  I suspect, too, that for me, Mardaani suffered in comparison to the 2013 Malayalam language film Thira.  Directed by Vineeth Srineevasan, Thira explored a similar subject matter in a similar style, but did so with much greater delicatesse.

The scene that had me contemplating walking out of the film is also the scene that made me feel incredibly physically ill – it’s the rape of Pyaari by the client who purchases her.  This came on the heels of several scenes in which Pyaari and the other girls who have been kidnapped are forceably stripped, foreceably showered, and forced to remove the thin blankets they’ve been given so that they may be “sorted” into appropriate bits of the trade, some as higher end prostitutes, some merely as mules for the drug trade.  I understand the need to create some kind of response in the audience, that these are issues that are difficult to think about, difficult to face.  But they have to be faced if anything is to be done about this horrible, horrible trade in young girls.  There is, however, a line between forcing the audience to face these horrors and contemplate them with an eye to making them think about the issues, and maybe act on that when they leave the theatre; there is a line between that and a kind of voyeurism, and I think, for me, that Mardaani crossed that line at some point.  Maybe it was one too many scenes of girls being degraded; maybe it was the soft, artful lighting used to imply delicacy in dealing with Pyaari’s rape.  It’s one of those terrible conundrums, too – how do you know when the line between decency and voyeurism has been crossed?  How do you even know where it is?  Possibly it’s different for every viewer, but for me, it was just too much, and I was never able to enjoy what was truly good in this film after that.

The film is at its best when it focusses on the cat and mouse game happening between Shivani and Karan, but it also manages to dissipate much of the tension that game should generate.  And in the film’s final scenes – when I suppose the appropriate response would have been to cheer for Shivani and the girls as they apply a balm of vigilante justice to make up for the injustice dealt to them – well, mostly I was just glad it was over.

And those final scenes bring me back to the film’s title – what does it mean to be “manly” – or even, what does it mean to be warriorlike, if I go with the translation preferred by the film’s makers?  Is being empowered, for a woman, merely to behave just like a man?  To behave just as badly as men, in the case of the woman who works “taking care” of the girls, or in the case of Karan’s mother?  Is this how we want to right wrongs, by taking justice into our own hands and beating the crap out of those who treat us unjustly? It’s not how I view empowerment.  And it’s not how I view justice – I’d prefer to see us work towards fixing systems that allow this kind of criminal activity to go unpunished or to be ignored; systems that treat victims as if they have something to be ashamed of.  And I’d even take an imperfect system over the kind of popular vigilantism suggested by Shivani in the film’s climax.

But please, whatever happens – give me another film with a role like this one for Rani Mukerjee.  Give me Shivani Shivaji Roy in an investigation worthy of her talents.