In Mr. India (1987, dir. Shekhar Kapur), Sridevi plays Seema, a hard-hitting, kid-hating, investigative journalist for the deliciously named "Crimes of India". And as such, here are some examples of what she wears throughout the film:
Because Seema is, in fact, the epitome of the modern 80s woman: dresses with draping, ruffles, floral prints, big bows. Seema is fresh. She is bold. She is perfectly attired.
That said: much of what she wears can pretty much be summed up in the Sridevi colourway I made the blog over with in honour of her this week: lovely, fresh pastels.
What's a little more interesting for me from a purely colour perspective, however, are the two song picturisations she performs in the film, "Hawa Hawaii" and "I Love You".
Now, I did a whole whack of screencaps for "Hawa Hawaii", but deciding on a colourway for this number would prove a little challenging, based on what's going on it it (Hint: a lot). So have a watch, first, and then I'll share some thoughts on colour:
I haven't created a colour swatch for Seema based on this number, but if I did? It would be heavy on gold, red, black, and white -- that is, it would share rather a lot with the colours I picked out for the film's villain, Mogambo. It kind of makes me think that we have our hero, Arun, with on one side, a powerful adversary, and on the other side, a powerful ally in Seema.
But to create a colourway for Miss Hawaii, I got thinking about two things: first, her name, which clearly must come from the word "havaa": air, wind, breeze, and therefore "havaaii" -- airy? Windy? Breezy?
(I cannot help but think of the song "Windy" by The Association: "Who's peeking out from under a stairway, calling a name that's lighter than air, who's bending down to give me a rainbow, everyone knows it's Windy.")
Let's go with Miss Breezy, because that, frankly, sounds prettiest. So, Seema, having accidently overheard about the plot to trade the golden statue of Hanuman for some drugs and weapons, turns up at the venue dressed as the performer for the evening, the infamous Miss Hawaii/Breezy:
This is, actually, one of my favorite moments in the film -- even more so than Sridevi's iconic turn as Charlie Chaplin. When she starts nibbling the fruit off her hat, I end up in fits of giggles. Miss Hawaaii is, indeed, breezy, airy, funny, and oh, so colourful:
Stil, though -- that's not what I would choose to epitomize the lovely Seema. For that, I want to turn to the film's most famous song, "I Love You", in which Seema dances with the (mostly) invisible love of her life, Mr. India:
I pulled three screencaps from the film to try to think about the colours:
And played around with them until I finally decided on this:
What I love about this is that over at Colourlovers, if a colour hasn't already been assigned a name, you are asked to do so, so now? The light teal blue on the far left is called "Seema's Sari". But the darker blue next to it was already assigned a name: "Blind Lover". Which is sort of what Seema is. Blind in the sense that she can't see Mr. India (and the red is there to play with the idea that he can only be seen in red light, which happens in the song) and also that in falling in love with Mr. India, she is blind to the fact that he and Arun are one and the same.
I've had a great deal of fun playing with the colours of the film Mr. India -- I'm grateful for Sridevipalooza for giving me the push to do it, and I will certainly be doing something like this again in the future!
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