Friday night (3/16) I saw the Namesake at BAM. I'm not generally one for writing a movie review but this one struck a chord. So I can at least give it that much credit...it made me feel compelled to respond to it, even if just in my small unread blog-like way. Any chord. Most of the people I went with (who were mainly indo-American) didn't like the film...calling it a sell-out, cliché, and creatively defunct. I don't totally disagree but I do think that there is another side to consider.
The movie is based on a cliche theme. Bi-cultural, identity questioning, ABCDs. It was a popular theme (and a somewhat failed genre emerging in the late 1990's) that has passed its time. The ABCD experience has evolved...there are now 3rd and 4th generations popping up and those that have recently arrived from the motherland are coming to a "new" America....a place where, for the most part, people know what curry is, have seen an Indian woman in a sari and recognize the difference between American Indians and Indian Americans...(I'd like to emphasize FOR THE MOST PART..although maybe being born and raised on the East coast and living NYC has me jaded). But just because the theme is a more dated one, doesn't mean that movies, books, music, etc exploring this theme can't be fresh. In fact, I think that exploring these themes still do shed light on a topic that many people still don't understand. So, this is where my positive nod to the movie comes....the namesake is what it is. it explores a dated theme in a dated manner (although I wish it was explored in a fresh manner). It is the best ABCD movie that has been produced (on a large scale) to date (in comparison to American Desi, ABCD, etc etc). It isn't breathtaking, but maybe it's not meant to be. It lacks in strongly developing any characters and relationships, but maybe the America (read: white) audience that it was made for can't handle going too deep when dealing with a "foreign culture." 95% of the audience at BAM was non-Indian. When I went to see Mira Nair and Jhumpa Lahiri speak at the Barnes and Nobles in Union Square the week the movie opened, the audience was amazingly ethnically mixed...but then again, it was still predominantly white. And I don't say this to be negative, racist, etc...in fact, I think the opposite. I think that Nair and Lahiri have done a great job with illustrating a very standard immigrant experience to a larger mass-market audience....in a very standard way...again, it is what it is.
As far as the actual acting goes, I think that Tabu (Ashima) and Irrfan Khan (Ashoke) were true to their art, sincere and convincing. I appreciated (and actually wanted more of) the focus on Ashima (as opposed to the book which focuses on Gogol). It would have been more satisfying to see a deeper view of Ashima and Ashoke's relationship, which is so rich and meaningful. But they were both, hands-down, what makes this movie special and worth it.
Visually, the movie was well done..that is, of course, Nair's strong suit. She has that "slice-of-life" style that is visually engaging...her use of colors, framing and shot angles were captivating (sometimes, a few too many close ups of Kal Penn though)....and musically, Nitin Sawhney was amazing (as usual). I found the editing to be jumpy and it lacked a fluid thread. I realize that it's extremely challenging to boil down a 30 year old saga to 2 hours, which makes editing that much more important. I just think that there large chunks of missing time pieces or scenes that were cut too short...while at the same time, there were many scenes that were too long, dragged out and/or unnecessary.
So is it worth the $10 to go see this movie in the theater?..ABSOLUTELY...suppoort the brown people and their art, I say. For me, it the film wasn't the life-changing/inspiration story it had the potential to be...but it was entertaining and holds its ground as a higher-quality indo-America film...along the lines of an American romantic-comedy....
and there you have it. long, sorry, i know...
1 comment:
yup..cliched is one word that jumped out when I walked out of the theatre. but that was a given since the book was extremely prosaic. My guess is that Mira Nair's commercial success is based on her being appealing to the non-Indian mass market, which is the kind of appeal that made Jhumpa Lahiri an author-celebrity. There was a massive dislocation in the story when the focus shifted to the 2nd generation. That just did not work out...neither in the movie nor in the book. But I didn't think the movie was a sell out. The acting, sans Kal Penn, was outstanding. The shots in India (esp. Calcutta) and Mira Nair's interpretation of Bengali culture were fabulous. the relationship between Ashima and Ashoke was beautiful. Yes, Mira Nair should've fleshed that out more and ditched the entire done-to-death theme of ABCD and FoB cultural conflict.
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