My previous review was on the original version of Swept Away, a film which is disturbing for a number of reasons, most notably the treatment of the female character by that of the male. In that film, the male character beats the woman repeatedly, in an attempt to force her to live out his idyllic Communist-derived fantasy world. Of course, the nature of that film was to be provocative. We were supposed to feel unsettled, perhaps offended.

In Mira Nair’s film Monsoon Wedding, we also have a provocative, if far less hostile, situation; that of arranged marriage. The film is about the preparations for a wedding in India, but the novelty, at least for us Westerners, is the fact that this is an arranged marriage. In fact, the two people don’t even get a chance to talk alone together without the presence of others until about halfway through the picture. If I’m not mistaken, although it’s easy to get confused in the chaos that is the first half-hour, the two don’t even actually meet until after the movie begins.

What might make this movie troubling for those with strong feelings on this issue is the fact that the movie doesn’t even seem to make an issue of the fact that this is an arranged marriage as opposed to a “conventional” one. Monsoon Wedding is merely a “wedding” movie, India-style.

Sure, there are a few people who make comments. Most notably is the cousin of the bride, who, at the film’s start, argues that people shouldn’t marry because of what the family wants, or because of the fear of not being able to raise a family, or of passion... what happened to love? The bride counters this by pointing out that the cousin is older and unmarried.

There’s also a very intriguing situation involving the bride. She’s actually having an affair with another man, a TV presenter, and has to break it off for obvious reasons. For we in the West, such a situation is bizarre. We’re used to many movies where the woman (or man) cheats on the longtime spouse with a casual fling, but here, we’ve got a woman with a longtime fling who leaves him for a marriage where she has no idea what the guy looks like or sounds like until about a week before the vows.

The whole thing about the arranged marriage does affect the storyline in one way, however. There’s not what we would consider a love story here. The only real tension is whether the bride can talk about the fact that she had this relationship just before preparing to take the plunge, and whether the groom will react badly to the news. The movie itself is not too much affected, however, since the story is not simply about one relationship, but about family and friends, and all the issues, crisis, and other goings-on that occur before and during the ceremony.

There are, in fact, more “traditional” moments of courting, which obviously tell us that relationships are created for many different reasons. The most amusing of this involves the wedding planner. At first, he doesn’t exactly appear the lovable type. He’s certainly not handsome, he’s a bit of an Indian Herb Tarlek (from WKRP in case you forgot) when it comes to his business, but even this man deserves some happiness. He points out, forlornly, to his workers, that he’s planned hundreds of weddings, but has no love in his life. He soon becomes smitten with a servant girl in the house, and the two go through a very shy courtship.

We also get a number of family crisis, major and minor. Some of the relatively minor stuff involves the father and his relationship with his son. The father is naturally a cranky, picky sort.... he has a tendency to casually call people “idiot”. He’s a little ruffled by his young son, who spends his life watching cooking shows on TV, and figures maybe he could grow up to be a chef. The father figures that the kid ought to build character -- to basically be a manly man - and this creates a bit of tension later on.

There’s also hints of a major crisis when an uncle arrives in the area for the wedding. Through glances, and certain camera shots, we realize that something happened between the uncle and the cousin of the bride. This part of the movie is quite predictable, but there’s still some tension due to the fact that this wedding is supposed to be a happy occasion, and things could be spoiled if the past comes to light.

The film, overall, is not too deep, but fun to watch. Some of the characters are gently amusing, or are real in some way, and there’s the occasional amusing scene here and there. I found it occasionally difficult to keep up with the dialogue; the characters switch easily and frequently between English, Punjabi and Hindi, and, while these people speak fine English, their accents are often difficult enough for those not used to this. The film itself is confusing at first, which makes sense, as we are thrown in the midst of a large family, with many different players. But after a while, we get used to the whole thing.

If you do have difficulties with arranged marriage, don’t expect it to get a going-over in this film. This film is just a portrait of an Indian family during what is probably a fairly common ritual. We are merely invited to see how people live in another part of the world, and, in truth, except for the fact that the marriage is arranged, and the film takes place in India, I don’t think that this sort of activity, chaos and dynamics is much different in our part of the world. This is a film that I think a lot of people can relate to in some way.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good Date Movie