re:mote voices

Title: Monsoon Wedding
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vijay Raaz, Tilotama Shome, Vasundhara Das, Parvin Dabas, Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Director: Mira Nair

Despite it’s Bollywood influences Monsoon Wedding takes a more contemporary and realist approach to modern Indian life. Revolving, as the title suggests, around a wedding during the monsoon season. At the core is the bride, who is partaking in an arranged marriage, with a man who has been born and raised in America, which will become her new home after the wedding. Despite the fact it is an arranged marriage, she is happy to engage, having become tired of her stagnant relationship with a married TV executive. As the family prepare for the wedding there are a number of parties, such that the film covers the period of time from the groom’s arrival and the engagement party to the wedding itself. Through each stage more and more family members arrive, from parts of India, as well as America and Australia, underlining the expansive nature of family. But with most families there is a darkside, the gathering of family bringing old wounds and secrets to the fore with regrettable results. To contrast the stresses and strains of the family there is a secondary love story, that between the household maid and the wedding planner who falls for her, realising that for all the weddings he has put together, he has never found love himself.

There is some singing and dancing with the parties, which comes from the same influence from the more familiar face of Bollywood, but clearly both share cultural influences. Again there is a feel of the epic with the ceremonies, and the wedding plans, flowers and colour erupting everywhere in a vivid manner. At the same time there is also the blasts of daily Indian life, particularly during this monsoon season, with the little montage/chapter headings which represent the passage of each of the days between engagement and wedding. With the result that from beginning to end Monsoon Wedding is an emotional and lively film.