Okay, more Bollywood. I can't help it, it's interesting to me.

Tere Naam

We saw Tere Naam a couple weeks ago. I was underwhelmed. It's a Romeo & Juliet/West Side Story cultural translation, but it just didn't work for me. More specifically, the guy worked, but the girl was incomprehensible. Seriously, I couldn't figure out what she saw in him. He was violent and loud and she was a relatively together, smart kind of person. He kidnaps her and threatens to kill her so she decides she's in love. Makes no sense. The description does the hero something of a disservice, actually. He's shown from the beginning to be a rough character with a core decency that makes you care about him. Her attraction to him simply makes no sense. It makes even less sense that she'd get all tragic when asked to marry a guy who is genuinely nice, cares for her a lot, and is honorable to a fault. Yeah, she'd rather marry Mr. Broody, but that wasn't an option (and I mean because he's functionally brain-dead, not because he's being a dork). Or hey, here's a thought, don't marry anybody for a while. Sheesh. I admit there may be some cultural nuances I'm missing and the bit about her dad pressuring her to marry may be more potent if I understood the expectations better, but her dad hadn't been played as all that domineering or unreasonable to that point.

Anyway, this is the first Bollywood movie that felt long to me. Funny thing, it's one of the shortest so far. The best part of it was the special features on disc 2 of the DVD we had borrowed. It turns out that Salman Khan only looks really bad with the stupid haircut he had in this movie. Disc 2 has a bunch of his song and dance numbers from his other movies (which go back two decades if you can believe that--he looks half his 40-odd age). The best ones are his latest ones because he's bulked up a lot in the last decade. It looks good on him. Definite eye-candy for the ladies (and the men who are comfortable with their sexuality). Seriously, that man exudes cool despite the pouty lips.

Rather than buy the DVD for those numbers, though, I'd look up anything from his later work and get those instead. They look good from their numbers.

Paheli

Shahrukh Khan is fast becoming my favorite actor (in any industry). He exudes charm and an irresistible likability that makes you want to get to know him better. In Paheli, he shows that it isn't the roles he's getting and that the charm is completely under his control. He plays two roles in this film--the son of a business man just married but compelled to leave the following morning because it is an "auspicious" day to begin a business venture, and a ghost who falls in love with the bride while they are traveling to their new home. The ghost decides his best bet for getting with her is impersonating the poor sap while he's away (for five years--long business venture). Playing the son, Khan is completely unsympathetic in a very strange way. It isn't that he's repulsive. He's obsequious and rather self-involved is all. And he ignores his new bride on their bridal night because he has to "get the accounts done". Seriously, the man is an idiot.

Anyway, Paheli is based on a common story and the setting is (probably deliberately) vague as to time period and location. What is interesting to me are some very subtle cultural interactions in the film that struck me. Some spoilers ensue, but I don't consider them terribly earth-shaking.

First off, the brother that left his wife and young child because he lost a camel race. To me, that's just stupid. The other people seem to think it's stupid too, but more in a "I'm sorry he felt so dishonored" kind of way rather than a "he did what?!?" kind of way. That's not the interesting part of this side-story, though. The interesting part was when he returned (because his "brother" won a camel race--which is even weirder to me, but there you go). When he comes back, he begs his wife to forgive and his son to embrace him. Funny thing: his family isn't pressuring her one way or another. This is left entirely up to her (bearing in mind that they've supported her this entire time so it's not really a surprise I guess). The young son (he looked 10 or so) when facing his father's request for a hug takes his cue from his mother. There is no hint that this would be weird or wrong or abnormal in any way. The husband doesn't see this as odd. He says nothing about his rights and does nothing to plead directly to the boy or forestall and/or override her potential denial. The whole scene was very indicative of a culture centered on large-family units that had a real sense of obligation and internal justice. One where the parents (who owned and ruled the compound) were more loyal to their daughter-in-law and her boy than to their son. I found that fascinating, particularly as the era was so deliberately obscured which would seem to argue that such values are long-standing.

The second incident that made me pause was at the end when both a) the son returned and the family is faced with two men completely identical--one obviously an imposter, and b) the original bride has a child that can only be from the one who has been around all this time. The whole time they're trying to determine which one is the real son/husband, there seems to be little or no worry about who the child's father is. It seems to be enough that he is the child of the daughter-in-law. Or at least, the question of parentage is forestalled and considered tangential to the question of which is the real man and which the imposter. Further, when it comes out that the child is from the imposter, the household opinion is (specifically, carefully, even lovingly expressed) that it is no fault of the mother or child for being deceived. In other words, the expectation was that they would support the mother and child as if both men had been legitimately their son/brother/whatever. This is extremely magnanimous and open handed considering that, again, the extended family was geared to support those who were technically no blood-kin of theirs both emotionally and materially. Now, I don't know how extensive that support would have been over time. I don't know what might have played in later rights of inheritance or anything because the movie ends pretty much there. Even so, this is a cultural strength that seems to be a given and not emphasized like it would be if it were odd.

These cultural moments may be distinct to the single movie and certainly there are Western movies that might have decided those crisis points the same way. Still, these moments earned my respect and made me love the people in the movie and wish I knew more people like them. And it confirmed that I'll gladly watch anything with Shahrukh Khan in it. At least, until I find the one that sucks. So far, they've all been outstanding.