Midnight's Children

As I sat through the final gala event of the Indian film festival in Los Angeles, I witness a sea of NRI theatrics to promote and celebrate there film communities beloved cinematic achievements. It is there night to celebrate two of finest exports of not so artistically talented community of Indian Americans in North America. 'Midnight's children' is the movie they are trying to celebrate today. I am saying trying because unfortunate as it may be this one has turned out to be cold turkey.

Based on the celebrated novel of the same name by Salman Rushdie the movie version is staunchly conservative as it decidedly sticks honest with the book's narrative. May be Mr. Rushdie did not wish to tinker anything to his beloved book and he is entitled to do whatever he wishes to with its film version. Unfortunately for the audience, Mr. Rushdie along with Miss Deepa Mehta has served something that is too much to consume in approximately two and half hour of the films running time. The movie has a life trajectory beginning with main character Salim's grandfather's love story in British India Kashmir in 1917 and ends in Independent India's Mumbai in the seventies with Salim's young son. In between the movie is a mess of character's coming in and out of the movie with break neck speed.

The film is fable and a tribute to the Nehruvian (Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's style of politics) India's broken secular promises. Salim is a boy born at the stroke of midnight of India's Independence from British occupation. He is supposed to be the son of Indian Muslim family but is actually the son of a local Mumbai street singer who had affair with a British gentleman during his empire's final days. The street singer dies during child birth. The hospital nurse Mary, because of her social beliefs regarding the nation's so called Independence, decides to switch the newborn son of the poor street singer to the rich born kid of a Muslim couple.

The destinies of the two new born are not only entangled by the switch but also with the gift that they possess along with every other children who are born on the stroke of midnight with a new born nation with promises of its richly diverse population.

Each of those new born children are metaphor for the nation's promises of what it can achieve if those natural gifts are used effectively for better means. They all possess different powers with Salim being able to telepathically communicate with each one of the Midnight's Children. While the couple's real kid who ends up with the husband of the street singer is named Shiva who possesses the powerful destructive powers, while Parvati is a magician who is destined to be Salim's soul mate. Salim's destiny is forever bonded with the nation of his birth and hence we are taken to a journey through modern Indian history.

The source material for the film is a literary classic, so there is no doubt that Miss Mehta has been brought down by the wait of expectations. She gave no space for any character development and the second rate cast does not do any favor to the films flow. Unfortunately, the worst of the lot is the main lead Satya Babha who plays the grown up Salim. A small actor in American sitcom, Satya did not have any facial expression or emotions that could light up even the most well written scenes. He fails to carry the film on his shoulders and makes it a stretch for the audience to continue with the film. The only noteworthy and perfect though stereotypical performance is Seema Biswas's Miss Mary.

Some of the best parts of the novel is the Bangladesh war and Indira Gandhi's emergency days. Unfortunately in the movie version no sense of history is evoked during those sequences and to those who may have very scant knowledge of those events may remain disillusioned.

Miss Mehta mentioned during her introductory speech; how Mr. Rushdie got annoyed when some audience member at Toronto film festival compared the film with Forrest Gump. Even I would be annoyed. Forrest Gump maintained a smooth flow even with its long generational trajectory and allowed character development by concentrating on only the main character rather than his entire family tree. But Midnight's Children ends up becoming a fast paced narration of the novel that deserved a better movie version.

Mr. Rushdie and Miss Mehta spoiled a perfect opportunity to create a memorable journey through modern Indian history and placed this cobbled screen adaption as footnote in their respective careers.

Salman Rushdie's epic novel was published in 1981 but it was not until 2003, when I was on a holiday in India, that I read this ambitious and challenging work. It has taken until 2013 - ironically the same year as the film version of another Booker Prize novel with an Indian theme, "The Life Of Pi" - to reach the big screen. One can understand why, because the span of Rushie's book is enormous - so many characters and so many events over a period of 60 years - and the style is so special - his own version of magical realism - that it was clearly a huge and complicated task.

But it largely works. Obviously the film has to be more accessible and the material more manageable, but the cinematography (it was shot in Sri Lanka) and the music (the original score is Nitin Sawhney) are wonderfully atmospheric additions to the story. Immense credit must go to Rushdie himself who wrote the screenplay (as well as acting as narrator), since it cannot have been easy to simplify his own long (460 pages) and rich text, but the result is a film that is immensely faithful to both the narrative and the tone of the novel. Director Deepa Mehta - another Indian now living abroad (Canada) - has crafted a grandiose tale that is as far from Bollywood as Hollywood which means that sadly it will not have a huge audience in any continent.

Clearly the film has been made with a lot of reverence for the novel and the nation, but it lacks pace and heart. The children of the title are those born in the first 24 hours of India's independence at midnight on 17 August 1947 and Rushdie's fantastical invention is to give these children different special powers. As a film, so many characters and so much history means that there are no real stand-out performances (indeed some of the acting is weak) and the real star of the movie is India itself - an exotic charmer who promised so much and has disappointed so much.

A satisfactory (not great) adaptation of a Literary Masterpiece! This might be Deepa Mehta's most ambitious film till date, but not her best one.

The sets, the cinematography and the acting are superb; these are the main plus points for the movie. The author (Salman Rushdie) himself does the narration, which gives an intimate feel. The movie's splendid cast is truly fine; with so many experienced actors being a part of it. Shahana Goswami, Seema Biswas and Darsheel Safary truly stand out.

The movie could have been much better if a few things could have been avoided. First and the primary one being, she broke the first rule of novel adaptations - never let the original author adapt his own book. This causes the screenplay to be flabby, and sometimes overstretched. He struggles to incorporate most of his teeming subplots; the result is that it becomes too difficult to find a narrative focus.The editing and the background score could have been better. The characters seem a little underdeveloped and fail to make an emotional connection. And the screenplay fails to soulfully blend the supernatural realism with the historic political sweep of the story.

The Book might be 'Booker of Bookers', but the movie fails to reach that height. It's still a satisfactory watch for all the book's fans and lovers of unusual cinema.

Midnight's Children, that mammoth book written by Salman Rushdie which all English Literature Undergraduates are forced to read and marvel at, finally gets a long-awaited film adaptation. Having read the book many years ago, I never imagined anybody would be bold enough to actually film the text, with all it's magical realism and grand sweeps through the course of history, so let's see how this goes...

Telling the story of Saleem, born on the stroke of Midnight on August 15th 1947 i.e when India finally became an independent nation, whose life is altered from the minute he is born, as he is given to the wrong parents, rich parents, and thus afforded a life of luxury that he was not destined to have. On top of that, he has magical powers (that aren't that great to be honest), and finds that every child born at Midnight on August 15th also has magic powers, it's like the Power Rangers: India. What thus follows is a story narrated by Rushdie himself, as Saleem's life links and progresses with the historical and political turmoil taking part in India throughout the century, ( Partitions, Civil Wars, States of Emergency), and Saleem, much like India at the time, struggles and battles to find out his own identity.

The film does well in scaling down the content of the novel, it's more of a drama with bits of comedy, than a grand epic or fantasy, and parts do feel rushed as the viewer is transported from year to year without any sense of anything really linking together, despite the valiant attempts of Rushdie narrating the whole story. However, it is still a film that does manage to vividly depict a fascinating period in history with lots of very visual scenes that leave a lasting impression, and more importantly, it links it all together with individual plights, to add that emotional intensity. So overall I'd still recommend it.

7/10

Only occasionally does a movie portray a culture in a time and place that truly succeeds in giving you a sense of what it was like there. I think of Like Water for Chocolate for example. I was totally blown away by this film's ability to somehow transport me back to India, capturing all the craziness, the colours, the confusion, the sensibilities.... I only spent six weeks there but my son who worked there for a year and a half agreed with me. I think that it is a very unusual film for western viewers. The symbolism is so important and rich. We are not watching individuals at all but characters who represent elements of the country that the writer and director are passionate about. The pace and length is absolutely essential to get the feel of how vast the story is. The camera-work is breathtaking, the music is absolutely authentic, I felt that I could even smell India again. I noticed that the reviews by western critics were mostly negative while those from India were the opposite. If you want to enjoy this film, leave your western film expectations at home and come with an openness to a different way of seeing, learning and experiencing. I will encourage everyone I know to treat themselves to this wonderful film.