proserpine

If you really need a dose of saccharine, go and see Taare Zameen Par. Apart from being an obvious (and far from modest) vehicle for the director himself, it's the most maudlin, pathetic tear-jerker even by Bollywood standards. Most of the actors are complete hams (with the exception of Ishaan himself), with the prize going to Big Brother. The film exploits every stereotype imaginable to the extent that the characters are mere cartoons - one wonders whether the episode where the students draw caricatures of their teachers was intended irony or not. Perhaps the film-makers could have taken a few lessons from Aparna Sen's 15 Park Avenue if they had had any desire to produce something socially conscious and sensitive without the saccharine. Apparently, they didn't.

The Ivory-Merchant duo are known for their luxurious-looking films, the camera often caressing each fish-fork with the same love it displays for the protagonist. It's somewhat refreshing here to see Merchant without Ivory. Merchant's camera displays the same love for detail that the Ivory-Merchant duo's does, except that it is much grittier, caressing the protagonist's vomit with the same attention that it bestows upon his exquisite Jamewaar shawl. I refer to Shashi Kapoor as the protagonist, because he steals the role away from Om Puri. Om Puri plays the timid Deven, a college professor bent on interviewing his idol, the formerly grand but now-alcoholic Urdu poet, Nur. Shashi Kapoor is perfect as the obese, alcoholic, henpecked, decaying poet because his own appearance encapsulates this decay. Those who do not recognize him as the hero in scores of Bollywood films or in many early Ivory-Merchant productions will miss the subtlety of this cinematic reference, because Kapoor's own physical decay perfectly encapsulates the theme of decay that is central to the film. Shabana Azmi is as competent as ever, bringing a hint of feminism to her character's plagiarism of her husband's work, as well as highlighting the inherently masculinist nature of the poetry that confines a woman's role to the object of desire and nothing else.

The Hindi version of the film is 121 minutes. Set in Bengal in the early 1900's, the film (based on Tagore's novel) draws an analogy between the British colonization of India and the subjugation of women. An educated and beautiful woman, Binodini becomes a widow within a year of her marriage, but she does not accept the constraints imposed on her as a widow by her society. The film has a beautiful look to it but perhaps Aishwarya Rai is out of her depth in portraying Binodini's strong character with its subtle combination of idealism and deviousness. Binodini's idealism does not come across, and as a result, the analogy between women and colonization remains somewhat buried.