This film was great! Despite the fact that it was culturally foreign to anything I was accustomed to, I had no difficulty at all understanding just about everything that was taking place. Monsoon Wedding is the story of an arranged Indian marriage within a traditional (seemingly well off) Indian family. Intially, the bride finds herself still in love with another man (whom i believe is married himself) and has doubts about going through with her own marriage. She ends up, however, giving her heart to her future husband and going through with the wedding.
There are several underlying stories within this film that enabled me to delve in and gain clear understanding. The family experienced real issues just as any other family would and these issues were clearly depicted. From the "help" (Alicia) falling in love with the last man on Earth one would think would give a woman his heart, down to the sexual abuse Ria had exprienced as a child thus fearing for the younger girls in her family who were beginning to experience the same thing. The chain of events were clear and easy to follow and the conflicts were not all dumped on the audience at once. They were presented in a very realistic and believable manner which allowed the audience to take its time understanding the film for everything it was saying.
One of my favorite aspects of this film was the rich and vivrant colors! There was even some attention drawn to the intentional use of these colors during the decorating for the wedding when the planner proceeds to put up a white tent. In American culture, this is the typical color for a wedding ceremony, representing purity and such. However, the father of the bride was insulted by this and demanded that the white be taken down immediatly and replaced with red. When he first made this request I frowned my face at the thought, however after it was complete I thought it was simply magnificent and stunning! Also, the color of the young girl who danced at the party's costumes was a vivrant bright pink, the bride wore red and various golds to get married in! It was exciting to look at! To think that this is a part of their customs and traditions was very informing and enlightening to say the least!
I enjoyed viewing this film a great deal and would recommend it to anyone!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
DAUGHTERS OF THE DUST
From what I can recall about this movie, it was a very richly cultured tale of a Gullah family situated off the coast of South Carolina. The Peazant family is due to move North for what is supposed to present them with a better way of life. In leaving, they plan to leave behind all of the customs and ways of their land, which presents the conflict. The film goes on to show the ongoings of the family the day before they are to leave, complete with discussion of struggles and issues the family faces and has faced.
My issue with this film was that it was extremely boring. The colors were not at all narrative, in that most of the women wore white and the setting was a sandy white beach. During the times when the narrator (an unborn child) was presented, she too wore white but had a blue ribbon in her hair. What the color of her ribbon was supposed to represent was unclear to me. Also, there were far too many conflicts in the plot for this to have been one story. You had the contreversy of heading up North, the issue of whether or not the unborn child was concieved immorally, whatever the issue was surrounding "Yellow Mary" (for the life of me I could not figure it out), and the one daughter who wanted to remain on the island with the Native American Gentlemen. All of these issues made the already difficult to comprehend film even more difficult to comprehend.
Aside from the plotline, there were aspects of the filming itself that made the film hard to keep up with. For example, the random times the unborn child would appear were not particularly significant times within the plot. It was also not completely evident who this child was; had it not been for the character sheet that had been provided for me, I definitely would not have known who this child with the blue ribbon running in slow motion was. There were also times when random images would be displayed. For example, the girls gathered on the beach dancing intensely for no reason at all had so much emphasis on it and it confused me greatly. Instances such as these were repetitous throughout the film and threw me for a loop.
Overall I would have to say that this was not my favorite film. I wasn't extremely fond of anything about it and it is not something I would watch again or encourage anyone to go see.
My issue with this film was that it was extremely boring. The colors were not at all narrative, in that most of the women wore white and the setting was a sandy white beach. During the times when the narrator (an unborn child) was presented, she too wore white but had a blue ribbon in her hair. What the color of her ribbon was supposed to represent was unclear to me. Also, there were far too many conflicts in the plot for this to have been one story. You had the contreversy of heading up North, the issue of whether or not the unborn child was concieved immorally, whatever the issue was surrounding "Yellow Mary" (for the life of me I could not figure it out), and the one daughter who wanted to remain on the island with the Native American Gentlemen. All of these issues made the already difficult to comprehend film even more difficult to comprehend.
Aside from the plotline, there were aspects of the filming itself that made the film hard to keep up with. For example, the random times the unborn child would appear were not particularly significant times within the plot. It was also not completely evident who this child was; had it not been for the character sheet that had been provided for me, I definitely would not have known who this child with the blue ribbon running in slow motion was. There were also times when random images would be displayed. For example, the girls gathered on the beach dancing intensely for no reason at all had so much emphasis on it and it confused me greatly. Instances such as these were repetitous throughout the film and threw me for a loop.
Overall I would have to say that this was not my favorite film. I wasn't extremely fond of anything about it and it is not something I would watch again or encourage anyone to go see.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
