Monsoon wedding [DVD]

A colourful and dynamic celebration of marriage ritual, family and relationships, set amid the affluent Indian middle-class, Mira Nair’s “Monsoon wedding” also examines problematic generational conflicts and the politics of money and power. Aiditi is a modern woman, frustrated by her long-term affair with a married man, who decides to partake in an arranged marriage to Hemant, an Indian engineer living in Houston. As both chaotic families gather in Delhi for the festivities, ancestral dynamics, errant children and an ambivalent bride complicate the efforts of patriarch, Lalit Verma to organise the wedding. The disorientation of the groom, pondering the machinations of the intricate proceedings, reflects the nature of an extended family, spread across the globe that reunites only occasionally. Convenient plot contrivances and some pat conclusions compromise the script’s more complex demands, which touches on such issues of child abuse and adultery. Nevertheless the sheer exuberance of the film, coupled with a gaudy palette, teeming with marigolds (the traditional Indian wedding flower) displays Nair’s affection for and celebration of ceremony despite the evidence that established rituals are collapsing under the strain of modernisation, pre-marital sex and female emancipation. Cast includes: Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vasundhara Das, Parvin Dabas.