I saw this movie last year when it released… I had heard a lot about the book and I did start reading it, but the lazy me decided to stop reading it and took the first opportunity to see the movie. The following is a piece I wrote after I saw the movie, adapted and changed a bit to suit this blog -
A well written book and even better made movie. Capturing the essence of the book in the two hours was surely challenging but Mira Nair did a fabulous job at narrating the book. The performances by Irfan Khan and Tabu were par excellence. I can’t say the same about Kal Penn but he did justify the role and the casting seemed perfect. There wasn’t as much in the direction of the movie as there is in the book itself…
One important mention from the music lover to the soundtrack of the movie. It had caught my attention during the movie and I was hoping they come out with an album… and it did eventually get released. And for someone like me who loves fusion – the perfect blend of Indian instruments and world music – this album is a must. A sitar or a tabla playing side by side even with trance, just makes it my kind of music. But needless to say rhythm is a must!
The album is a compilation of every possible music piece played in the movie, including the Bengali poem recited by one of the guests at Ashima’s christmas party (towards the end of the movie) and an old Geeta Dutt sung bengali song which as far as I remember is playing in the background for one of the Calcutta scenes. But tracks like Airport grief, Farewell shoke, First day in New York are amazing… they have a similar theme, same instruments are used, have similar percussions and listening to them, one might feel that they are similar, but there is a uniqueness. Nitin Sawhney has used the sitar, guitar and flute with finesse to distinguish between the grief in airport grief and the mixture of happiness and sadness in first day in New York. Other good tracks include shoes to america, the title song and the background score during the opening titles.
Reading about this movie after it was released – from reviews to general articles, I’ve realized that everyone has a lot to relate to this movie. Some of us relate to the ‘funny’ names one’s parents have given us but for the countless desi immigrants across the world, there are a lot of similarities between the lives of Ashok & Ashima and even to the life of Gogol and Sonia. Most of the first generation of immigrants (me included) relate to Irfaan Khan and Tabu whereas many of the American born kids with Indian parents might be relating to Gogol and Sonia!A chat with my cousin back home made me realize that she did not enjoy the movie as much as the hype created and I told her that I loved it coz I could relate to a lot of things – maybe reading half the book helped because the book goes so much deeper into their lives. One aspect of the movie which I noticed and appreciated was how we try to live our 'lives' in this foreign land (and shown in the bengali parties in the movie), celebrating festivals in complete fanfare (to the extent of playing holi with colors & water), having elaborate weddings, having the cricket or bollywood gup over booze or chai, only to realize that once its time to go home, we have to take our large coats, drive out in our left hand drive cars and eventually sleep on spring mattresses! I relate a lot to these small things (and people who have lived longer must obviously relate to a hundred more things) shown in the movie and are obviously an integral part of the book. But ironically one such beautiful moment in the movie was towards the end when Tabu says about how this country has become home…
