Time Stands Still (2010)

For however powerful and intriguing the play Time Stands Still was, it left us unsatisfied. Alas.

Ostensibly dressed up as a topical drama about a traumatized photo-journalist, Sarah (a graceful, fiery Laura Linney), freshly returned from Iraq, it covers instead a much larger issue of postcolonialism, justice and white guilt. It doesn't go into the nitty gritty surrounding the politics of Iraq or Afghanistan (as we had expected it to), nor the debates around humanitarian aid; its scope is less political and much more philosophical and, to its detriment at times, vaguer. Sarah and her partner, James (Brian D'Arcy James), are both damaged adrenaline junkies - forever chasing the next war zone, the next famine, dancing with death and flirting with notions (delusions?) of grandeur. Does their work mean anything? Does anyone back in the "developed" world actually notice Sarah's pictures or James' essays? When they turn Sarah's latest visit to Iraq into a glossy coffee table book, are they "profiting from the suffering of others"? (Sarah's words.) They are a dark, brooding pair given to an epic sense of significance: even as their romantic lives get mixed up and similarly scorched by their war zone wanderings, it's something they have great difficulty living without. They are, they feel, doing something very important.


Laura Linney and Brian D'Arcy James.

Which is not the case for their close friend and photo editor, Richard (a rakish Eric Bogosian), who - while admitting to "living vicariously" through the duo's adventures - feels likewise shaken by their breakdowns and near-death experiences, eventually swinging around the spectrum to a philosophy of embracing vitality and comfort, debauched West or not. His new love, a young event planner naif named Mandy (Christina Ricci), is both a point of derision between the three old friends and a testament to Richard's dedication to his new life. No more hunting for suffering.

There's no doubt that Time Stands Still is very good - the interplay between the characters is dynamic, energetic and smart. While they risked becoming caricatures - especially Mandy - the writing respected their various positions, and they all played important roles in presenting these "options" for the liberal mentality. How guilty are we supposed to feel for the suffering of those in absolute poverty? Or in war? How responsible is the West for these disasters? These are thorny topics, and the play does a great job of, for example, establishing an uneasy (and funnily Brechtian!) parallel between the escapism of Hollywood horror movies and the "escapism" of going into a land of suffering and documenting it (and the escapism of watching a play about these escapisms). There's this sense of intrusion - Sarah has a great monologue about this, when she describes a PTSD flashback about a market bomb in which she was urged by a wounded woman to "Go away! No pictures!" - and there's a concurrent sense of detachment, of hiding behind a lens (or a coffee table book), all in the (noble?) name of atonement for past geopolitical grievances.


Is it wrong that (1) we think Eric Bogosian looks like Anthony Bourdain, and (2) this renders him hot?

We felt unsatisfied, though, because the play spent so much time setting up this complex, layered look at the effects of living in a powerful white hegemony on white people - just how guilty should white people feel, as humanitarians? as liberals? etc. - but then gave essentially no answers. There was even a scene in which James and Sarah have a raging fight about each other's "imperialist" attitudes, and how even their romantic entanglements carried tinges of exoticism and Orientalism. This is a scathing remark - and it's a very valid argument. Yet it is never pursued; the writing backs away from really damning Orientalists, or damning people who damn Orientalists. We think partly this had to do with the playwright (Donald Margulies) never criticizing Sarah as much as he could have - and perhaps should have. Despite the writing's nominal criticism of Sarah's less virtuous motivations - her trust fund baby guilt, her romanticizing of "adventures", the obvious, self-important pride - it never really undermines her. As a result, the audience never gets an opportunity to really question her role in the same way the other three are questioned. A little more subversion would have gone a long way in challenging us to think more deeply about these issues. At the moment, we were left only with the questions, and no options given as answers.

Nonetheless, it was an amazing opportunity to see the absolutely lovely Laura Linney on stage! She was really fabulous, and gracious to her adoring legions who waited by the cast door later. Christina Ricci did a great job keeping the humanity in her borderline cartoon character; and we may have a crush on Eric Bogosian now (BUT WHATEVS MOVING RIGHT ALONG). Brian D'Arcy James had some strong moments, but we had a hard time finding consistency in his performance. Time Stands Still is playing at the Cort Theater in New York.

Also, we think Saviors and Survivors might be an interesting companion to reading/seeing this play.

Cairo Time (2009)

Poignant and pleasantly beautiful, Cairo Time tells a well-worn story - Westerner finds romance and beauty in the seductive East - with a gentle, realist touch.

Juliette (Patricia Clarkson), a middle-aged Canadian journalist, is visiting Cairo for a long-planned vacation with her UN staff husband, Mark (Tom McManus). Mark is unexpectedly held up in the Gaza Strip, and Juliette ("Like Romeo and!" a character notes) is stranded in the hotel, so Marc sends his long-time colleague, Tareq (Alexander Siddig), to play host. The attraction between Tareq and Juliette, which is immediate and mutual, simmers for much of her visit - until building to an almost unbearable tension where, if you're like the PPCC, you may find yourself gnashing your teeth, tearing your hair out and begging these characters to just elope, for the love of God!


O wonder!


How many goodly creatures are there here!

But Cairo Time, for all its golden-hued panoramas of sunsets over pyramids, late-night wedding parties and curling hookah smoke, never gives in to the film fantasy urge - and the two star-cross'd lovers must remain firmly grounded in reality. Unlike other doomed couples o' the souq - Bogie and Ingrid, Ralph and Kristen - Juliette and Tareq are doomed by their pragmatism. And it is this realism - that you can't just drop everything and run off with the gorgeous, slinky foreigner, even if there's nothing you'd rather do - that accentuates the beauty and common tragedy of this very plausible love story.


How beauteous mankind is!


O brave new world! That has such people in't!

The portrayal of Cairo is likewise realistic: it is chaotic, majestic decay, and the film shows both the elegance of nighttime Cairo as well as the hassle of being the only white lady in a skirt during the day. Juliette and Tareq engage in several postcolonial plays about Western saviors ("Between you and your husband," Tareq sarcasms, "you may just save the Middle East!"), the dual eroticism (belly dancing!) and sexual conservativism (no short skirts!) of modern-day Egypt, and the hairy problem of romanticizing poverty. But the film is never too cerebral or topical - its main pleasure is the unfolding mature love, and how painfully awkward and achingly beautiful it is to be in the wrong sort of love with a pretty someone from a new place.

The music, composed by Niall Byrne, is an additional pleasure - it sounds like Nicola Piovani by way of Alexandre Desplat, with several tracks by the excellent Egyptian band El Tanbura, as well as some selections from Emirates Airlines' Classical Arabic audio channel to boost up the local feel. We found out about this film by way of the recent New York Times article on breakout performances (that being Alexander Siddig's, though please, he was sexy and wonderful since his days as Dr. Bashir!) and we're very happy we did. Not only are we filthy Orientalists and therefore suckers for romantic sunrises overlaid with haunting adhaans, moody stares over bubbling water pipes and mint tea, and the sun snaking through labyrinthine markets, but we also find love stories about people over 20something very refreshing. Very, very nice.


(the soundtrack)

The Four Feathers (2004)

Foreshadowing happens early in Shekhar Kapur's bomb, The Four Feathers. Over the wailing "Oriental" vocals, reminiscent of India, Arabia or Persia, or even just the dystopias of near-future Los Angeles, anyway, reminiscent of the Other, we watch a good ol' boy rugby match at a military training college in late 19th century England. With each tackle and toss, the characters (and their destinies) are swiftly established: the cautious Harry Feversham (Heath Ledger), his reliable and loyal BFF, Jack (Wes Bentley, spectacularly beautiful), the child-like Castleton (Kris Marshall), and his protector, Trench (MICHAEL SHEEN!), and the guy who never listens to his mates to just pass the bloody ball, Willoughby (Rupert Penry-Jones). This juxtaposition of Eastern music set to the most stiff-upper-lip of British rituals, at the edge of Western imperialism's height, is indeed a nice moment. You can sense the blurring of boundaries, and how increasingly irrelevant Kipling's pronouncement becomes as colonies rebel and twains do, sometimes painfully, meet. It's an interesting comment on how much of British identity during the colonial period was defined elsewhere, away from the actual island.

But for a film with such a broad, epic palette, the story is much less concerned with the geopolitics of Orientalism. It barely touches these themes in any meaningful way (such a shame! Mr. Kapur, why!?), but instead it remains insular, telling its narrow story dutifully and telling it with very pretty aesthetics indeed. Mr. Kapur films some of those soul-trembling vistas with the same love and awe that dominated David Lean's "of Arabia".


The titular feathers.


The reason we watched this movie.


It's no Mr. India, but it'll do.

The story, based on a colonial-era novel by A.E.W. Mason, explores the rocky road to redemption one scion of British imperialism must endure after he gets cold feet before his first orders to war. When Harry Feversham, one of the bright young stars in officer training, is given orders to ship from his cozy British Elysium to the harsh bloodletting in the Sudan (to replace, his superiors tell him, a British regiment which was slaughtered "to the man"), he waffles for a day or two and then resigns. No, thank you, old chap. This earns him the shock and scorn of his once-admiring loved ones. He receives four feathers, symbolizing cowardice, his fiancee breaks off the engagement and his old military father disowns him. After waffling a bit more, Harry decides it's worse to live like a social zombie and so he packs up his things and heads to Sudan anyway to see if he can earn back his manly pride.

In the meanwhile, his army buddies are having a helluva time beating off the repeated guerilla attacks of a local rebel leader, Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi. In a beautifully filmed sequence, the British forces are ambushed - just as Harry comes barelling in to warn them. He spends the rest of the film collecting his friends and shipping them home - one has been blinded, one killed, another imprisoned. Eventually, his dedication, courage and strength earn everyone's admiration again. At one point, his friend, Abou (Djimon Hounsou), laughs at him for waaay overcompensating. After Harry confesses that he is a coward, Abou starts to laugh: "When I found you, you were half-dead in the desert! Traveling alone!"

There are some clever visual parallels which run throughout the film. When Harry and his fiancee, Ethne (Kate Hudson, so cute), announce their engagement, the British soldiers form a square around them, boxing in their celebratory dance. Later, this same square is used - to disastrous effect - as a military strategy in Sudan. The destruction of the square signals the end of our fancy British character's colonial confidence. ("You British walk too proudly upon the Earth," Abou chides Harry in one scene.)


Djimon Hounsou, god of the bicep and pectorals.


Desert curvature. Not a right angle in sight!

We could probably wax theoretical about how squares and sharp edges - Harry and his buddies are all crisp uniforms and clacking heels, and the most disastrous strategist turns out to be the one who was fussiest about keeping every hair in place - are placed in contrast to the rolling, softening dunes of the desert and the curve of Djimon Hounsou's biceps (which are glorious). No right angles here, old chaps! Similarly, Harry and Trench, in the lengthy sequence which accompanies their escape from prison, undergo radical physical changes, the sharp edges of their haircuts and jawlines are replaced by unruly beards and haphazard curls. This reminded us of a brilliant bit in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, when the narrator marvels at the changes undergone by the Canadian thief, Caravaggio, during his time in wartorn Italy: the exact description is that he's been "softened".


British box of Britishness, part 1: the social.


Part 2, the military strategy.


Part 3, the very bad idea.

Djimon Hounsou seems perpetually stuck in the stereotypical and limited role of the noble savage. As usual, he is dignified and physically magnificent, and our (white) heroes rely on his sympathy and aid to get them through this Foreign Adventure. Okay. Sure. Fine. When will he stop being the Other? Mr. Hounsou, please fight against this type-casting! You can be Anakin -Skywalker in our Star Wars-as-neo-dystopia remake!

Heath Ledger's performance is charming and authentic, his inherent likability making even the earlier scenes, when Harry chickens out, entirely sympathetic. Wes Bentley, who disappeared from films after his smash debut in American Beauty and has now reemerged after rehab from drug addiction is almost mind-blowingly beautiful. His role is likewise built to maintain an aura of modest heroism. That said, he could have invested an interesting character with a lot more depth, but he keeps things just skin-deep. We have a soft spot for Kate Hudson, since we love Goldie Hawn, but she has absolutely nothing to do - this is a very male-only film.


Wes Bentley, looking fabulously pretty.


Michael Sheen, looking rough as hell.

We saw this in theatres back in 2002, and remembered it only for being vaguely insubstantial and unsatisfying. Now, with the sharpening of our movie feelings thanks to this blog (yay PPCC!), we can identify that airiness as coming from a lack of follow-through: Kapur had such an opportunity to inject this movie with passion - about politics, about colonialism, about machismo or about forgiveness - but he never really goes for it. Anyway, the reason we came back to it now was because of our Michael Sheen binge, and his role, as the clownish officer Trench, who later becomes a prisoner of war, is (we were surprised to realize!) one of the only things which we did remember well from 2002. Harry's discovery of Trench in the thronging mob of Omdurman prison is a moment of almost magical elation - and Trench's recognition of Harry is even better.

Indeed, while the film frittered away a nice opportunity to say something more, it did do just service to a neat story - there are some brilliant, evocative moments centered around Harry's deception and recognition, and some moments were nice enough to yoke a tear or two. All in all, the narrative drive was fabulous, and we reckon we could use this story as an example on how to build a good plot structure when we write the book that will make us millions: Movies: A Guide to Life and Watching Movies.

M. Butterfly (1993)

Madama Butterfly, that bothersomely melodic Orientalist opera by Giacomo Puccini, gets cleverly reinvented for a post-colonial world in David Cronenberg's 1993 M. Butterfly. A friend of ours misread the title as "Mr. Butterfly", and it's an apt slip, since M. Butterfly takes the original political and gender dynamic and upends it entirely. Just as we pitied the poor, stupid wretch that is Butterfly, suffering for a love that doesn't exist, so too do we pity French diplomat René Gallimard (Jeremy Irons) for getting well and properly played. Even if you could interpret his tremendous delusion and its terrible consequences as the just comeuppance of the White Man's Burden, there is no real pleasure in seeing Orientalism or male chauvinism get murdered quite so viciously - especially via one man as scapegoat. It's just sad.


Who is whose Butterfly, in the end?

Based on a strange, true story, M. Butterfly takes place in 1960s China, where the French embassy's accountant, René Gallimard, lives his life in a self-involved, self-perpetuated bubble of European expatriates. During one of the embassy's social nights, he sees a performance of selections from Madama Butterfly, as sung by a talented Chinese opera singer, Song Liling (John Lone). Song, presented as a woman, is clearly a man. And indeed, Chinese opera - much like English drama - was traditionally performed only by men. Gallimard, who will soon become the epitome of the ignorant Westerner, doesn't know this - nor does he understand the Orientalist implications of Madama Butterfly, and how they will play out in his deeply ingrained racial prejudices. While Song attempts to school Gallimard in these deficiencies, "her" demure elusiveness only incites his passions.

Soon enough they are having an affair, play-acting at the master/slave stereotypes of the "cruel white devil" and his "submissive Oriental woman". Tragically, Gallimard - seen as a spineless and lowly grub by his fellow white men - can use the Orientlist fantasy to become dominant and superior in the bedroom with Song. Tellingly, when Gallimard returns to Paris and falls into depression, claiming he was a "different man in China", his fellow Frenchman snorts into his wine and says, "Of course. You were white." Even more tellingly, Gallimard and Song's sexual relationship was so one-sided that Gallimard never thought to explore or pleasure Song's body - hence going for years (!) without realizing Song was a man. Although it is as clear as day that Song is a man, and that his very participation in this affair is done ironically - and, eventually, opportunistically (as Song begins to work as a spy for the Chinese government) - Gallimard is so self-deluded (or impassioned? or naive?) that he just never figures it all out. It is, probably, a testament to imperialism's deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance - you just don't realize how stupid you are.


Farewell, ancien régime.

But, just as Madama Butterfly's wretchedness is something to be pitied rather than reviled, so too does Gallimard end up a victim - a victim of the deception, as well as his own ignorance. We at the PPCC don't endorse Rudyard Kipling's Ballad of East and West (trumpeted by Gallimard's wife in an early scene), but neither can we watch an earnest, colorblind racist such as Gallimard be pilloried. He is not evil, he is just stupid. Indeed, while the film never pretends to sympathize with Gallimard's selfishness or his inability to see what's in front of him (both regarding Song as well as the brewing Cultural Revolution), it does acknowledge his tragedy. The finale, when Song's deception is made public during Gallimard's trial for treason, is devastating to watch.


There is one brief, touching moment when the love feels real. But still wretchedly sad.

There's an impulse from our warm and squishy side to seek out evidence that the love between Song and Gallimard is, somehow, somewhere, at least a little authentic. Unfortunately, in the passing, private expressions of Song during "her" moments with Gallimard, it is clear that Song feels only pangs of guilt - and, at best, a sort of baffled pity. In a reversal of roles, it is reminiscent of American sailor Pinkerton's private feelings for Butterfly. Similarly, Gallimard's love for Song is eviscerated and denuded (literally) as an expression of ingrained imperialism rather than anything more "pure".

The opera itself is used cleverly throughout the film - it is not over-relied upon, as we expected, but instead presents only touching counterpoints. For example, there is a scene when Gallimard, now living in wretched isolation as yet another anonymous white man in Paris, is shown listening obsessively to the opera. In particular, we are hearing the Humming Chorus - the same music which accompanies Butterfly's pathetically loyal, and ultimately futile, overnight wait for Pinkerton to return. While Song does magically appear at Gallimard's apartment during that scene, "she" brings with "her" an inevitable doom.

The film is built primarily on the strength of its script, which was based on a succesful play by David Henry Hwang. And it is dynamite! With far too many juicy dialogues about gender roles, sexual politics and post-colonialism to begin quoting them all here. The direction, by our odd favorite (why do we like Cronenberg so much? WHY?), was also at its smirking best - a notable smirk being for a scene where Gallimard's neglected, much-too-not-submissive wife begins to croon the Butterfly melodies, which cuts abruptly to a scene of Gallimard violently swatting a fly in his office. Heh.

If anything, this film shows that Gallimard's interpretation of Madama Butterfly as "sad, but beautiful" is just a symptom of his Orientalism. By turning everything around, the same story remains sad, yes, but in a very ugly way.

District 9 (2009)

Just the other day, we at the PPCC were selling ourselves as hardened sci-fi connoiseurs. And we are. So, with our shiny stamp of expert know-it-all-ness, we can heartily approve of the wacky District 9.

Now this, this, is what post-modern sci-fi should be all about. It should incorporate the globalized, post-colonial culture. Dammit! That's what Expanded Horizons strives so hard towards, and that's what our own efforts have been all about. The day and age of good ol' boy sci-fi - i.e. White Male Hero sci-fi from the 1950s and 1960s, especially that stuff by Alfred Bester and Robert A. Heinlein - should be over by now. (Yes, even when it was so gloriously clever.)

So we also admit, with a little shame, that District 9's hero is... well, White and Male. But he is also South African! That is a step in the right-ish direction.


Scenes of forced eviction.

Filmed as a part-mockumentary, District 9 tells the story of a not-so-aggressive alien invasion, which ends up with Johannesburg newly acquiring an enormous ghetto of poor, harassed aliens and their enormous, broken spaceship. The aliens, derogatively called "prawns" by the humans ("You can't say they don't look like that," one interviewee says. "They look like prawns!"), have now been living in disgrunt for twenty years. Now, a private corporation called Multinational United (ahem) is brought in by the South African government to semi-forcibly, semi-abiding by UN convention, move the prawns to their new home (later described as a "concentration camp"). Heading this initiative is the bumbling Afrikaner MNU employee, Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley). As the mockumentary cuts between present-day interviews of Wikus' associates, and past interviews of the bright-eyed Wikus himself, we begin to realize that something with Wikus went horribly, terribly wrong. Yay tension building! Tell us more, movie!

Most critics have already noted the film's obvious apartheid themes, and indeed District 9 - the slum in which the prawns are forced to live - is reminiscent of Soweto and directly inspired by District 6. The characterizations are also firmly along these lines: only poor, black South Africans are seen schmoozing with the prawns, and Wikus himself is a stereotype of clumsy colorblind racisms and a privileged, suburban upbringing. Nigerians make an appearance as scam artists and warlords... this has understandably led to much irritation on the Nigerian government's part.

The portrayals are blunt. And indeed, the great promise of District 9 - its brilliant conceit of using aliens as the stand-in for the ultimate Other, and rolling this up in a country with a charged post-colonial history - soon devolves into some mash-up Brundlefly/1980s carnage sci-fi stuff. And all the philosophical stuff kind of goes out the window.

But that's OK! We haven't been so captivated with a film in a long while, and there was a special pleasure in meeting a prawn named "Christopher Johnson", or hearing Wikus exclaim Afrikaaner expletives. All the performances - particularly Copley - were energetic and sharp, much like the entire film itself. Even if things sort of wound down to a less-than-inventive conclusion, and the grand moral was just a sort of vague, kumbaya feeling of intergalactic brotherhood, the strength of the set-up shot us off on a big "Wow!" We were very, very entertained. Definitely recommended.

East is East (1999)

Everyone's got buttons. And the PPCC's biggest button is the one marked "postcolonialism". Although we love all films of all types, films about migration and cultural mixing are our special favorite.

It is for this reason that we reserve a special, Om Puri-shaped space in our heart: an excellent actor known predominantly in India for his work in the Parallel Cinema with contemporary Naseeruddin Shah, or his frequent "Uncle" or villain roles in the mainstream Bollywood cinema, Om Puri also made a series of films in the UK about the British-Asian experience. My Son the Fanatic, where he plays an exasperated, flawed, humanist Pakistani taxi driver in northern England, is one of our most favorite films. Similarly, who else but Om Puri could play our favorite character (Samad the disgruntled Bangladeshi waiter) from Zadie Smith's pop postcolonial masterpiece, White Teeth? We still feel pangs of heartache that the BBC 4 TV movie still hasn't made it to DVD (apparently because it featured too much awesome music). Oh, universe! Oh, woe!



As a balm to our White Teeth-shaped wound, today we'll review for you one of the other notable Om Puri postcolonial films: East is East. Taking its title from a poem by the archetypal colonialist, Rudyard "White Man's Burden" Kipling:

OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth!

East is East follows the biracial Khan family, headed by Mr. George Khan (Om Puri) and Mrs. Ella Khan (Linda Bassett) and followed by their seven children. It plays upon the tensions between George's Pakistani culture, and the anxiety he experiences trying to preserve it, and the wife and children's attempts to lead more secular, Westernized lifestyles. Much of the drama centers around George's various attempts to get his sons married, though none of them - Tariq (Jimi Mistry) is a hedonistic swinger who calls himself "Tony", Saleem (Chris Bisson) is a grungy artist, Maneer (Emil Marwa) is a conservative and naive recluse, Abdul (Raji James) is the peacemaker and the exiled eldest, Nazir (Ian Aspinall), is gay - are very keen on the idea. Meanwhile, when not forcing his sons into arranged marriages or oppressing his tomboy daughter, Meenah (Archie Panjabi), into wearing a salwar kameez, George insists that his youngest son, nine-year-old Sajid (the adorable Jordan Routledge), have a belated circumcision.


George (Om Puri) and Ella Khan (Linda Bassett).


The kids.

Much less subtle and pandering much more to stereotyped notions Westerners have about South Asians than other films in the genre (My Beautiful Laundrette, Mississippi Masala), this film is nonetheless pretty entertaining. It could be ostensibly interpreted as a tragicomic portrait of George Khan, a man stuck between two seemingly incompatible cultures, but George Khan is mostly a caricature and so the portrait is a cartoon. He is an immigrant struggling to preserve his culture in a radically different environment, but we don't get any idea of why he wants to preserve his culture (often at the expense of his family's happiness and even health!) or what sort of environment he came from. We get no idea of what it's like to be an immigrant, what Pakistan is like, what it's like to be George. Why does he freak out about his youngest son's circumcision? Why does he ostracize his eldest son for being gay? Why does he angst about his children ignoring Islam? "Because he's from Pakistan!" the movie seems to say.

Which is not much of an answer. Culture is important and culture is pervasive and can be brainwashing, yes, but people are people, and there is some choice in the matter, too. For someone who chose to marry an English woman (presumably in the 1950s, given the film's time period), surely he wouldn't be so single-mindedly and restrictively "Pakistani"... or would he? But if so, why? There's an interesting story to tell, culture anxiety and resistance to assimilation, which is just clumsily handled. Important things are skimmed over for the easy solution: "Because he's from Pakistan, and that's what they do in Pakistan! Isn't that funny and yet tragic?!"


The arranged marriage brides-to-be are, of course, cartoonishly ugly. Because if they were pretty, intelligent and nice, it would be a little harder to ridicule their cultural practice, na?


Four of the brothers.

Compare George Khan to Om Puri's similar character in the similar (but superior) film, My Son the Fanatic. In My Son the Fanatic, Om Puri is once again playing a working class Muslim South Asian immigrant in a northern English city. Yet in My Son the Fanatic, cultural tensions and racism are much more subtly expressed. For example, there's a great scene when Om Puri's character, Parvez, discovers that his increasingly fundamentalist son has just dumped his white fiancee. Parvez storms to the girl's workplace and, in desperation, invites her over for lunch and asks what went wrong. The girl, clearly upset, explains that she was dumped. Seething, Parvez declares, "I will break his face until he agrees!" This is a stunning declaration, yet it's not so easy to judge: Parvez is, in the same moment, enraged at his son's close-mindedness and threatening to use some old-fashioned, close-minded disciplining to get him to be more tolerant. Parvez's relationships with his son, his wife, his lover, his religion and alcohol are all much more interestingly presented.

My Son the Fanatic is also much more illuminating on the difficulties an immigrant might face in such a different culture - the difficulties even for well-intended assimilation. That is, notably, the characters in East is East don't face any real racism - Enoch Powell makes brief appearances as a straw man, and Salford just doesn't seem very threatening at all - instead, all of the tension is internal, self-created. We're not saying you need to categorically demonize whites (as Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal did), but racism is a hairy reality which should be acknowledged in films which purport to be about race, such as East is East.

So is East is East good? Well, it's okay. It's simplistic, it's a cartoon, and we had the distinct feeling that we, as a white viewer, were being pandered to. Om Puri is great, of course, and does what he can with the material he's given. But things aren't really as simplistic as East is East portrays. Indeed, as Om Puri himself says (in My Son the Fanatic): "They say east and west can't mix. But look - they can hardly keep apart!"

P.S. What was up with Om Puri's accent? That's not his natural accent, nor is it the already-caricatured accent he uses in My Son the Fanatic. It sounds like just another part of the "evil, ignorant George Khan" caricature: "Why you stupeh?!"

What about Vinod Khanna et al.?

The PPCC spends a lot of time waxing stalkerish about the likes of Shashi Kapoor, Shah Rukh Khan, Amitabh Bachchan or Naseeruddin Shah. It's true. These four actors are the pillars on which our love of Hindi movies was built. They cover a goodly range: Amitabh and Shah Rukh providing the old school and modern superstardom, respectively, Shashi the link (and OMG hot stud muffin) between mainstream, arthouse and Raj Revival cinema, and Naseer kicking it arthouse style. But sometimes we read our own blog and think: "Tut. What about Vinod Khanna?"

What about Vinod Khanna? Or, underappreciated PPCC faves. That is, people we like but have not yet actively sought out.


Stud in the house.

1. Vinod Khanna. Just the other day we were at Grumpy Uncle Ji's, and we were despairing because the only Shashi DVDs available were Sindoor (big mistake) and Alag Alag (bigger mistake). We were scraping the dregs like desperate Shashi addicts. We just need a hit! Just one more freaking hit! Then we saw Vinod Khanna's pleasant-looking face staring out at us, and we felt a warm glow of familiarity. Oh, Vinod. You'll always be there for us, won't you? And you know what, we love you, Vinod, we really do. Even if you sucked big-time in Parvarish (but only because you were evil), you were sufficiently awesome in Muqaddar ka Sikandar and Chor Sipahee that we have since developed a wee crush on you. You've also managed to make us cry really hard now and again (the last scene in Muqaddar ka Sikandar!), a cathartic release and something even our beloved Shashi has since been incapable of doing. Added bonuses: we think we found your home phone number once on the internet and seriously considered Skypeing you, but then thought, "Well, what do you say to Vinod Khanna? Uh, 'Hi. You are freaking awesome. Do you have Shashi ji's number?'?" You are also one of the few actors (excepting the Big B) who has retained his 1970s good looks even into advanced age. And your hair in Chor Sipahee was lush, like a mountain of ice cream lush.


Tinnu in Bombay.

2. Tinnu Anand. We at the PPCC are big fans of lazy eyes. Big, big fans. We think Forest Whitaker's best facet is his lazy eye. See with what menace he wields it in The Last King of Scotland! Tinnu Anand has such a lazy eye which he wields with similar menace when needed - consider, for example, his turn as the evil right-wing Hindu extremist in Bombay, or his turn as Rani's evil uncle in Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, or his turn as Om Puri's slimy and slightly evil publisher in In Custody, or his turn as the not-really-evil dog lover in China Gate, or his evil-with-a-heart-of-gold mob boss in Ram Jaane. Suffice to say, Tinnu knows how to kick it with his lazy eye, evil style. But not only that, we have a big soft spot for actors which unconventional looks - e.g. Geoffrey Rush. It reminds us of our favorite book, The Once and Future King by T.H. White, where Lancelot is described as not really very conventionally handsome, and yet completely beloved by Guinevere. Yes, Tinnu, we beloved you! And sometimes we think Roshan Seth and Tinnu Anand should play brothers in a movie, with Tinnu being the evil brother who is also way awesomer and gets to be redeemed in the end. Added bonus: Tinnu is awesome behind the camera as well!


Om in My Son the Fanatic.

3. Om Puri. Om really shouldn't be here, since he probably counts as the fifth pillar to our Hindi movie love. But it's also true that we were led into Parallel Cinema more by Naseer's awesomeness, with Om tagging along. And often Om was outshone by the emoting and bombast of Naseer's actorly acrobatics. But there's just something about Om that Naseer does not have, can never have. Om has such a way with looking sardonic, his droll expressions, his quiet exasperation. When Naseer and Om faced each other in the Dance Off, we were secretly cheering for Om, just because he's just so... Omy. Om, unlike Naseer, also has a somewhat unexpected hotness; at least, whereas Naseer In Love never really did it for us, Om In Love was hot! And adorable. We love you, Om! Added bonus: Om also makes the most BAD-ASS movies of all, those being postcolonial cinema: My Son the Fanatic, East is East, and he played our favorite character in the TV adaptation of Zadie Smith's White Teeth (that being Samad).


Neetu in Parvarish.

4. Neetu Singh. Although Rishi insists it was her decision, Neetu's disappearance from superstardom usually gets blamed on him. We at the PPCC can't help it, but, well: why, Rishi, why!? This is madness. Neetu was awesome. Yes, more awesome than you. WAY more awesome than you. She was like, if Shashi was a woman and like ten million times more adorable, that would be Neetu. We at the PPCC unfortunately always forget about Neetu because of her 'now you see her, now you don't' celebrity status, but then - when we watch Parvarish or Kaala Patthar or see pictures of her son, Ranbir Kapoor - we are suddenly reminded that Neetu is just so adorably awesome!


Shatrughan was a big fan of these wide-collar monotone khaki outfits.

5. Shatrughan Sinha. Like Neetu, another masala favorite that we always forget about but always get really, really happy when we see them onscreen. Also, like Tinnu, Shatrughan possesses a physical attribute of Villainy: the scar. No doubt because of that little scar by his mouth, Shatrughan was doomed (blessed?) to play morally ambiguous hard-asses: the ex-con and murderer with a heart of gold (not coal!) in Kaala Patthar, the rival romancer and doctor with dubious Freudian techniques in Aa Gale Lag Jaa. Added bonuses: Shatrughan and Amitabh have been snipping at each other via Amitabh's blog (!) and the Times of India recently. Shatrughan, like Amitabh and Vinod, is also aging well and retaining much of his 1970s goodlooking appeal. The scar still stands!


Iftikhar in Fakira.

6. Iftikhar. The man was in everything! EVERTHING. And despite playing policewallahs left and right, he also displayed surprising range when given half a chance - just check his uncharacteristic turn as the leery, lecherous thakur in Teesri Kasam.


Aww, Om Prakash. We know you don't mean to be evil. It just happens sometimes.

7. Om Prakash. There's a reason Farah Khan chose to name her squirrelly, starstruck hero "Om Prakash Makhija" in Om Shanti Om. It's because how can you not love Om? He's just such wholesome hilarity, like wheat pizza. The first time we PPCCed him was as the misguided, overprotective, kind of evil but still with a heart of gold Father-in-law in Aa Gale Lag Jaa. The sequence when Om's character melts in the rays of his (unacknowledged) grandson's cuteness, and they play marbles on the couch, and the little boy feeds Om an apple, and Om goes in to kiss his grandson's hair but is then startled back to reality by the arrival of his daughter (the mother of the grandson, unbeknownst to her... well, it's Manmohan Desai, what can you expect?) - anyway, all that was GOLD. Pure, unpolished, magical GOLD. Om then kicked further ass as the grieving father in Zanjeer, the horny gender-bending serf in Kanyadaan, and over-loved grandfather in Namak Halaal. Heck, even Om's cameo appearance in Do Aur Do Paanch makes everything all the sweeter.


Ram P. Sethi. He's like Dick Van Dyke and John Astin's love child.

8. Ram P. Sethi. In an age of Johnny Levers, the PPCC feels sharp pangs of nostalgia for the populist comedians of 1970s masala: Om Prakash and Ram P. Sethi. What Ram P. Sethi had - apart from his dopey expressions and slapstick - was a certain melancholy about him. At least, he was in Muqaddar ka Sikandar as the friend who introduces Sikandar to alcohol and courtesans. And no one emerged from Muqaddar ka Sikandar unscathed, with optimism intact. The depressing existentialism of the movie was so pervasive that even Ram P. Sethi's goofy sidekick act seemed to imply a deeper, darker depression underneath. Anyway, if you can't take that sort of heaviness, just watch Ram P. Sethi in Namak Halaal, where he wear a funny little cartoon journalist outfit, or in Do Aur Do Paanch, where, as I recall, he appears briefly only to be punched in the face or something.


WE LOVE YOU, PRAN!!!!

9. Pran. PRAN. PRAAAAAN.. It's kind of a lie that he's underappreciated by the PPCC. We love this guy BIG TIME. Like BIG BIG TIME.


Sanjeev in Swayamvar.

10. Sanjeev Kumar. Sanjeev is so underappreciated that sometimes we wonder about his being underappreciated. The power of his goodness is strong in Silsila, and indeed, with that relatively underwritten supporting role, he manages to convey so much, with such nuance, that - well, dammit, Sanjeev knew what he was doing! We were relieved and pleased, then, when we met someone who said their favorite actor was Sanjeev Kumar.


Sorry, Piyush, all you're getting is a pic taken from Rediff.

11. Piyush Mishra. Piyush has a sort of lazy, drooping-eyelids good humor which makes him stand out in all of his roles - the doomed Banquo update in Maqbool (aka the Mumbai Macbeth), the Pakistani friend of Abhishek's "My best friend is Pakistani!" hilarious character in Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, even as the hounding detective in Dil Se. We love him! And he can wear hot pink two-tone sherwani suits with a straight face, bless him.

Junoon (1978)

It took the PPCC more than a year to finish Junoon (Obsession, not by Calvin Klein). We started it in the spring of 2007, watched 3/4ths of it and then went, "Meeeeh..." turned it off, went to eat a Ploughman's sandwich, and never returned.

Have you ever had a Ploughman's? It's really good. Cheddar cheese, pickles or onion relish and, if you're kinky, a pear. It's probably not very healthy, except emotionally. Lovely comfort food.


Have you brought me a Ploughman's?

What were we talking about? Oh yes. So Junoon. It was one of the first Hindi films we had seen, we were still virginal viewers. But we did know enough to recognize key figures such as the Shabana, the Naseer, the Kulbhushan (who was still "that guy" back then), the Tom Alter, the guy from Swades (still that guy, unfortunately), and, of course, the Shashi. We were like the proto-PPCCC back then.

(An excellent complement to a Ploughman's sandwich is one of those thick organic fruit drinks.)

Another problem with Junoon, apart from it testing our attention span on an epic scale: we misunderstood who was married to who, and thought "Jennifer Kendal" was actually Nafiza Ali, and so we thought it was doubly interesting that a real-life husband, Shashi Kapoor, should play an obsessed stalker of his real-life wife. How meta!

Until we realized she wasn't his real-life wife. And then we were like, "Lame." Moving on.

The year is 1857, the land is India, the air is as thick as the cheddar slice in my Ploughman's. You could cut it with a knife, and you'd need a pretty sharp knife. On one side, you have the Indians, angry, fomenting rebellion, led by a henna-haired Naseer looking fabulous. On the other side, you have the British, living in a bubble of colonialism and segregation. One day, a super-fine nawab, Javed Khan (Shashi Kapoor), ambled along and spotted a pretty young thing, Ruth (Nafiza Ali), on the British side. Shashi, being Shashi, started junooning up a storm - I must have the saucy wench! Or, as Wayne would say, "She will be mine. Oh yes. She will be mine."

Thanks to Naseer spreading violence, Ruth's father, Mr. Labadoor (Tom Alter! yeah!), is killed, along with a number of other British people. Chaos ensues. The family - Ruth's mother (Jennifer Kendal, THIS is Shashi's wife), Ruth's grandmother - quickly flee with the help of a noble-hearted guy, Noble Guy (Kulbhushan Kharbanda, looking quite handsome). Amidst all this macro tension, Javed the Nawab's micro obsession is growing more and more unwieldy. When he captures the Labadoor family, he practically pops a blood vessel in excitement and declares he will wed little Ruth as his second wife. His first wife (Shabana Azmi) is not so pleased. And his brother-in-law, Sarfaraz (Naseeruddin Shah), is also annoyed at his distractedness.


Shashi has a thing for pigeons in such films.

The two families - Indian and British - live in growing tension, with the Shashi's predatory, nearly maniacal desire for Ruth causing everyone much grief. Meanwhile, the storm of the 1857 is growing, and soon the household is sucked in as well.

Junoon is a very cerebral film and, on an intellectual level, it is great. The juxtaposing of this microcosm of Anglo-Indian relations against the macro strife of 1857 is very stimulating; particularly in the eroticization and aggression of these relations, which lead one immediately to think of Edward Said. That is, in Said's Orientalism, he discusses how Orientalism typically defined the "Eastern" male as an effeminate Other, weaker and more passive than his macho Western counterpart. Even today, the PPCC would argue, you still see this theme of virile Western men seducing the exotic Oriental beauty - for example, read Slate's notes on race in Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Limited. Having the genders and power structure reversed - in Eastern Javed's constant attempts at possessing Western Ruth - as well as, all throughout, subverting them - Javed's ultimate vulnerability, his own possession - makes for some great Thinking Person filmmaking.


Kulbhushan, so young and handsome!

But what the film has in intellectual terms it lacks in emotional involvement. That is, the PPCC likes a good postcolonial or Orientalism-examining/Orientalism-subverting film as much as the next post-punk, but we are also warm-blooded human beans. While a film like My Son the Fanatic works on both the intellectual and emotional levels, Junoon remains suspended and austere. Partly, this is the fault of the characterizations. The only characters we invest any time in are Javed, Ruth and Ruth's mother. Javed is singularly unlikable, and, as fascinating as he is in a moralistically misshapened Quasimodo way, he's not someone we care about (or, for that matter, want to "win"). He's basically the villain. (Side note: we cannot avoid mentioning that Shashi looked FAAAHine in his nawab get-up. He was lush like the mountains of Switzerland under James Bond's skis. Just luush.) Ruth, the object of his obsession, remains a non-entity - she is given hardly any lines and, apart from fearing Javed and liking pigeons, we get little insight into her thoughts and feelings. As a result, she ends up becoming a symbol and little else. Ruth's mother is perhaps the real hero of the film in that the audience is on her side, and she demonstrates courage and action throughout the film. But, again, she remains blandly straightforward. For a film so loaded with political and cultural potential, it would be good to have a bit of provocation here and there, some graying in the characterizations. Instead, we have exactly what we expect: the savage, obsessed villain, the tremulous damsel, her brave mother.

So, dammit, when the PPCC can't be provoked, it goes a-lookin' for provocation! We tried noticing if, as in Bombay, there would be any prejudices hidden beneath the text. The only things we can come up with are:

• Benegal's treatment of the British characters is mostly sympathetic. OK, Tom Alter's patriarch figure is your run-of-the-mill stern colonialist, but the rest of the family are sinless victims. Most notably: Benegal goes to great pains to humanize the British before their slaughter in the church. There is the goofy guy who keeps peeking over the woman's shoulder. There is the bored, little girl who rests her head on her mother's shoulder. There is the helpful soldier, who indicates to Tom Alter which psalm they're on. Benegal uses these scenes to let the audience invest in the characters, however peripheral they are. Maybe because, from an Indian perspective, it would be easier to demonize the colonial power - Benegal instead goes to the other extreme: showing us human, vulnerable and greatly victimized British characters. Furthermore, thanks to Ruth's mother, the British characters have the clear moral upper hand in the microcosm tale of Javed's obsession. This is, of course, in stark contrast to their macro villainy: Sarfaraz's reports of British soldiers strapping Indians to cannons, for example.
  
• Benegal's treatment of the Muslim characters is mostly negative. In particular, Javed and Sarfaraz are both fairly villainous and unlikable characters. One is driven nearly mad with sexual desire, while the other is uncontrollably bloodthirsty. That's not to say they are one-dimensional characters - Sarfaraz's pain after losing Delhi is, after all, often cited as a wonderful scene, and it's because we care about Sarfaraz in that moment. But neither of them are given any chance to demonstrate compassion; their few moments of frailty tend more towards cowardice or madness rather than anything a bit kinder.
  
• The sole sympathetic Indian character is a Hindu. That being Kulbhushan's character. We at the PPCC don't know enough about this period in history, but we were just told that an oligopoly of Hindu families ruled moneylending in 1850s north India. Any PPCC readers have more info? All we did notice was that Kulbhushan, the only harmless Indian, who helps the Labadoor family without hesitation, and who seems an awful lot more even-tempered and gentle compared to the warmongering Sarfaraz and the lusty Javed, is also the only recognizable Hindu in the film.

What do you think, PPCC reader? Is it faux neutral? Does it propagate stereotypes about hot-tempered Muslims? Or are we just being ignorant? Discuss! Anyway, suffice to say, the PPCC is having more fun reviewing the movie than we actually did while watching it. Tom Alter's an interesting guy overall. In terms of performances and filmmaking style, the film comes with such a pedigree - Kapoor! Azmi! Benegal! Nihalani! - that we were already predisposed to approve of it. Shashi is wonderfully different in this compared to his usual masala persona: his Javed is completely enslaved by his obsession, and Shashi is not afraid to portray Javed in as ugly a light as possible. Some revealing scenes include the childish, cornered-rat snapping arguments with his first wife, and the moment when, in bed, his first wife comes in for a cuddle - he starts keening more and more loudly until finally snapping and letting loose a scream. Ha! Poor Shabana. "How was it for you, dear?" "AAAAAARGHHH!" We love short scenes with little context, like this one. Jennifer Kendal portrays, as we said, the most bad-ass character in the film, in that she appears to have the strongest will - apart from, perhaps, Sarfaraz. Despite being in a state of complete vulnerability, held hostage in hostile territory, where any wrong move could lead to death, it is wonderful to watch her crafty maneuvering. Indeed, as Javed becomes more and more consumed by his obsession, it appears easier for Ruth's mother to use it against him. We especially loved her entrapment of him: "You can marry Ruth if the British lose Delhi." No way to get out of that one with manly pride intact. Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi give excellent performances as Sarfaraz and Javed's wife, respectively. They both are parts of the scenery of hostility, but both also display the real vulnerability beneath their aggressive exteriors. Sarfaraz may be a bit of a bloodthirsty maniac, but his nationalist passion and his despair at the British treatment of Indians are genuine and easy to sympathize with. Once again, the scene when he returns from a conquered Delhi, exhausted and defeated, immediately humanizes him (though he's still pretty scary!). Likewise, we see Shabana's humiliation at being usurped by a reluctant, teenage English girl thanks to her husband's sudden infatuation. Added DVD bonus: There's a brief interview with a visibly good-humored Shashi Kapoor on our copy of the film (a UK distributor). He talks about making the film - from the inspiration to finding the money - and it's really interesting to hear him speak English (with a posh British accent, no less!) and to hear him, well, be himself! Both are PPCC firsts as this is our first Shashinterview! Bonus on UK copies of Junoon! Time for that Ploughman's.