Okay folks, here is a list of potential movies to watch about India. When you have watched one, post a reply below that gives your basic review and also what it taught you about Indian culture or history. Here are some choices:
Monsoon Wedding
City of Joy
Miss India Georgia
Mississippi Masala
I Have Found It
Bride and Prejudice
(both of these are based on Jane Austen novels)
Earth (a film by Deepa Mehta)
English August
Bend it Like Beckham
Gandhi (counts for double)
Mr. and Mrs. Iyer
A Passage to India
Salaam Bombay
A Train to Pakistan
14 comments:
Earth: Based upon the movie, the people of India were of all religions that shared the same land, food, and language conjointly. The role of women were portrayed as having far more independence then, than the women in the text books of today. Instead of women being isolated away from men or the public, they were free to socialize openly with whomever they chose to. The movie Earth is about a young female named Shanta that is Hindu living with a Parsee family as an "Ayah"or nurse maid caring for their 8 year old daughter, Lenny Baby. Shanta would always take Lenny Baby to meet her friends in the park. Shanta's friends were all male, old and young, of Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu religions. They would have discussions and share laughter amongst each other. However,upon the arrival of the British, the friendships would be divided along with the land and the religions. Muslims were massacred, Hindu's were murdered and raped, Sikh's were singled out and stereotyped as an evil and barbaric religion,and the Parsees were invisible and neutral. In the midst of confusion, some began exiting and entering parts of India that were safer for their religious beliefs. Some even went so far as to abandoning their religion and converting to a religion that offered better opportunities. The movie Earth shows India living as one with different cultures, religions and beliefs before the arrival and division of the British.
Dietra Pickens
Bend It Like Beckham:
This movie is the product of mixing British/English culture with Indian culture. Jess is an 18-year-old 'Sikh' Indian girl who has lives in London close to Heathrow Airport because her dad fled Kenya to come to a safer place with more opportunities. The conflict of the movie deals with Jess (and her friend's) ambition to play professional football (soccer.) While Jess keeps all of her football practices and achievements quiet, she is discovered at a football match by an American college scout during her sister's wedding. She is offered a scholarship to come and play at Santa Clara. She rejects the offer because she figures her father and mother will not allow her to do so. She ends up telling her father the opportunity she has and her father grants her permission to go to America to fulfull her dream to play college football. During the movie, there are many culture clashes that Jess runs into and has to deal with. Jess' friend also runs into conflict with her mother forcing her to wear a lacy bra over a modern sports bra. The movie is a modern day example of what happens when two cultures clash.
-Tim Holewczynski
To my surprise, the movie Gandhi was about much more than this incredible man. Aside from some biographical information I had not known about Gandhi, I learned much about his early work in South Africa, the British mindset and control of India in the early twentieth century, and the history of Muslim-Hindu relations in the first half of the twentieth century. It was the latter
portrayal in the movie which intrigued me most. From the beginning of the movie, Hindus and Muslims were portrayed as being relatively tolerant of one another in India and even Gandhi mentioned how in his Hindu temple, the leader of the ceremony read interchangeably from the Quran and the Ghita. All of this confused me considering my very limited knowledge of the relationship between these two religious groups today. However, the movie explains how the tolerance between the two religious groups in Gandhi's early lifetime faded during his life, in spite of his many efforts to keep them from opposing one another. The movie showed how the Hindus and Muslims united to fight for independence of India, but also how their relationship with one another went into turmoil once independence was given. In the movie, Gandhi opposed the formation of Pakistahn, fearing this would only cause more problems than it would solve. However, his efforts were ignored. One of the more powerful scenes in the movie, amongst many others, was when Hindus were marching out of the newly formed Pakistahn into India while Muslims were marching in a similar endless line out of India and into Pakistahn. The scene depicted the two groups moving in opposite directions, but were only a few yards away. Inevitably and evidentally, fighting and conflict broke out while the two groups were marching. Aside from much history about the world and India, I also learned and got new insights about Gandhi as well. Even though I was surprised and a bit confused that an English actor, Ben Kingsley, portrayed Gandhi, the movie emphasized Gandhi's humbleness, sense of humor, and his non-physical violence stance against injustice. When asked in the movie about taking up action against injustice and implementing violence, Gandhi said he supported violence where there was injustice. However, there are different forms of violence. Gandhi explained the right form of violence, non-physical, would change things and defeat injustice while the wrong form of violence, physical fighting, would only provoke injustice and further violence.
The movie caused me to ask a very important and rather disturbing question. Did Gandhi really accomplish anything? At the end of his life in the movie, even though India has its independence from tyrannical Great Britain, Gandhi is portrayed as having great sadness. Due to the immense fighting between Hindus and Muslims, Gandhi felt that much he had spent his entire lifetime fighting for was being destroyed. Gandhi's achievements, in my opinion, will be measured in how well his legacy is held up by the generations after him. Considering this, Gandhi would be devastated by the amount of violence and conflict in the world, and the South Asian region in particular.
The relativeness of this movie to current times is that the injustice Gandhi fought against is stil alive and well in the world, just its forms differ. Gandhi demonstrated the best way to oppose injustices, while many currently take up means to embattle injustice which only further the spread of it. If Gandhi is to be remembered or reverred, the best way to accomplish this is to live by many of his principles, contrary to how many are living in today's world in spite of their so called love and respect for him.--Randy Ebright
Bend it Like Beckham was an interesting movie. It allows the movie viewer to better understand the challenges that different cultures are constantly undergoing. It is obvious that sometimes these challenges involve many hardships and can change the relationships of many for better or worse. In this movie we are also allowed to see a glimpse of Indian culture and the traditions they have. Sometimes, when two different cultures come together, it can be hard for a culture to bring in new ideas or different practices for fear that their own culture might be lost. We see this throughout this movie through Jess and her involvement in an all womans soccer team.
Daniel Perales
Angela says:On Monday evening, all evening long as it is quite lengthly, I watched the Ghandi movie. To me it was quite fascinating to see the lengths to keep the peace that this great man of India went to for his country and its people. For he was imprisoned so many times over the years because of his very strong convictions. Out of one of these numerous times when he was without his freedom he made a very great statement and that was,"Poverty is the first form of violence." For this is how to British Empire began its campaign to subdue the Indian people for by producing cloth at a lower rate than their own countryman and also restricting the use of salt they were able to restrain the masses and keep them under subjection. Since this very oppression is so cloying it was only a matter of time before the people rebelled, and all it took was a leader who was Ghandi himself who believed in resistance,but, in a peaceful way so that therefore the British would leave their country. He sacrificied himself in so many ways for his people and their heritage which inspired the people to also do the same. One of the greatest moments in that time period was when the families joined together in resisting and they had it all planned out how to take care of the wounded they was bound to happen, and yet line after line of people stood up and bravely walked forward to offer up resistance even while they watched the previous line beaten down, but, since reporters were there to tell the world of what they witnessed, it turned the tide for their side, but, alas for the Indian people there were also other plans of freedom which resulted in the Muslims instigating a civil war for their own independence away from the Hindus to begin their own country of Pakistan. This is not too surprising for one revolution usually begets another as aothers also want to seek control.
I watched the movie Bend it like Beckham. This movie is a great example of the hardships many people go throw when living in a culture different to their own. An example from the movie is when Jess's father tells her soccer coach that he used to be one of the best players back in India, even winning a championship. However, when he came to the UK, he wasn't allowed to play on any of the teams even though he was very qualified to do so. He also says that there are not any Indian professional players and he doesn't want to get his daughters hopes up. This scene from the movie really depicts the struggles people go throw and try to over come. When Jess continues to play and ends up becoming a professional women's soccer player in the United States, it shows the viewer that people can over come the difficulties they are faced with.
Samantha Larson
I watched the movie Salaam Bombay! (The movie title has the exclamation point.) It tells the story of a young boy, maybe 12 or 11 years old, named Krishna (an ironic name) who is struggling to survive on the streets of Bombay. He was banished from his home in a village because in anger he destroyed an important piece of property that belonged to his brother. Krishna's mother placed him to work for a traveling circus, instructing him to not return until he had earned 500 rupees to replace what he destroyed, but one day he was left behind. He traveled to the nearest city, Bombay, and started working to save up the 500 rupees, as he desperately wanted to return home.
In that poor, underprivileged urban setting, Krishna's company are drug sellers and users, prostitutes, and other children who either work, beg, or steal. Krishna works hard to earn his savings honestly by working for a tea house as a 'tea boy,' and had a delivery route. He experiences a number of setbacks, including the death of one of his friends, being fired, having all the money he saved stolen from him, and being wrongly and unjustly arrested and placed in some kind of juvenile detention, the "Chiller Room." This is a brief summary, as the story involves more characters and events, but basically that is where the movie ends, with Krishna having to start all over to collect savings and more than likely going into drug dealing.
Elements of Indian culture were represented. I'd assume the setting of the city, the urban crowding, the living conditions, the style of dress, and the food they ate were in accurate to a modern portrait of Bombay. Unfortunately, I'd assume the crime in the story is accurate as well. There was something that caught my attention though; at one point the children are working as servants at a wedding reception. The bride was briefly shown wearing red and gold, and, thanks to Shanti's presentation, I recognized the scene as a wedding. I would have otherwise been confused. There is also another chracter, a young girl, who came to Bombay from another region, and had trouble communicating because she did not speak Hindi. She was silent the whole time. That was a good example of how problematic the language barriers can be.
I liked this movie, although cinematically it moved a little slowly, and I can't say that I totally grasp what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish. It wasn't the most uplifting of films, and maybe even for our purposes wasn't the best exposition of Indian culture, but it was ok.
I watched the movie bend it like beckham. I really enjoyed this because it really tied in with the India culture and the "worlds sport" which is soccer. While we were in India, we didn't see many girls out in public unless they were with their husband. From watching this movie, you can see some of the limits that woman have in indian society. Jess who is a british indian sikh girl wants to follow her dream and become a professional soccer player while her parents are old fashion Indian parents who want her daughter to do all the tradition customs. The problem with soccer according to them, is because it is a contact sport and they are against it. The movie really brought out how hard it is from different culture backgrounds to jump into a new society. There is always going to be racism and stereotypes that people are going get around in order to fulfill their dreams just as Jess did. Finally in the end her dad gives in because he realizes that he wasn't allowed to play cricket in England because he was Indian and wore a turban. This offended his dad greatly and come to the conclusion of letting her chase her dream. Overall i thought it was a pretty good movie.
Bend it like Beckham:
This movie demonstrated the clash between two separate cultures quite effectively.
The character, Jess, is from an Indian family. Her parents were immigrants to Britain. Her parents push her throughout the movie to follow their Indian traditions and ideals for her. Much of the emphasis is on her education and on an arranged marriage.
Jess on the other hand is intrigued and inspired by the game of football. She would rather pursue her dreams than her parents dreams.
Jess goes head to head with both cultures trying to find the happy medium between the two. In the end she realizes that she will never be happy lying to her parents and she faces them to express her need to achieve her dreams.
There is some closure in the end as her parents seem to accept her choices, despite their reservations.
Overall it was a great movie, both in its representations of cultural conflicts as well as internal personal conflicts in each of the characters.
AJ Born
Bend It Like Beckham:
It was interesting to see how much one girl wanted to incorporate herself into modern English society while her parents wanted her to learn how to cook and not present herself in the way that she had. Jess had shown her dad how important it was to her that she play soccer and after her father realizes that soccer is the only thing that makes her daughter happy, he allows her to continue playing. Jess was completely accepted by her friend, Jules. I would not have thought that an English girl would be so accepting of a Sikh girl. This movie shows some Indian culture and how one must stand up to others to get what one wants in life, in this case, to play pro soccer. This movie was very good and entertaining.
Bend it Like Beckham showed the true interaction between the Indian and British cultures. The Indian family is very old fashion and valued based within their tradition. The movie has Jess who is a football (soccer) player and that was her dream in the movie. Her parents had other ideas and they thought she should focus on education as well as getting an arranged marriage. After a lot of turmoil and conflict she talks with her parents to try meeting place where they could both be pleased with her future. Jess parents finally agreed to somewhat give into her views and her wants. Overall it was good movie to understand the Indian culture.
I watched Bride and Prejudice, which is a recent Bollywood movie based on Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice.
Mrs. Bakshi, living in India, has four daughters and tries to find husbands for them all, and hopefully find rich husbands if she can. Two men, Balraj Bingley and William Darcy, were rich and interested in two of the daughters. Balraj became uninterested in the girl he wanted to propose to, Jaya, though, because William Darcy told him he did not like India or the Bakshis because he felt their mother is just a "gold-digger". Lalita, the one William fell in love with, finds this out after he proposes to her. She becomes angry with him, but in the end, William tells Lalita that he realized Jaya is really in love.
It took a while through the movie to realize that William and Lalita may like each other, for the reason why the movie is called Bride and Prejudice is because Lalita was proud and stubborn and because William was prejudice.
All in all, I liked the movie. I realized that maybe Bollywood decided to make an Indian version of this movie because marriage is a big part of lives in India, and it relates well with people all over the world.
-Nichole
I watched Bend it like Beckham. I thought it was really interesting to see how Indian customs and religion effect every day life. All Jess wanted to do was play Football. This would not have been a big deal in most Protestant or Catholic families. It was also interesting to see how the mother is kind of the head of the household. Anytime the father wanted to do something or say something the mother would yell at him for saying something in the past or wanting to do something now. It is not until the end where you can see some of the power that he does have in the family. It was basically his decision to let Jess go to the Football game and eventually go to America. Great Movie!
Abby
I watched the movie Bend it like Beckham this movie was about a girl that had a love for Football and her parents didn't like that she played football. The person that was really not liking the idea of her playing football was her mom. The reason why she didn't want her play is that she wanted her to find a man and to learn and to cook. Her dad was very indifferent about the whole thing because he went and watch her play and also let her play on the day of her sister wedding day. The reason why he didnt like her play is that he got discrimined by people when he was playing cricket he thinks thats going to happen to her because she is indian. Overall this wasnt a bad movie.
Paul Ahern
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