Review of Monsoon Wedding

Introduction

Monsoon Wedding is about a middle class Punjabi wedding that takes place in Delhi, India. The penny pinching father of the bride, Lalit, is busy dealing with the `do-it-on-the-cheap` entrepreneurial share dealing mobile phone weilding wedding planner, Dubey, organising the wedding for his daughter, Aditi. Aditi meanwhile is having an affair with her already married boss when the groom to be, Hemant, flies in from Houston, Texas.

As you might expect, it`s chaos with all manner of other things going on too without Lalit having to deal with his family and guests in the run up to the big day. Dubey, the wedding planner is distracted by the familys` maid, Alice and is completely mesmerised by her. Lalit`s eldest son is getting on very well with the sister of the groom, and Lalit`s niece has a dark secret which surfaces later on to add another dimension to the wedding plate.

Video

The 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer is well presented and looks quite `raw`. Monsoon Wedding was shot on 16mm blown up to 35mm for theatrical release and it shows itself up with the darker scenes. There is some dirt about the place, but not enough to get upset about. I think the the story will keep most audiences occupied anyway. Declan Quinn`s cinemaphotography shows lots of colour and life in every frame and is nothing like the typical Indian movies you might know (I dislike the term `Bollywood`, but a lot of them have below average video transfers).

Audio

This sounds good from start to finish. The dialogue comes firmly from centre stage with music and ambient sound covering a very wide arc indeed. All the music too sounded good from the front with a good level of bass. Apart from some of the actors` accents being a little difficult to understand in English, I was very pleased at how clear and dynamic the rest of the sound is.

Features

Nice vibrant and almost static menus lead you to chapter selection and a few extras. Behind The Scenes, trailer, director commentary and Dolby soundtrack (stereo or 5.1) options.

Behind The Scenes is an eight minute featurette and is interesting but there`s not enough of it. I can`t believe that only eight minutes exist and I`d love to see more! At least I now know what Mira Nair looks like...

The trailer isn`t the usual rubbish, instead it`s 2.5 minutes of scenes from the film with music. It`s almost a movie in its own right in the way it unfolds and piques your curiosity with a couple of lines of dialogue at the start giving you a flavour of the film. Very interesting and it doesn`t spoil at all.

Lastly Mira Nair`s director commentary is interesting too. She has a lot to say about the film and the traditions surrounding the storytelling and characters. I enjoyed listening to what she had to say.

There are no foreign language subtitles or English ones present on the disc.

Conclusion

This is a personal story for director Mira Nair as she`s Punjabi and knows the ins and outs all too well. She says she wanted to make this film without the pressures of a distributor or stars and what`s here works very well. One of the things that works in the films favour is the fact that it was all shot handheld over a mere 30 days and simply puts you right in the middle of the action from the start. A real slice of life. You do get to figure out who the characters are fairly quickly and it`s an enjoyable part of the film. You`d never know just by looking at it that it was a low budget film.

The story has quite a few different threads woven together and I found it all engaging without any boredom whatsoever. The mix too of English, Hindi and Punjabi dialogue adds to the frenetic mood and is easy to follow. There are a few singing and dancing moments, but don`t let this put you off in the slightest way, it`s all part of the whole wedding package and is done well enough to endure. I`m sure what this story has to say will shatter a few westernised perceptions of India as seen only in `Bollywood` (that word again!) movies.

I think Mira Nair captures the opulancy of the modern Punjabi wedding on film very well. The story telling is very much in the now and there`s a lot happening all of the time in the run up to the wedding. The editing and pace of the film feels good without any dull plodding moments. I enjoyed watching this film a few times and it always made me smile. I think anyone can enjoy this, you don`t have to be Indian to understand the mechanics of it, and you`ll certainly be entertained.

The one thing I don`t like about this DVD is the almost one minute long forced credit/copyright screens that has to be endured before you can start the film. I usually start the disc and go off to get a cuppa before settling down. It`s a minor niggle I know, but I`m just impatient!

You`ll be glad to hear that Monsoon Wedding is not a typical movie about weddings and is thoroughly enjoyable with a good cast and good direction. I can heartily recommend buying or renting this DVD!