- Also Known As:
- Unknown
- Year:
- 1996
- Country:
- Canada
- India
- Predominant Genre:
- Romance
- Director:
- Deepa Mehta
- Outstanding Performances:
- None
- Premiss:
- A simmering cauldron of discontent, with almost every family member living a lie. The marriages are emotionally empty, without love or passion.
- Themes:
- Alienation
- Compassion
- Destiny
- Emotional repression
- Empathy
- Friendship
- Humanity
- Identity
- Loneliness
- Loyalty
- Mercy
- Narcissism
- Nature
- Personal change
- Redemption
- Self-expression
- Sexual Repression
- Snobbery
- Solipsism
- Stereotyping
- Totalitarianism
- Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:
- Unknown
- Review Format:
- DVD
Rebels Without a Cause
A film that correctly points out that adherence to customs is little more than the response of a monkey to a bell. And that a sole reliance on traditions is a hopeless way to retain a culture in a desired given state. Nevertheless, this inherent wish to rebel against the past can so easily be conflated with a rebellion against duty and responsibility – both of which are far more important and far more serious. There is also the danger here that the flouted traditions are not replaced with something possessing more meaning; that one can be a rebel for being a rebel's sake.
Here, the old look on as the young flout the guidelines by which the old have lived all their lives. The Indian culture depicted becomes Westernized with all the benefits – wealth, improved standards of living, etc – and the disbenefits – materialism, seeing people as means to end rather than ends, etc. All of this is bound up in the story of two women having an affair because their respective marriages are unsatisfactory - on so many levels.
The cultural and political tensions shown here are endemic to all cultures since they must all adapt or die. And yet the purpose of tradition is precisely to avoid such adaptation. Those who resentfully follow custom are shown as seeking revenge on those who have the courage to flout them. The criticism of the Buddhist concept of abolishing desire to abolish evil is palpable since such a desire is itself a desire; albeit one that ultimately leads to emotional death – for only the dead are free of desire. The trial by fire shown here (taken from Hindu mythology) is that which reveals moral impurity if one is consumed by the fire; ones purity, if one is not.
The characterization is a little bland because the actors are, while the themes are not fully explored by the screenwriter. However, the style helps overcome some of these problems in helping us get under the skin of what it is to be a woman in a culture in rapid transit from Third to First World status.
Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this posting in any format; provided mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
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