‘Monsoon
Wedding’ reigns supreme in cinema
By Monica Levette Clark
On-line Forty-Niner
A
storm, a family secret of molestation revealed,
a new love discovered, trust restored and
dancing all night could happen at any wedding
ceremony. And this is what did happen in
the independent film, “Monsoon Wedding.”
Directed by Mira Nair, this was a wildly
colorful film with a realistic plot and
realistic characters set in magical India.
In the film, the character of Vasundhara
Das is at first reluctant to marry Hemant,
the man her family has arranged for her,
because she is still in love with another
man.
After the wedding, the bride is to leave
her family in India to start a new life
with her husband, an Indian who lives in
America.
She is happy to be going to a new world,
but not happy about leaving her family with
whom she is very close.
Ria, a cousin who was taken into the family
after the death of her father, has been
hiding the secret that a friend of the family
molested her when she was a child.
She is forced to confront him when he is
invited to the wedding and tries to do the
same to another young girl in the family.
She is afraid that no one will believe her
now that she is in her 20s.
When Ria sees this happening all over again,
she can no longer hold her tongue, and accuses
the friend in front of everyone. The
man is then shunned from the family and
asked to leave in the middle of the wedding.
In the midst of all this, the wedding planner
Dubey, an obnoxious joker played by Parvin
Dabas is enchanted with Alice, the family
servant-girl, although he doesn’t know why.
It seems that Alice has put a love spell
on Dubey, who walks around in a haze eating
flowers.
This two-hour long film unfolds beautifully
as a celebration of the modern-day Indian
family, love and life.
The film showing was part of the activities
and events of International Education Week
at Cal State Long Beach.
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