Director: Mira Nair
Country of origin: India
Year of release: 2001
Running time: 114'
Language: English, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu, with English subtitles
Monsoon Wedding is a joyous celebration of love and family, set among an upper-middle class family in Delhi. Father-of-the-bride Lalit, a businessman, is trying hastily to arrange his daughter Aditi’s nuptial celebrations to Hemant, who lives in the USA and to whom Aditi was introduced only a few weeks earlier, before the annual monsoon rains arrive.
What should be a happy time, however, is fraught with complications. Lalit is undergoing cash-flow problems, Aditi is carrying on a secret affair with her former boss, and when the extended family arrive, Aditi’s cousin, Ria, has to deal with painful childhood memories of sexual abuse suffered at the hands of Lalit’s brother-in-law. Meanwhile, the plucky wedding planner, Dubey, gets distracted when he is love-struck by Alice, the family’s maid.
The director of such movies as Mississippi Masala and Kama Sutra, Mira Nair brings together her love for traditional Punjabi culture and a desire to explore issues facing modern India in this exuberant, colourful film. Monsoon Wedding mixes spicy song and dance sequences with melodrama; warm comedy with lyrical and tender romance to create an undeniably entertaining cinematic experience.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Screening for Monday 7th December: Buena Vista Social Club
Director: Wim Wenders
Country of origin: USA/Germany/Cuba
Year of release: 1999
Running time: 105'
Language: Spanish and English, with English subtitles
Buena Vista Social Club is a documentary that takes its viewers on an extraordinary musical journey. The film tells the story of a group of elderly, almost-forgotten Cuban musicians who play cubano son, an indigenous form of music that blends Spanish canción and guitar with African rhythm and percussion.
The musicians—a few of whom are in their nineties—are brought together by the American producer Ry Cooder to record an album, the Buena Vista Social Club, named after a Havana music hotspot of the 1940s. Following this, the musicians head to the United States, some of them for the first time, where they give a triumphant, sold-out performance at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.
Mixing touching observation and interviews with enthralling live performances, Buena Vista Social Club is a wonderful testament to the love of music, and the enduring soul of a people.
Country of origin: USA/Germany/Cuba
Year of release: 1999
Running time: 105'
Language: Spanish and English, with English subtitles
Buena Vista Social Club is a documentary that takes its viewers on an extraordinary musical journey. The film tells the story of a group of elderly, almost-forgotten Cuban musicians who play cubano son, an indigenous form of music that blends Spanish canción and guitar with African rhythm and percussion.
The musicians—a few of whom are in their nineties—are brought together by the American producer Ry Cooder to record an album, the Buena Vista Social Club, named after a Havana music hotspot of the 1940s. Following this, the musicians head to the United States, some of them for the first time, where they give a triumphant, sold-out performance at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.
Mixing touching observation and interviews with enthralling live performances, Buena Vista Social Club is a wonderful testament to the love of music, and the enduring soul of a people.
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