watched this last night. the performances, the cinematography, the rhythm of the film–all these things are very well done and the film comes together really well. what is less subtle, or adroit, is the film’s handling of class. there are basically three kinds of people in this film: hardcore working class, working class on the move, and upper class. everyone in the first category is a saint, everyone in the second category is a traitor, and everybody in the third category is either vicious or vaccuous. while the film presents itself as quiet social realism what it really is is quiet agit-prop. nothing wrong with agit-prop of course, but here it is mostly condescending to the people on whose behalf it is agitating.
Month: April 2005
mira nair–vanity fair etc.
we didn’t get to “sin city” last night–instead we watched “vanity fair” on dvd. as some of you know i have a strong antipathy to mira nair. when asked to explain this i sometimes, in the interests of economy, say only that someone who makes a film like “kamasutra” should and can never be taken seriously again. she is an interesting figure, however: the minority/third world director trying to make it in mainstream hollywood. and it may be interesting to compare her career, and choices, with those of directors like ang lee and wayne wang (to name only two). i’m not going to do that here. i’ll note only that unlike those two nair hasn’t (or hadn’t until “vanity fair”) succeeded in crossing over into the hollywood mainstream–which for such directors may be marked by the making of a marquee film that has nothing to do with their culture of origin (nair’s “the perez family” flopped and i don’t know that it was a marquee film anyway).
i would argue that nair’s career is essentially all about the search for this mainstream crossover and that what differentiates her from someone like lee or wang is her continued deployment of her culture of origin whether it is wholesale in exoticizing trash like “kamasutra” or cynical ethnic-chic like “my big fat monsoon wedding”, or in what may finally have been her ticket to the big time, a big-budget costume extravaganza with a big hollywood star: “vanity fair”.