Review of Marigold (2007) by Hezekiah J — 01 Aug 2008

I've watched the movie and then I watched the "Making of" right after. What I thought during the movie was that the writer/director was being pedantic about what Bollywood film structure is like and how we should find pleasure and quality in it.

Sadly along the way he wrote a thin script even for all but the second tier Bollywood flick. When I watched the "Making of" it was confirmed, that is what he was trying to share, his discovery and subsequent love of Bollywood.

I feel he focused on the wrong things. In my opinion he focused on the minutia of the Bollywood methodology and sacrificed telling a meaningful story. Furthermore he hamstrung himself by trying to straddle the two markets by making a Bollywood structured film, explaining why it was made that way in the text of the film for an American market.

All he was left with was an American's solipsistic rendition of his perspectives on how to bring an already mature and beautiful storytelling technique to a different cultural sensibility. By trying to say "Look, these are good stories too" you are revealing your own sense of superiority.

He would have been better off just making a really good Bollywood flick with American actors, that way he would have shown respect for the medium without seeming to condescend to it. No one in the Indian market needed an explanation of the structure of their films, and no one likes to be told why they should like something, they either like it or they don't.

It's a bit like having to explain a joke. I applaud the desire to bring the Bollywood sensibility to the American market, however I detest the manner in which it was handled.