Date:01/04/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/04/01/stories/2007040101830200.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Lacking a fresh perspective

CROSS-CULTURAL FILM: `The Namesake' is adapted from a novel by Jhumpa Lahiri.

The Namesake (English)

Director: Mira Nair

Cast: Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn

WITH ANY cross-cultural film, there is one factor that lies above all else in helping judge its worthiness: the freshness and validity of its descriptive and analytical parts. In that sense, Mira Nair's The Namesake, adapted from a novel of the same name by Jhumpa Lahiri, fails to find its place among the best works of the Indian-films-in-English genre.

The film has its moments, little hints scattered throughout its length and breadth that suggest Nair has an intimate knowledge of the tale she is telling, particularly towards the second half when the film finds its feet and begins to tell the story in a more measured sense.

And while all of the actors are hobbled with a form of dialogue writing that was one of the chief difficulties of early films in the genre, they too manage to deliver occasional gleams of quality. And there are some truly wonderful shots that suggest more in a second than much else of the film suggests in so many wasted minutes: a sterile white that suggests a feeling of alienation and loneliness, a suffuse glow that gently empathises with a new couple's attempts at adjustment and more.

However, the difficulty with the film comes in its description and analysis of identity and belonging.

While there is a lot of potential to be explored in the phenomenon, Nair sticks far too rigidly to images of Indian and American exotica.

The result is a rather exclusionist perspective of both cultures, one that trades in stock images of uniformly green lawns and white snow and happy suburbia with children cycling down the street on the one hand, and perpetually happy joint families and predictable depictions of Calcutta's streets.

Much of what Nair shows might make for enjoyable viewing for the average cinema viewer, but at the end of it all, one is left asking what the film says that hasn't been said before, and even said better.

Rakesh Mehar