Irving M. Levin Directing Award: An Afternoon with Mira Nair: Monsoon Wedding
Description
Mira Nair returned to Delhi to shoot this exuberant extended-family celebration in a brisk, budget-constrained 30 days, and her deft dive into organized chaos won the Golden Lion at Venice. An affectionate salute to her fellow Punjabis (“the party animals of India,” says the director), the film depicts the five raucous days leading up to the arranged marriage of traditional-yet-modern Aditi (played by pop star Vasundhara Das). Aditi harbors a flickering hope that her lover will leave his wife, one of many undercurrents complicating the proceedings. A tentative attraction between the wedding planner and a household servant offers a touching study in yearning, while Aditi’s parents’ passionless, comfortable-shoe relationship moves to another, deeper level. Nair displays a mastery of tonal control, playing off the energetic comedy with dashes of farce, Bollywood and magic realism that flow into expressions of pure, profound love. Declan Quinn’s marvelously observant handheld camera captures every detail of this upper-middle-class family’s embrace of tradition amid an unavoidably Americanized culture, and individualism despite the burden of familial expectations. The deliciously eclectic score by Academy Award-winning composer Mychael Danna (Life of Pi) is, to borrow a phrase, note perfect. Did we mention that Monsoon Wedding is colorful? It contains 50 shades of red, exactly and approximately. —Michael Fox
The recipient of SFIFF 2016’s Irving M. Levin Directing Award, Mira Nair was born and raised in Rourkela, India, and went on to study at Delhi and Harvard universities. She began as an actress before segueing to make documentaries. Her narrative feature debut, Salaam Bombay! (1988), won the Camera d’Or and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film. A resourceful and determined independent filmmaker who casts unknowns alongside Hollywood stars, Nair has directed Mississippi Masala (1991), The Perez Family (1995), Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996), Hysterical Blindness (2002), Vanity Fair (2004), The Namesake (2006), Amelia (2009) and The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012). Her upcoming film, Queen of Katwe, about a rural Ugandan girl with an aptitude for chess, stars Lupita Nyong’o and David Oyelowo.
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/160804150?autoplay=1Film Details
Language Hindi, Punjabi, English
Year 2001
Runtime 180
Country India/USA
Director Mira Nair
Producer Caroline Baron, Mira Nair
Writer Sabrina Dhawan
Editor Allyson C. Johnson
Cinematographer Declan Quinn
Music Mychael Danna
Cast Naseeruddin Shah, Lillete Dubey, Shefali Shetty, Vasundhara Das