Gurinder Chadha, like her films, has a lot to say on a great many topics. Also like her films, she’s entertaining while she’s saying it. When I spoke to her on January 27, 2005, she waxed loquacious on Bollywood meeting Hollywood on and off the screen, her responsibility as a filmmaker to her audience, and why a popcorn flick, like her upcoming I DREAM OF JEANNIE, doesn’t have to be simple minded.
When Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice two hundred or so years ago, she was doing more than telling a story about lovers at cross purposes, she was also dissecting with her society with a deadly precision and wry humor. Gurinder Chadha has taken that classic story and updated it to the multicultural 21st century without losing any of the originals intelligence or humor.
Chadha spins the plot between India, London, and Los Angeles while remaining remarkably close to Austens story. The mother, Mrs. Bakshi, bewails the problem of having four daughters and no money for their dowries and her second daughter, Lalita (Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai), ponders why it is that everyone assumes a single man with money must be looking for a wife.
BRIDE AND PREJUDICE is a bright, splashy, and very smart film infused with wit and warmth. The class conflicts and the minutiae of society in the English countryside translate effortlessly by Chadha onto a bigger playing field, and observations about cultural imperialism that are, arguably, even more trenchant than Austen could imagined. Further, Chadha plays on the same pre-conceived notions plaguing her hero and heroine by subtly challenging any that the audience might harbor. Yet shes never confrontational, preferring instead to explore both sides of that particular human frailty with a flash of insight rather than a load of guilt.
Je suis d’accord avec Emily dans la mesure of9 cette sce8ne de ab Paris, Je t’aime bb m’a rpaeple9 du livre de John Bowen. En parlant du foulard et sa role dans l’identite9 des filles musulmanes, Bowen e9crit beaucoup de la complexite9 de cette pratique. Gre2ce aux conversations avec trois femmes musulmanes desquelles il mentionne dans le chapitre ab Schools and Scarves bb, il arrive e0 une conclusion e0 propos de la repre9sentation du foulard. Il dit ab They [les femmes] reject the idea that headscarves are religious signs, because they see the decision to wear hije2b as the result of a personal commitment rather than an intention to signal something to others bb (81).Il est donc inte9ressant e0 observer la jeune fille dans le film et sa de9cision de garder son foulard. Elle justifie sa choix de le garder : ab Personne ne m’oblige. C’est moi qui ai voulu. bb De plus, elle dit au gare7on que ses amis sont ignorants des femmes et de leur concept de la beaute9. ab Quand je le porte, j’ai le sentiment d’avoir une foi, une identite9. Je me sens bien. bb Je pense que cela corresponde au texte susmentionne9 de Bowen en renfore7ant la conviction personelle de la jeune fille plutf4t qu’une obligation religieuse ou une acte de subordination qui sont souvent interpre9te9es comme ste9re9otype9es. Ce film est une bonne exemple du caracte8re ine9vitable des ste9re9otypes en formulant nos suppositions des affaires socie9tales.