Inarticulate jumble of a myriad issues

I have usually been a bit wary of these off-the-beaten-path Indian movies, particularly movies that touch upon issues related to non-resident indians. It has become quite a fashion with many film makers to highlight how the NRIs and their foreign born (and/or raised) children don’t see eye to eye with each other about the importance of their own culture. However, some of the recent movies made by NRIs have been refreshingly entertaining, such as Bollywood Hollywood or Bend It Like Beckham. So, when a friend of mine asked me to watch Leela and tell her what I thought of it, I rented the DVD with slightly above average expectations. Boy, was I disappointed! Sorry, AKR. I don’t know what you thought of this movie, but here is what I thought.

First of all, lets see what this movie was about. Here is the possible set of themes, any of which could have inspired Somnath Sen to make this movie:
- relationship between a student and a teacher
- relationship between a younger boy and an older woman
- open marriages where husband and wife have the freedom to explore extra-marital relationships
- NRI children’s alienation from their native country and culture
- expectations of a stereo-typical Indian male from his wife
- a son’s alienation from his parents, particularly father
- a mother’s dishonesty with her son and her lack of respect for her children
- parents’ respect for their children’s privacy, especially grown up kids
- teenagers’ obsession and experimentation with sex

All of the above topics were touched upon in this movie, when any one of these could have carried the weight of a whole movie all by itself. With so much baggage to deal with, its no surprise that this movie could not to do justice to any, and just fell flat on its face as an incoherent mumbo-jumbo of all the currently fashionable topics of discussion in many a pseudo-intellectual gatherings.

Okay, a bit about some of the specifics. On the surface, the story is about a woman, Leela Dahlvi (Dimple Kapadia), who comes to United States from Bombay on a visiting professorship. In US, she meets another Indian woman professor, Chaitali (Deepti Naval) and her 18 year old son, Kris (Amol Mhatre). The two women initially develop a bond because of various reasons, but the bond breaks when Chaitali realizes that Leela is having an affair with Kris. Leela also re-evaluates her relationship with her husband, Hriday ’Nashaad’ Dahlvi (Vinod Khanna), with whom she has an open marriage. As far as I could tell, Nashaad is the only one taking advantage of the openness of their marriage. Clearly Leela is just a dutiful faithful wife who lets her philandering husband woo any woman he wishes to. For when it is Leela’s turn to have a relationship outside of her marriage, the director had to justify that by making her go through a traumatic emotional experience on hearing a woman’s voice on the phone when she calls her husband. Essentially, Leela sleeps with Kris not because she is attracted to him, but because of what her husband has done to her self-esteem as a woman. Well, she is a bhartiya nari after all.

Lets look at the other characters in the movie as well. Chaitali, in her turn, has plenty of baggage from her own life to deal with. Her marriage to Jai (Gulshan Grover) has been over for a long time, and each of them has a new beau presently. Jai’s girlfriend is known to all, but Chaitali hasn’t told her son about her boy friend, Summer. (Isn’t Summer a girl’s name though?). But the baggage doesn’t end there. Jai has a somewhat rocky relationship with his son, Chaitali goes snooping through Kris’s room to confirm her suspicions about his sex life. She is concerned not only about him having sex at only 18 years of age, but also that he is probably sleeping with an older woman and his teacher! Then there is Jai, her ex-husband who supposedly wanted a servant for a wife and that is why Chaitali kicked him out. Hey, how come then he is going out with a white girl - she is surely not going to be a servant to him!

Kris (actually Krishna) is a stereo-typical NRI child, who hates everything about India, prefers to play guitar over sarod, and thinks he is american despite being called Gandhi by his american friends. Of course, in the end he realizes the greatness of his culture, and begins to call himself Krishna instead of Kris. By the way, what’s with the name Krishna? How come all the NRI children in Indian movies are called Krishna alias Kris? Why not Sameer alias Sam or Siddhartha alias Sid, or.. the list goes on! There is also a smart intellectual girl Mira who seems to have a soft corner for Kris. And naturally, there is a geeky looking stereo-typical FOB Shantanu who does silly stupid things that only FOBs can do to get Mira’s attention. Are there any stereotypes left that this movie does not contain?

Deepti Naval puts up a good acting performance. The contrast between her and Dimple’s acting skills is so apparent in the first scene where the two of them meet. Deepti is animated and natural while Dimple stands stiff and rigid with barely a muscle moving in her face. Or perhaps, it isn’t the lack of acting talent - perhaps the director is subtly trying to tell us that women who live in India are stiff and oppressed, while Indian women living abroad are animated and liberated! Gulshan Grover and Vinod Khanna do a fairly good job in their roles - not bad, but no oscars for them either. Amol Mhatre is convincing in his role - being an NRI child, I suppose it was easy enough for him to portray what his character was all about. His boasting of sexual success with Leela at first, but denial of having done anything sexual with her later when in fact he has, was reminiscent of Little Darlings.

The music, composed by Jagjit Singh, was just about okay. The main songs in the movie sung by him and a couple sung by Shubha Mudgal and Jaspinder Narula were quite good, but the background score was average. And the music during the ending credits - what was that? Did Jagjit Singh really compose that too?? Oh, another thing related to music - I am no expert at guitar techniques, but didn’t the guitar in the final song sound like hawaiian/slide although Kris is shown playing it in spanish style? Of course, I could be completely wrong here.

There was only one scene in the movie that was even remotely funny - when Kris comes to Leela to apparently pay his guru dakshina. However, since the rest of the movie was pretty serious, the joke just seemed totally unexpected and misplaced.

To end, the overall impression of the movie is that of a mish-mash of a variety of hot topics. The flow is fairly incoherent and non sequitur from scene to scene. And the movie leaves you wondering about the following loose threads:
- If Leela was aware of her husband’s philandering ways and believed in open marriage, why was she so upset to hear a woman’s voice on phone when she called her husband?
- What was the relevance of the cremation scene at the beginning of the movie? I kept waiting for it to somehow tie in to the story.
- What was it really that made Leela sleep with Kris? Alienation from her husband? Then why did she want to go back with him?

In summary, Leela was one confused woman who didn’t know what she wanted, who had no direction in life, and who couldn’t decide what was good for her and what wasn’t. Not only at the beginning of the movie, but even in the end. She still had no direction.

Would I recommend this movie to other? No. Its just a waste of time, as it neither entertains nor gives you any food for thought - just a lot of tidbits.

(Originally posted on MS on July 6, 2003)