On paper it probably sounded a great concept and the execution isn’t bad but…
WITH four star Indian directors and Australian Samira Cox, ‘My Melbourne’ – the opening film of the UK Asian Film Festival was something of an interesting and watchable hotchpotch.
It’s an anthology of four short films and centred around four South Asian characters who all live in Melbourne – as Imtiaz Ali said in our brief red carpet interviews – “Melbourne itself is a character”. (See our Youtube or Instagram channels for these).
Onir predictably directs the story about a gay couple welcoming Bengali dad Mihir (Mouli Ganguly), to son Indraneel’s (Arka Das) and his white Australian boyfriend’s (Jackson Gallagher) home, following the dad’s wife and Indraneel’s mother, Nandini, passing away. Her name is also the title of the film.
For a western audience, this is a little passe, the father is hostile and ashamed, initially. Onir admitted in the post Q&A that his own father was accepting of his sexuality and Onir has developed into one of the leading voices of his generation – further cementing his reputation with the more sophisticated and delicate ‘We are Faheem and Karun’ about gay love in Kashmir. It also screens at UKAFF and we saw at BFI Flare earlier. ‘Nandini’ is not bad film but it seems a bit heavy-handed in its themes and rather obvious – but there was an idea there that could have worked so much better in a longer piece.
Rima Das’ award-winning ‘Village Rockstars 2’ came to Berlin where www.asianculturevulture.com saw it, after its award-winning premiere in Busan, South Korea last year. Here she directs ‘Emma’ – the ‘white story’ of the three, to be crude about it. There is a peripheral Asian character called Jai and it seems like there might be romance or may have been – Das and Cox (as co-director) leave that open, while the film focuses on Emma’s hearing loss and her desire to continue to dance professionally. It’s an effecting story but we don’t spend enough time with Emma to properly understand her; if felt a little rough around the edges and the film falters for it. Both Ryanna Lawson as Emma and Nathan (Nathan Borg) are good and draw you in but it all seems a little flimsy still.
In ‘Setara’, we see the dreams of a 15 year old cricket playing girl refugee, from Afghanistan, blossom – though the path is far from smooth. Played by Setara Amiri, an actual refugee Afghanistan cricket team player, this has interesting things to say about how someone at school with a very different culture integrates and thrives in a new environment, while her mother especially, a former high court judge (Sepideh Fallah), struggles. Uneven though; Kabir Khan (‘Chandhu Champion’) gets the most from Amiri, whose sister Nafiza wrote the screenplay alongside Monique Nair.
The strongest for acv was ‘Jules’, though why it is named after a supporting white character is a little baffling. It actually centres around Sakshi (Arushi Sharma), 23, who has just moved to the city with her Indian husband – who obviously has the ‘big job’ and is the reason they are both there. Sakshi has work in a kitchen in a fancy restaurant – simply as a hired hand but tells her mother back in India she is the manager – eventually, she realises she is playing a role for the family and is increasingly unhappy with the way her husband views her – especially after she excels, cooking a dish for her colleagues and gets an innocent hug and selfie Instagram snapshot with her boss chef. The husband is triggered by it all… as for Jules (Kat Stewart), she is the local druggie tramp who turns from irritant to inspiration – though this might be overplaying it.
There is definitely a feature here – with more of backstory and Sakshi beginning to assert her independence and her new-found confidence in ways that could have been explored. Creative director Imtiaz Ali perhaps produces the best and most surprising film of the four.
Backed by state authoririties and Screen Australia (like the BFI here) this is a commendable effort in many ways but it also feels a tad artificial and contrived and it tastes like a much touted fancy meal that wasn’t bad – but didn’t quite live up to such high expectations…??
ACV rating: *** (out of five)
UK Asian Film Festival continues until May 11
