Directors Even More Directors Series - Volume Thirty Five - Mira Nair (1 Viewer)

[SteveGon]

Another one suggested by John.


Vanity Fair (2004)
11'09''01 - September 11 (2002) (segment "India")
... aka 11 minutes 9 secondes 1 image (France)
... aka 11 septembre 2001 (Iran: Farsi title)
... aka 11'09''01: Onze minutes, neuf secondes, un cadre (France)
... aka Onze minutes, neuf secondes, un cadre (France)
... aka September 11 (USA)
Hysterical Blindness (2002) (TV)
Monsoon Wedding (2001)
... aka Mariage des moussons, Le (France)
The Laughing Club of India (1999) (TV)
My Own Country (1998) (TV)
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
The Perez Family (1995)
Mississippi Masala (1991)
Salaam Bombay! (1988)
... aka Salaam Bombay! (France)
Children of a Desired Sex (1987) (TV)
India Cabaret (1985) (TV)
So Far from India (1982)
Jama Masjid Street Journal (1979)


Rank 'em, rate 'em, or just say you ain't heard of her.

 

[SteveGon]

Films seen:


11'09''01 N/A (don't remember her segment very well)
The Perez Family :star: :star: :star:

Saw part of Monsoon Wedding (meh). Would like to see a few others.

 

[Brook K]

1. Mississippi Masala - B+ (Sarita Choudhury was smoking hot in this. Of course it has a lot more to offer)

2. Amelia - C+
3. Monsoon Wedding - C

Own: 0

 

[george kaplan]

NHONS, though I recognize a title or two.

 

[Kristian]

1. Vanity Fair :star::star::star:
2. Monsoon Wedding :star::star:¾

 

[JohnRice]

Vanity Fair :star::star::star:1/2 - All the pieces are there. A fine cast, talented director and a great story. Somehow, it just didn't quite come together.

Perez Family :star::star::star: - Nice flick, and OMG did Marisa Tomei look incredible.

Mississippi Masala - I know I've seen this, but can't remember it.

 

[Jim_K]

Ratings out of :star: :star: :star: :star:


MIRA NAIR (1957 - )

Vanity Fair (2004)
11'09''01 - September 11 (2002) (segment "India")
Hysterical Blindness (2002)
Monsoon Wedding (2001) :star: :star: :star:
The Laughing Club of India (1999)
My Own Country (1998)
Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1996)
The Perez Family (1995)
Mississippi Masala (1991)
Salaam Bombay! (1988)
Children of a Desired Sex (1987)
India Cabaret (1985)
So Far from India (1982)
Jama Masjid Street Journal (1979)

 

[Rich Malloy]

I kinda sorta admire some of Nair's films ("Salaam Bombay" and "Mississippi Masala"), but the only one I truly like (and own on DVD) is "Monsoon Wedding". Like Edward Yang, she's especially suited to the East meets West, ancient meets modern culture clash, but her films usually strike me as a bit too obvious, a bit too pat in their conflicts and resolutions, and somewhat airless in the characterizations (cyphers not in the archetypal sense so much as the straight-from-central-casting sense).

These criticisms could well be levied at "Monsoon Wedding" to some extent, but I think perhaps the nature of that shoot - a very brief window for filming, mostly with local amateur cast and crew, and relatively "lo-fi" handheld cinematography, bearing some resemblance to dogme-95 "chastity" - I think all this contributed to a much freer, looser feel in "Monsoon" than her other films.

And if you've listened to her commentary for that film, you know Nair is an exceptionally intelligent person who can precisely verbalize her specific intentions, almost as though she were a scholar of her own films (I'm not sure, but she may have briefly taught film at NYU). But I think she may over-intellectualize most of her films, creating a too obvious dialectic and carefully parsing out anything that might contradict a particular premise or insight, as though a culture or particular person isn't a mass of contradiction, or where contradiction is allowed, isn't traced to some facile root cause. I think she would benefit from a freer, more improvisational approach to cinema, one that allows for the unexpected and the happy accident, the inexplicable contradiction, and the looser rhythms of life. I think she approached this with "Monsoon Wedding".

*I think it's something of a shame that "Monsoon Wedding" didn't get a larger audience, particularly as it came out in the same year as that pathetically two-dimensional yet extraordinarily popular "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".

 

[Kirk Tsai]

1. 11'09''01 (a necessary, if far too obvious segment)
2. Vanity Fair

 

[Bill McA]

[COLOR= #000]Amelia [/COLOR](2009) (Own the DVD)
Children of a Desired Sex (1987) (TV)
India Cabaret (1985) (TV)
So Far from India (1982)
Jama Masjid Street Journal (1979)

Seen 11
Own 2

 

[Arman]

.

 

[SteveGon]

Salaam Bombay ***

 

[Rich Malloy]

I've seen Vanity Fair, Kama Sutra, The Perez Family, Mississippi Masala, Salaam Bombay!, and Monsoon Wedding. Honestly, I'm not much moved by Nair's films, which seem to straddle the line between the utterly conventional and the somewhat unique without ever going very far in either direction and never becoming particularly interesting.

I like "Miss Masala" and "Salaam Bombay!" fairly well, but the only Nair film that I recommend without reservation (and which I have in my own collection) is "Monsoon Wedding".

EDIT: whoops, I see I've already responded once before in this thread, and my prior post was a bit more in-depth. So... nothing much to see here!

 

[Martin Teller]

Migration (2007) - 4/10
Monsoon Wedding (2001) - 7/10
The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (1993) - 5/10

Salaam Bombay! (1988) - 8/10

 

[Bill McA]

UPDATED:

The Namesake (2006) :star: :star: :star:

Seen 9
Own 1

 

[Bill McA]

UPDATED:

New York, I Love You (2008) :star: :star: :star:

Seen 10
Own 1

 

[Brook K]

Updated:


Amelia - C+

 

[Bill McA]

UPDATED:


[COLOR= #000]Amelia [/COLOR][COLOR= #000](2009) [/COLOR]


Seen 11

Own 2