CITY OF JOY
A film review by Jaideep Mukherjee
Copyright 1992 Jaideep Mukherjee
There is no gainsaying the fact that looking at a society from a distance can often provide new insights into its underlying dynamics. However, when a disproportionate amount of attention is paid to the observer-observed interface, all too often, the messenger becomes more important than the message.
This is what happens in CITY OF JOY almost right from the word "go." Employing a footage that seems suspiciously contrived (smelt like herring to me) to produce shock in a Western audience, Roland Joffe proceeds to tell a story of the triumph of Western optimism and enterprise over a thousand years' worth of superstition and passivity in a "cesspool of a country."
A Texas doctor (Patrick Swayze) chooses to seek the meaning of life in a foreign land, after realising he can't handle death. Having reached his destination, Calcutta, he quickly learns that salvation does not lie in winning speed drinking contests with teenage prostitutes (okay, so she was 20) but in confronting the evils of destitution and hopelessness that seem to be endemic in this "City of Joy." With a little help from a British nurse (Pauline Collins), he manages to rescue assorted poor people (rickshaw pullers, lepers, etc.) from the clutches of the local don (Shyamanand Jalan) and his crony, played by Art Malik. (Clearly not an idea as ridiculous, as say, the big B singlehandedly liberating Goa from Portugese occupation, but this is not a Hindi Movie, right :-) ).
The histrionic abilities of Swayze and Collins, if they exist, were carefully concealed from this viewer, thanks to a decidedly underwhelming script. The underutilization of an extremely talented cast was a pity though. Shabana Azmi, Om Puri, Shyamanand Jalan, Rudraprasad Sengupta, Anjan Datta, Pavan Malhotra et al have all acted in better productions than this one.
I did not find the basic premise of the film disagreeable simply because it attempts to reinforce the all too familiar stereotype of white folks delivering coloured people from their collective misery. In many Indian films, and even in real life, one encounters this idea in a different form. Only there the operating premise seems to be that doing away with poverty, inequality and exploitation involves shoving superior morals down the unwilling throats of the huddled masses.
This point of view fails to recognize that people's values are, up to a large measure, determined by objective economic conditions. Based on similar economic situations, people tend to polarize into self-contained societal pockets within which values are roughly constant. In my book a film, which pretends to deal with marginalized people as its subject, is a success only when it recognizes the above dynamic. By this yardstick, I would rate Susman and Mandi (both Shyam Benegal) as examples of successful movies made in this category.
I don't know why, but as I was walking out of the hall after seeing this film, I found myself thinking that renaming that street with the American Consulate after Uncle Ho wasn't such a bad thing, after all. And by the way, before you proceed to flame me just because I haven't found anything positive to say about the Hollywood people in this venture, one need not infer from what I have written here that I hate everything that comes out of Hollywood.
Jaideep
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