CITY OF JOY
A film review by Shakil Waiz Ahmed
Copyright 1992 Shakil Waiz Ahmed
One person has said, "Disappointed to see number of notes from fellow desis praising CITY OF JOY as an accurate depiction of life in Calcutta, must see, moving, etc. While we are always grateful for any such movie since we browns make it on screen in west so infrequently, not all of it is so uplifting. CITY OF JOY strikes me as the worst of its kind of orientalist, exoticising pap."
I just saw the movie and I am inclined to agree. To begin with, there is the standard stereotype of a white American hero going to show the helpless Indians what they need to do. There is an underlying theme about the movie that bothered me. It gives off the image that wealthy Indians are leeches by default who take advantage of the poor masses. The poor, of course, are good at heart, but are waiting for the big American hero to go and lead them to rebel against the evil wealthy Indians to bring the poor out of their misery.
Om Puri has to marry off his daughter and has been saving for years for her dowry. When a young man from a well-to-do family develops a liking for her, Om Puri approaches the father of the man on the question of marriage of their children. The father objects because Om Puri is a rickshaw-wallah, not on the grounds that this breaks social norms, but because the dowry is not high enough. Indeed, when Om Puri puts up the missing half ounce of gold for the required dowry, all problems disappear, and the marriage is approved. While the scene does highlight the problems associated with dowries, it gives off a completely distorted picture of real-life scenarios.
There are numerous such scenes in the movie. Patrick Swayzwe arrives in Calcutta to seek "enlightenment," but he has no plans -- he just *arrives* as if that is all he thought was necessary. Why a young American doctor would randomly pick Calcutta when he so obviously shuns the very environment in early scenes, is never quite explained. How he expected to find "enlightenment" and what he planned to do to seek it, is conveniently also omitted. Instead, we find him check into an un-air-conditioned hotel and complain that there is no mini-bar. If a mini-bar is what he was looking for, one wonders why he did not check into any one of the many high class hotels that Calcutta does have to offer? Would he check into an el-cheapo hotel in the US and expect to find the same? Could an educated American doctor possibly be so naive as to ask a roadside snack-seller in Calcutta for a "hamburger?" Now while I'm sure that many would argue that this pokes fun at the stereotypical ignorant American, I would argue that it is equally damaging to the image of Calcutta. For most of us on this newsgroup, the former may be the interpretation. But what does the average American with only very limited exposure to India see?
There are some beautiful and touching scenes in the movie. But the underlying traditional theme of white hero going to save the helpless brown masses fight against the evil rich brown bloodsuckers is an orientalist theme that is getting old. It disturbed me and the friends I went to see it with.
-- Shakil
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