Monsoon Wedding

Once again I go on about films, but the weekend is coming up, isn't it? I am among those who haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing the Indian film of the moment, Slumdog Millionaire, but I hope to get around to it very soon. With the new curriculum plans from 2006, the English subject here in Norway has widened its focus area and it now to a much greater degree than before includes studying the societies and cultures of non-western English-speaking countries, like for example India. One of the complex and interesting aspects of Indian culture that we have discussed in class is the tradition of arranged marriage. A number of films and texts view this issue from a western perspecitve and describe arranged marriages as oppressive. I personally have not been raised to question such accounts to a great degree. However, I do think it is interesting to show the pupils a different story, and Mira Nair's film Monsoon Wedding is perfect for this. It gives an account of the arranged wedding between two young people in modern India and it certainly sheds a different light on this tradition than what I and most of my pupils are used to. You can find study questions about the film here. The scene above gives you an impression of the wonderful atmosphere of the film.