Producer: Subhash Ghai
Director: Subhash Ghai
*ing: Shahrukh Khan, Mahima Chawdhry, Amrish Puri, Apoorva Agnihotri, Himani Shivpuri,
Shobha Khote, Alok Nath
Music : Nadeem-Shravan
Subash Ghai's latest offering is a screen delight, mainly because of the
photography and skilled editing which gave the film an amazing look! The
background score was superb (courtesy of the under-acknowledged Vanraj
Bhatia), and was enhanced by the excellent sound. (If you didn't see it in a
surround sound theatre you missed out!).
However, there were a couple of 'down-points' to the movie. Firstly, Ghai
seems to think that being westernised is the same as being spoilt! The
character of Rajiv doesn't smoke, get drunk, pick fights, or sleep around
because he's westernised. It's because he's always gotten what he wanted
when he wanted. Rajiv is just a 'bad apple', one that could have been
produced just as easily in India! Rajiv's lack of respect for his
wife-to-be, Ganga, was also attributed to his western upbringing. I consider
myself to be fairly westernised but I would never treat anyone like that,
and this respect for women (or all people) doesn't spring from Indian
culture nor from Western culture, but from basic human decency.
Secondly, why is the supposed 'perfect Indian woman' shown to put up with
her man no matter what. Ganga stays silent for far too long. When she
finally punched out Rajiv in a Las Vegas hotel room it was a case of 'too
little too late'. My only thought at that moment was, 'Ganga, why couldn't
you have done this earlier and saved yourself a lot of heartache!'
But as I said earlier PARDES is a great looking film with excellent
performances from everyone including the newcomers, and is very enjoyable.
(By the way, I enjoyed Nadeem-Shravan's songs much more in the film than on
the audio - Credit definitely goes to Subash Ghai for carrying that off!)
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