Pardes (1997)

Pardes (1997), director Subhash Ghai’s ode to India, opens and closes with a dedication to India’s 50th year of independence, which provides some explanation for the film’s patriotic tone (the song “I love my India” can be heard no less than three times in the first two hours of the film). Pardes examines the relationship … More Pardes (1997)

Watching Bollywood (for the not yet initiated)

In my last semester as an undergraduate student in Asian Studies, I was introduced to Bollywood through a sociology course on Indian cinema. Until that point, my studies had been on East Asia (specifically Japan), and I really enjoyed Japanese films from the postwar period (Ozu Yasujiro, Mizoguchi Kenji, Naruse Mikio, etc.).  Because I have … More Watching Bollywood (for the not yet initiated)