The Verma family, led by patriarch Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah), prepare themselves for the arranged marriage of their only daughter Aditi (Vasundhara Das).

CRITIQUE

Someday someone will have to explain to me the up and down filmography of acclaimed director Mira Nair. From the heights of her 1988 feature length debut Salaam Bombay!, to the glories of Mississippi Masala, Hysterical Blindness and The Namesake, when at her best the woman is arguably one of the finest filmmakers working today.

And yet her misses, like the highly uneven The Perez Family, the disappointing Vanity Fair and most recently the unemotional aerial biopic Amelia, continually call her talents into question. It seems like every time I start falling in love with Nair again like I did in 2006 with The Namesake she does out of her way to destroy that adulation with something as utterly forgettable as Amelia, my good will seeming to come and go for the director much like the oceanic tide.

Thank goodness then for a movie like Monsoon Wedding. Coming incredibly close to rapturous perfection, this 2001 marvel (a Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film) is a delightfully euphoric winner right from the start. It has an exuberance and energy that is positively infectious, and no matter how many times I watch it (I’ve probably seen it a half dozen or so times) I always manage to discover something new that lifts my heart and sends my spirit soaring.

There is so much a person could talk about here from Vijay Raaz’s headstrong (and love struck) wedding planner to Tillotama Shome’s quietly magnetic cleaning woman Alice. I found Das to be strongly engaging as bride-to-be Aditi, while Shefali Shetty’s performance as Ria – the daughter of Lalit’s dead brother – is so quietly earth shattering I didn’t notice she was breaking my heart until the pieces were already lying upon the floor.

But all the pieces are beautiful. For those (like me) who adored Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married watching Monsoon Wedding (both films, incidentally, are magnificently shot by the great Declan Quinn) isn’t so much a suggestion as it is a requirement. The films are obvious companion pieces, both speaking to the heart of what makes a family with so much poetry the resulting pictures border upon brilliance.

THE VIDEO

Monsoon Wedding is presented in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a transfer supervised by the both Nair and Quinn and – unsurprisingly – is sensational. The question is quickly becoming whether or not Criterion can do any wrong, their work on this film – so full of color and light – absolutely spellbinding

THE AUDIO

The film is presented in English and Hindi DTS-HD Master Audio with English subtitles. Again, Criterion should be proud of themselves as this is an audio transfer I can’t imagine anyone being able to find fault with.

THE EXTRAS

There are discs with special features and then there are discs with special features and Monsoon Wedding belongs in that latter class. The basic stuff is all fine and dandy on its own, including Nair’s 2002 Audio Commentary and newly recorded interviews with cinematographer Declan Quinn, production designer Stephanie Carroll and actor Naseeruddin Shah (conducted by Nair herself), but it is the inclusion of seven short films from the director that truly put this blu-ray into the stratosphere.

The included shorts are:

• Three Documentaries

1. So Far From India (1982)
2. India Cabaret (1985)
3. The Laughing Club of India (2000)
• Four Narrative Shorts
  1. The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat (1993)
  2. 11'09'01 - September 11 (segment: India) (2002)
  3. Migration (2007)
  4. How Can It Be? (2008) 

Each film includes an introduction from the director discussing how they came about and all are fascinating on one level or another. On the documentary front, I was captivated by both So Far From India and India Cabaret while The Laughing Club of India sort of just got on my nerves. As for the narrative shorts, all are exemplary, 11’09’01 and Migration my personal favorites.

The insight you get from watching these into Nair’s creative process is extraordinary. The care and the thought she puts into them is beyond reproach, and even if I didn’t particularly care for all of the shorts I can still imagine myself checking out all of the again just to get a fresh perspective into the director’s mind.

Rounding out the disc is an excellent essay by writer Pico Iyer and the film’s original theatrical trailer.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Mira Nair drives me nuts. I both love and hate her, the films she creates either taking me to new heights or leaving me in a fitful rage of indignant disappointment. For my money, Monsoon Wedding is her masterpiece, and whenever I call her talents into question all I’ll need to do is slip this blu-ray into the player and I’ll quickly be reminded just how superbly talented this woman is. Criterion has once again outdone themselves; buy this disc today.