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BRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2004, Gurinder Chadha)- having seen (and enjoyed) a number of Bollywood films, I held out some hope that this might be a good facsimile, a kind of entry point for American audiences curious as to what the hubbub is about. Alas, it wasn't to be- the film lacks the color and energy that characterize the best Bollywood cinema has to offer. Rather than playing up the distinctive elements of Bombay studio filmmaking (outrageous musical numbers, unabashed melodrama, heaving-bosom romance, etc.), Chadha opts to make a film from the American rom-com template (the plot's "inspired" by Austen, which is like saying that veggie burgers were inspired by a cow), with some Indian flavor added for spice. Mostly, Chadha isn't director enough to pull off the material- the energy she brings to the film is of the pre-fab TV-friendly variety, rather than the cranked-up gusto it takes to make a good Bollywood entertainment. Aishwarya Rai is a natural at this kind of role, that of the outspoken and independent-minded daughter, and she's pretty good in her first English-language turn as Lalita, but what's with Martin Henderson as her love interest? His surfer-dude looks and vanilla acting are all wrong for the character, who should seem like he's holding something in reserve for most of the film to be brought out by Lalita. As played by Henderson, he's pretty bland, a pushover compared to his strong-willed costar. As for the musical numbers, I was unimpressed. The colors looked strangely muted, Chadha's camera movements prosaic, and the songs themselves forgettable at best. Or maybe the fact that they were in English just underlined how insipid some of the lyrics were, while when real Bollywood songs get silly I can just concentrate on how pretty the words sound. On a positive note, BRIDE AND PREJUDICE is roughly half the length of the usual Bollywood fare, which was good, since I don't think I could've taken much more than I did. Rating: *1/2.

BORN INTO BROTHELS (2004, Zana Briski and Ross Kaufmann)- This one's more problematic, since on the one hand life in the Calcutta red light districts ("the worst place on Earth," according to Lars Von Trier) is something that cries out to be seen by Western audiences, as an example of the difficult conditions in which some people are living. Yet the film itself doesn't quite work, and it's a little hard to pinpoint why. Some of it probably has to do with the limitations imposed on the filmmakers- the adults living and working in the brothels didn't trust the Westerners in their midst, so Briski and Kaufmann instead focus on the children, who use the cameras the filmmakers give them to chronicle their way of life. So while we see some of the conditions in which they live, we aren't shown or told enough to really make us feel the hardship of their lives. The filmmakers don't seem to be very sure whether they want the children to TELL the story or to BE the story, so the film becomes a kind of mishmash- we see their photographs, and by extension their world, but this is intercut with scenes in which they're taken on various day trips so that they can take snapshots. Eventually the photography aspect of the film overwhelms everything else, as the film begins to focus largely on the filmmakers' aesthetic appreciation for the kids' work, and Briski attempts to use the photographs to get the children into boarding schools and out of the red light district. Which, granted, is a worthy cause- Lord knows these kids could benefit from a good education and environment- but too much of the focus is thrown on this Western woman (who isn't shown to have much of a personality) in her noble quest to better the lives of third-world kids (I smell Oscar-bait!). Even in interviews with the children, they are shown talking less about how hard their lives are than about photography and the importance of a good education, which means (a) the kids just didn't talk about the unpleasant stuff, or (b) the filmmakers steered the conversations away from this or just cut it out of the film (this option seems more likely). Ultimately, when the film is over, and audience learns that some of the kids have escaped their cruel fates and others have not, the film hadn't really hammered home what was at stake, leaving Briski to tell us how bad it is in the brothels and how important it is for them to escape. As such, the important story of Calcutta's red light district remains largely untouched by Western filmmakers, lying in wait until a bolder filmmaker- perhaps one who feels less connected to the cute kids- feels prepared to tackle it. Rating: **.