Yesterday, no the day before actually, I saw the movie ‘Little Zizou‘. Its directed by Sooni Taraporevala, and its the first time she has directed a film. She is a script-writer of repute, with films like Salaam Bombay and the Namesake (both directed by Mira Nair) to her credit. ‘Little Zizou’ is about the Parsi community, and is a good close-up look. I found the movie a quite slow, with the feeling of nothing really happening initially. But I did like the way she wove different aspects of the community together, such as the obvious rift between the liberals and the fundamentalists, the importance of the Parsi press, issues facing Parsi youth, old Parsi mansions and properties in the smaller towns and villages going to ruin, and other such issues. The film is true to life, shot on location, and nowhere do you feel it has departed from reality. The acting is pretty good too. But somewhere it does lack the emotional punch, which was there in Salaam Bombay and Namesake. And the attempts at humour seem a little lame.
Non-Parsis who hang around Parsis will enjoy the movie. The masses of India won’t have a clue what the movie is about, as in a lot of parts of India (barring the metros and the Maharashtra-Gujarat zone) people don’t really know of the existence of our community. Some Parsis feel the movie has shown us in a bad light, but I don’t think so at all. The fact is, these are issues faced by the community today, and these issues are even threatening the very survival of us bawas. There are many positive aspects of the Parsis too, but at a time like this, we need to realise what the problems faced by the community are, and do something about them, instead of basking in self-glorification, especially of our past accoplishments. We should know, and more importantly acknowledge the good and bad aspects of ourselves. A community, a nation, or even a person, who cannot come to terms with their reality is doomed.
The last movie on Parsis that I saw was ‘Being Cyrus‘, and I did like it a lot. It was very different, and though based in reality, it was very dramatic, and definitely had strong stereotypes and exaggerations. It was pure entertainment, it didn’t claim to be a documentary of any kind, and more of a black comedy, with a touch of mystery. Some members of my family did not like that movie at all, claiming it showed us in a very bad light, that we all came across as plotting murderers and crack pots. I thought they were being absurd and we had numerous arguements about it. Seems like we are a really touchy community when to comes to how we are portrayed on film.
Now there was another movie ‘300‘ based on a graphic novel, that showed ancient Persians in a pretty bad light. Any normal person seeing the movie would think that Spartans were the brave, the wise and the good, and the Persians were the scheming, underhand, evil lot. Most people watching the movie with me did not realize who ancient Persians really were. (they were the first Parsis) Thought technically brilliant, from a historic point of view it was totally skewed. Movies that are showing a real event of history, especially a famous one like the battle of Sparta, need to be a little careful in the way they show things, and they should try to be unbiased. Another film that showed Persians in a similar light was the incredibly boring Alexander, which had a brief, but pretty unjust view of ancient Persians. You don’t have to show the person who lost the war as a vile and evil character.
If you are showing reality, try to be as real as possible, like a documentary, otherwise show complete fantasy, which is very clearly not reality, even to the dumbest audience. A mix of ‘reality’ and ‘fantasy’ doesn’t usually work well and results in a confused film like Slumdog Millionaire. People who have never read a shred of history see these films, and they believe them to be true.
A film, like any work of art or expression, is a point of view, and so it is personal to a large extent, but it can’t be inflammatory.
