THE NAMESAKE
US/India, 2006, 122 minutes, Colour.
Irfan Khan, Tabu, Kal Penn, Jacinda Barrett, Zuleikha Robinson, Glenne Hedley, Amy Wright, Brooke Smith, Linus Roache.
Directed by Mira Nair.
The Namesake is well worth seeing.
Director Mira Nair has built up a strong cinema reputation since she won the Camera D’ Or at Cannes in 1988 with her first film, Salaam Bombay. Since then, she has made films both in India and the United States, including Mississippi Marsala, The Perez Family and Karma Sutra. She had great success with Monsoon Wedding, winning the Golden Lion in Venice in 2001. She made her next film in Britain, a very lively version of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.
It is easy to see why she was attracted to Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. It is the story of two cultures, Indian and American, and their intersections. She herself has lived in India as well as in the US for a long time. She knows the experience. She entrusted the screenplay to her three times collaborator, Sooni Taraporevala. This background of women writers and director, as well as the very impressive performance by Indian singer Tabu, means that the film has a powerful and persuasive female sensibility.
The film opens in India in the 1970s, a crowded train where the studious Ashoke (Irfan Khan) is reading a story by Gogol. His neighbour urges him to see the world. The train crashes. He survives. Some years later Ashoke enters into an arranged marriage with Ashima (Tabu, whose character ages from 23 to 48 through the film). This is in Calcutta, with its busy life, its poor, its streets and bridges. Ashima sees her marriage as a way of escaping to another world, the United States where Ashoke will study.
The other world is wintry New York with its isolation, loneliness and its non-comprehension of what it means for an Indian woman to be transplanted. The film continually evokes this sense of isolation even when the characters become more and more at home in their new world with its openness, its surprising freedoms, its more casual approach to life.
This comes to the fore after Ashoke and Ashima have two children. The older is a boy whom his father names Gogol. We understand why but his son does not, even when his father tells him that it is a meaningful name. Gogol (Kal Penn showing a talent one would not expect if he had been seen only in Van Wilder Party Liaison, Harold and Kumar, and his Narnia take-off in Epic Movie) is the teenage Gogol, graduating in the mid 1990s, mocked by his schoolmates because of his name, smoking pot, ignoring his father… The audience understands the attitudes of the Indians born and educated in the US but feels sad that they do not comprehend, or want to comprehend, their parents.
Ashima still wears her sari, mixes with Bengali families and makes traditional meals. However, she works in a library and makes some friends. Ashoke is a prominent engineer and lecturer. Gogol studies at Yale and takes up with a wealthy American student and ignores home – to his detriment.
The latter part of the film shows Gogol coming to terms with his name and his heritage, making a disappointing marriage and having to learn his identity and the traditions of a double culture.
Audiences will identify with Ashima through Tabu’s dignified and powerful presence and performance. Irfan Kahn is moving as Ashoke. Mira Nair offers audiences the opportunity to learn, understand and feel the struggles and resolutions of men and women of two cultures.
1.The appeal of the film? Two cultures? East and west intersecting? Asia and America?
2.Mira Nair and her own experience of two cultures, the tradition of her films? Insight into India? Into expatriates, their life, issues?
3.The female sensibilities of the film: the novelist, the screenwriter, the director, the female leads?
4.The introduction, the train, Ashoke and his reading Gogol? The man in the train, urging him to see the world, his quoting his grandfather that with books you did not need to travel? The suddenness of the crash? His injuries, in hospital? His later telling Gogol about the reality of the incident? The flashback finally to the accident and his being saved, because of the book? His inscription in the book that he gave to Gogol for his graduation present? Googol finding it and reading it at the end?
5.Ashima and her singing, her sister, the family in Calcutta, the ritual of the proposal, her reciting Wordsworth? The rituals of the engagement? Her trying on Ashoke’s shoes outside, seeing the possibility of going to the United States, freedom? Her hopes, but not in love with Ashoke because of the arranged marriage?
6.Calcutta in 1977, the visualising of India, the people, customs, the city, homes, the motif of the bridge and the comparison with the 59th Street Bridge in New York? The family’s being at home in this India? Going away, the later returning, visiting the Bengali families? The family visiting the Taj Mahal and its effect on them, on Gogol and his decision to be an architect? Googol and his mother later returning to India for the burial of his father’s ashes and sprinkling them in the Ganges? The ritual? The portrait of India in the latter part of the 20th century?
7.The transition to New York in 1977, the town, the snow, isolated homes? Ashima and her waking up, her woman’s role of serving the husband, Ashoke telling her that it was America, the different style? Going to the laundry and shrinking his clothes, her weeping, his assuring her, the beginnings in America?
8.Ashima and Ashoke, the marriage, their expectations, leaving India behind, leaving their families behind, a new world, homesickness, Ashima and her writing the letters and sounding optimistic? Her continuing to wear the sari and Indian traditional clothes? Traditional food? Her work, the library, making friends? Ashoke and his studying, his teaching? The local friends? The visit of the family from London, the snobbish girl? The reaction of the children? The neighbours and the racist slogans and graffiti? Adapting and not adapting? The importance of Ashima’s pregnancy, in the hospital, the 59th Street Bridge, the issue of names, the formal Americans, the Indians with the good name and the popular name? Gogol? Sophie’s birth, the ceremony – and Gogol being somewhat jealous? Ashima holding Sophie and Gogol and his father going on to the rocks with the spray – and later Gogol remembering this and the bond with his father?
9.The title of the film, the issue of names, various characters commenting about their names, changing names and the effect? The officials, the good name? Googol and his puzzle about his name? The contrast with Sophie being straightforward? The father saying that Gogol was an important name but not explaining it to his son? Gogol as the butt of jokes at school? His journey of discovery about the meaning of his name?
10.Gogol and Sophie in their teens, the 1990s? The class and the teacher explaining the novels of Gogol? The students mocking the boy? Their pot-smoking, discussions, American accents, the Indians becoming Americans? The graduation, the celebration, the gift of the book and Gogol in his room, the loud music, distant from his father, the lack of explanations? The attitudes of the 80s and 90s? The parents adapting to this? The use of the phrase, ‘no big deal’?
11.Gogol and Max, his parents and their courteousness, disapproving? Max and her brashness, the lavish gift, forgetting about the customs, especially about touch? The dinner? The father driving Gogol and explaining his name? The American family, their wealth? The sexual liaison between Gogol and Max, his changing his name, her calling him Nick? Love, the holiday, his mother’s concern because of his father’s travel, their calling in for the meal, Gogol not ringing his mother and its effect, especially on his birthday? The mother alone?
12.Ashoke and his going to teach in Ohio, wanting his wife to come, her sitting alone? The airport and his farewell? His phone call? Her receiving the news of his illness? Her realisation that he was preparing her for living alone? The importance of his phone call about the illness? Her silent grief? Gogol and his not phoning his mother, Sophie contacting him? His reaction, the ceremony, shaving his head in the traditional grief way? Max and her coming to the funeral, her provocative dress? Their discussions, his wanting to go to India with his father’s ashes, the break with Max?
13.The ceremony, in the United States, family and friends, the Ganges and the ritual, the effect on Gogol?
14.His return, the young adult, trying to move through his confusions? His name? Becoming an architect, studying at Yale, his work? His meeting with Moushumi? His mother pushing him? The memories of her snobbishness and book-reading when she was young, reading French, aristocratic? Their having the meal together, their discussions, Moushumi’s mother pushing her? The further dates, the sexual encounter, her past, changing, Paris, the truth about her life? Her wanting to keep her maiden name? Publishing? The marriage ceremony and its ritual? Her decision to be a good wife? Yet the phone call from Pierre, the vacation with the friends that Gogol did not like, her dropping Pierre’s name? His realising the truth? Her joking about his name to their friends and his not being happy?
15.The break, the hurt, discussions with his mother, her apology? Regrets?
16.His mother and her wanting to sell the house, Sophie caring for her, the meal together, her welcoming Sophie’s boyfriend? Her decision to live six months in India, six months in the US? Her discussions with her friends at the library?
17.Gogol and his discovery, going through his father’s things, finding the book? His reflection on freedom, choices, traditions, change?
18.How well did the film explore themes of identity, culture and heritage, home, a synthesis of all these issues in the one family, both Indian and American?
