Monsoon Wedding
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| Monsoon Wedding | |
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| Directed by | Mira Nair |
| Produced by | Caroline Baron, Mira Nair |
| Written by | Sabrina Dhawan |
| Starring | Naseeruddin Shah Lillete Dubey Shefali Shetty Vijay Raaz Tilotama Shome Vasundhara Das |
| Music by | Mychael Danna Sukhwinder Singh |
| Distributed by | Mirabai Films, Inc. (USA) |
| Release date(s) |  30 August 2001 (premiere at Venice Film Festival) 4 January 2002 1 March 2002 |
| Running time | 114 min |
| Language | Hindi |
| Budget | 7,000,000 (INR) |
| IMDb profile | |
Monsoon Wedding (2001) is a film directed by Mira Nair which depicts various romantic entanglements during a traditional Punjabi wedding in Delhi.
The movie won the Golden Lion, the highest prize at the biennial Venice Film Festival. Mira Nair was the first woman to win this award, and the second Indian (after Satyajit Ray for Aparajito). The film (Hindi: पाणिग्रहण मॉनसून) was also nominated for the award for Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes.
Monsoon Wedding earned over $20 million at the box office, and has been called the highest-grossing Indian film ever. Although it tells a very Indian story set entirely in New Delhi, it was an international co-production with US participation.
[edit] Plot
Within the frame of the "joyously messy" story of the chaos surrounding an Indian family arranged wedding, the film also highlights several significant sub-plots.
- A notable social aspect is the spotlight on pedophilia in traditional Indian families, highlighted by the story of Ria (Shefali Shetty), cousin-sister of the bride, who reveals how she was abused by a trusted elderly friend of the family some years ago. Now, she steps in to prevent his abusing another young girl in the family.
- The bride Aditi (Vasundhara Das), is herself tense - she will be leaving her entire life behind to go and live with the Houston-based groom whom she has never met before. On the night before the wedding, she has a final rendezvous with her married ex-boss Vikram (Sameer Arya), where they make love inside a car with the pouring monsoon rains outside.
- Other subplots include wedding contractor P. K. Dubey (Vijay Raaz) and his involvement with the family, which matures into a romance with the maid, Alice (Tilotama Shome).
Other stories involve the bride's brother Varun, who fancies himself as a chef, a not-very highly regarded career in the Indian middle class; the flirting of Ayesha, the young nymphette, with Sydney-returned cousin Rahul, and the worries of the father Lalit (Naseeruddin Shah) as expenses spiral out of hand.
Another aspect of the movie is the music which includes an old Mohammad Rafi song, and an Urdu ghazal, Aj jAne ki zid nA karo, (do you really have to leave tonight?), sung by Pakistani artiste Farida Khanum.
