<--- Step away from the Swank, Mira!Yesterday, innocently walking cross town, I was suddenly struck by a bolt of sympathy for director Mira Nair. It's totally turned into the Year of the Female Director (yay!) but she hasn't been able to join the party that Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Lone Scherfig (An Education), Jane Campion (Bright Star), Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) and others are undoubtedly enjoying. Not with the critical drubbing that Amelia has taken at least.
I don't like what she did with Amelia at all (my review) but I definitely wish Nair well her next time behind the camera.
I remember being totally moved by her narrative feature debut Salaam Bombay! (1988) the second of only three films from India's massive film industry to have ever received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. [Trivia: It was up against another great 80s picture, Pedro Almodovar's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, but they both lost to Denmark's Pelle the Conqueror]. It's a good underseen rental option the next time you're in the mood for street urchins. Step away from Oliver! and Slumdog Millionaire and give it a shot.
And then there's Monsoon Wedding... one of the richest movies of the early Aughts.
What a beautiful movie. I still listen to the soundtrack on occasion.
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