Mango Soufflé
Picture: C
Sound: C+ Extras: C- Film: B-
Are their gay males in India, of course, but it took the
2002 film Mango Soufflé to explicitly show their existence after over
100 years of cinema. Perhaps the cost
of enjoying the financial benefits of all that outsourced employment that the
government is the reason the Bollywood industry (India makes more films a year
than even Hollywood) caved in and allowed this film to happen, but here it is
and it has a few funny moments to offer.
In this case, a couple is trying to find happiness
together, but also cannot necessarily who is taking what role in the
relationship. Also making this
interesting is that the film is sometimes in English, so there is something
surreal about seeing a foreign film partly in English about such a
controversial subject. The male side of
one heterosexual couple is gay and we get the “when will the secret be
discovered” moment that is now clichéd, though still often happening in real
life. Writer/director Mahesh Dattani
obviously pulled off a breakthrough for his country and cinema, but if this
were an American production, it would still go over well enough because the gay
characters are not phony and trivial like so many American Independent films.
The sex itself is treated with a certain self-censorship
that might be subversive still for India, but would be odd in an American
film. Motivations and development of
the characters hold together well enough, but Dattani should improve on his
next project. The title is the biggest
trip-up of the film, in the over-general single entendre of sex being equated
with food. In that case, I thought The
Village People might show up.
The letterboxed 1.78 X 1 image is muddier than I would
have liked, lacking detail throughout and not showing off the color of the film
to best effect, but cinematographer Sunny Joseph, I.S.C., does capture a side
of India we rarely see. That makes it
worth seeing alone. Though credited as
a Dolby SR analog recording, the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo here has weak Pro
Logic-type surrounds, though dialogue has benefited greatly from this. The combination is passable, while the two
extras of the trailer and silly Music Video for the silly title song are not
much aside from the film. Now, you can see
for yourself.
- Nicholas Sheffo
