Second
Generation
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: B Telefilm: B+
Films like Bend
it Like Beckham and Monsoon Wedding have recently
brought a lot of attention to the Indian cinema scene. Although not true “Bollywood” set pieces,
these movies meld traditional Indian themes of duty to family and pursuit of
personal destiny into pleasing packages easily gobbled up by English-speaking
audiences. Featuring the talented and
lovely Parminder Nagra (Beckham and television’s ER), Second Generation (2003) is a recent telefilm that continues
this trend, delivering a bevy of powerful performances around a well-shot,
punchy script that manages to cover all of its melodramatic bases.
A visually stunning film that treats viewers to shadowy
snatches of exotic India while immersing them in Anglo-Indian culture of
London’s Southall neighborhood, Second
Generation features the solid camera work of Sean Bobbitt, who teams
with director Jon Sen to create a fast-moving drama that evokes the classic
tropes of Shakespeare’s King Lear. The 1.78 X 1 widescreen, letterboxed
transfer of this disc is solid, if unspectacular, allowing the viewer a fuller
glimpse of Southall’s urban landscapes.
One of the real treats of this film and this DVD package
is composer Nitin Sawhney’s hard-driving soundtrack. His music combines traditional Indian rhythms with the
hard-hitting hip-hop sounds of Southall’s Indian ghetto. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo offers Pro
Logic surrounds on this disc and proves adequate to the task of doing justice
to Sawhney’s driving beats, but seems uneven during flashback and dream
sequences.
Although suffering from sometimes-deficient dialogue, the
film delivers numerous satisfying performances from a cast of mainly Indian
actors, including Bollywood veteran Om Puri (East is East) as Sharma, his family’s patriarch. Upon recently awakening from a coma, Sharma
must wrestle with the treachery of his two elder daughters, the perceived
disloyalty of Heere (Nagra), and his own guilt over the loss of their mother. At its heart the film is a romance, and
features some incendiary love scenes between Nagra and male co-leads Jay
Simpson and Danny Dyer. Second
Generation offers an
intriguing look into the lives of members of London’s upwardly mobile ethnic
Indian community, while also delivering solid dramatic performances and the
exciting sounds of Indian hip-hop.
- Scott Pyle
