Some thoughts after watching "The Namesake" this past week-end. I started off with the desire to write a coherent review-y post separating all my thoughts neatly into 'good', 'bad', and 'ugly' containers as the title says but I'm having trouble putting my thoughts together hence the numbered list that wanders all over the place as it were. Make of it what you will :-).
[Warning: spoilers ahead so if you're like me and relish being surprised come back and read this post once you've watched the film.]
1. Thoroughly enjoyed the novel by Jhumpa Lahiri. [Comes a close second to my absolute favorite novel for some time now - Kartography by Kamila Shamsie.] The movie? Not so much. That doesn't mean I hated it. I wish I was ambivalent because that would be better than being underwhelmed, which is what I am.
2. Sometimes comparing literary adaptations on film to their sources seems like the apples and oranges adage. After all, novels have a lot more space in which to tell their story. Films have a couple of hours to tell their story. On the other hand, I've always felt that film, as a medium, enjoys, in some respects, greater power over the audiences' interpretive process. Films have room to maneuver and appeal to their viewers' imaginations through visual images and sound. Personally, I find that films have more resonance in that sense - as a viewer I don't have to imagine what a space-time particularity looks like or sounds like. The work is done for me. I have to react to it. Hmm that sounds lazy. Perhaps it is. But there is something about an average film that I find more enjoyable than an average book - the former holds my attention far longer than the latter. But I digress...well only a bit. Perhaps I had greater expectations of the movie because I'd read the book version. The novel has an unfair advantage in that it enjoys greater luxury in terms of being given more space to tell its story, to resonate with the reader. The film is constrained that way but then again it can convey a whole lot more through visual imagery (including facial expressions, locations, etc) and sound that the book will inevitably fall short of. [This is not to say that I can't imagine it but the role of the author in assisting that imagination is limited compared to the medium of film.] So I can give the film the benefit of doubt for not having the space to deal in-depth with the complicated emotions the novel explores. However, I do think it had more avenues to be able to tell the story in a limited amount of time. The screenplay is too sketchy. It seems to keep wandering trying to tell the story of three protagonists - which is what the novel accomplishes despite being focused on Gogol - but failing to develop any of the characters or their perspectives. I'm just not a big fan of films that don't give enough screen time to certain ideas or characters so that when things heat up the emotions portrayed by the characters seem misplaced, unjustified, etc.
3. It certainly has moments that I, as someone who has immigrated to another country, recognize and, to some extent, identify with. But the weaving of those moments into the larger narrative seems almost like Nair is trying to pander too hard to the formulae of commercial success. Don't get me wrong. This move is not something I'd register even mild complaints against for the most part because I find a lot of those entertaining just like anybody else and also because I agree that despite their hyperfantasized avatar they do bear a certain resonance for the intended audience. What happens though is Nair's adoption of these formulae inhibits and compromises the proper development of a narrative. It's almost like she picked up her favorite bits from the novel and used certain visual collages to bind them together. That's an interesting tactic cinematically speaking but sans the support of a screenplay that speaks to those subtleties the effect remains muted.
4. In the publicity blitz that accompanied the release of "The Namesake", I caught Nair on one of the news shows talking about how she picked up this book and read it on the plane after burying a loved one and knew she just had to make the film. I don't remember all the details of what she said but watching this interview after having watched the film I began to see why she picked the scenes she did. I just love biographical confessions (don't know what else to call it so this will have to suffice) like these. They provide ways of seeing why the author of a text constructed it a particular way. I like knowing that because I think it's unfair to judge arguments on the basis of one's assumptions as opposed to those of the author. This doesn't mean I comport myself into the author's perspective and withhold all opinion. But I do like knowing what s/he was thinking, feeling, reacting to in mounting a particular argument/narrative/what have you. In that respect, "The Namesake" made more sense to me after hearing this interview. Still I remain underwhelmed because I thought it was too sketchy despite the fact that it had room to provide certain connections and linkages that it just doesn't. The imagery and sounds she makes a lot of in this interview sounds interesting but I don't think she conveyed what she saw effectively - or perhaps I wasn't the intended audience for those subtle communications? Even so, since she does proclaim most of the time that she makes movies with a "universal appeal" perhaps an alternative way of bringing those subtleties to light for those on the "outside" was in order. I think it wouldn't have been plagued by this problem (i.e. forced connections and lack of development) if Nair would have pledged less fidelity to the original text perhaps. The sketchiness of the scenes and the lack of a tighter narrative to weave it all together makes it look too little and too much like the novel all at once.
I think that pretty much covers most of what I had to say without writing a full-fledged paper. If any of our blogship have read the book and/or watched the film, we'd love to hear your thoughts.
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