Midnight’s Children, which was paired down from a 466-page
book to a 146-minute film is structurally an excellent, accessible and
ambitious work that maybe bites off a little more than it can chew. Spanning
three generations in the history of colonial and post-colonial India (and the further
fragmentation of the country into Pakistan and Bangladesh) - the film is vibrant, colorful and fascinating.
Central to the narrative is the family of Saleem Sinai
(Satya Bhabha) – one of “midnight’s children”, he’s born just as India gains
independence, haunted by the voices of the other children of midnight. The novel's author, Salman
Rushdie serves as the story’s narrator. Directed by Deepa Mehta, a noted critic
of Indian society and norms (including her powerful trilogy Fire, Earth and
Water), her work also examines the role of Indians in Canadian society
including Heaven on Earth and her light Toronto-set comedy Bollywood/Hollywood.
Rushdie is an apt colloborators, in a story that seems less critique and really
more magical realism: tracing the childhood and coming of age of Saleem – who
was switched at birth. Actually the son of peasants, he’s switch at birth with
Shiva – who is sent into a life of poverty, when the truth is revealed Saleem
is sent to live with his aunt and uncle in Pakistan – witnessing the birth of a
nation by military rule. His mother (played by Shahana Goswami) struggles with
her own sexual issues including her own liberation causing a rift in her
marriage (especially as we’ve seen the origin of this marriage earlier in the
film).
The film is an awfully complex weaving of themes as fragmented,
complex and ripe with contradictions as the nation it chronicles. Critics have
accused it as a “mythification” – and perhaps it is a film intended for a
Western audience (a good chunk of the film is spoken in English after all).
Perhaps compressing the novel into a film that does race over key moments in
history is doing the novel a disservice, but this is cinema: Midnight’s
Children might have made for a more effective mini-series. While Slumdog Millionaire
chronicled deep contradictions (that would allow for slums next to high rise
office and residential towers), Midnight’s Children plays as a prequel of
sorts. The film is far from perfect, epic in scope and overflowing with ideas -
- in a summer filled with over bloated mindless entertainment this is a
refreshing art house outing as imperfect as it is.
It goes without saying the film is beautifully shot and
technically rather astounding: it suffers from, although that is the point, a
mandate. The children of independence are also with a mixed candidate inspired
by the baggage of the colonial era – the moral of the story is one cannot escape
the complexities of history, both personal and national – even as they make
history.
Screening: Dipson Amherst Theatre
