I was having a hard time remembering the film we watched last week, then I figured out why, Denzel Washington. I’m not a big fan his acting skills, he is just one of those actors who plays the same roll every time he is cast. Boring, no feeling, hard ass, it just doesn’t feel like he is acting. But the rest of the cast was pretty good and it was nice to see a East Indian movie directed by a female Indian Director. It was also the only film I didn’t take notes during the film and I’m wishing I had. This post would be so much easier.
There were some real good subjects brought up in the film though. The Indian family coming to America to find a home after being run out of their African home in Uganda, was unreal. To be kicked out of the only place you know is insane, even though they had lived there forever, been born there. A new power comes into rule and runs all the Indian born African’s out. I think I’d read about it in National Geographic growing up, but the film gave it way more substance for me. His childhood friend, saying africa was only for black African’s was tough for him to say, but he knew he had to get his friend out of there. And we don’t see till later in the film, when her father returns to Uganda to try and get their property back from the new government. What his friend had gone through to try and help him. He paid them off to get his friend and his family out of the country without harm. And rather than tell him, he had to push him away to save his friends family.
Was interesting to see the different ways the families treated Mina and Demetrius and their desire to be together as a mixed race couple. Even though Mina’s father said he respected his daughters choice to love who she wanted, he demanded Demetrius stop seeing her. Saying Demetrius had done enough damage already. Where as Demetrius’s father said something to the effect of, you should have known it wasn’t going to work. There are rules against our kind dating theirs. Which in 2017 seems so out there but, not to long ago and in some parts of the world these thoughts are very real. I think this happened a lot with these large numbers of refugees coming to america and falling in love with someone only to run away from their family in the name of love. We can’t pick what our hearts do.
I do think I’m really wanting to go find an Indian restaurant to get a dish of some Tika Masala though. It’s all I’ve been thinking about since we watched this film.