Steven
Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey and Juliet Blake coming together to back a project
speaks volumes about it. Swedish filmmaker Lasse Hallstrom’s The Hundred Foot Journey had already
received rave reviews before it officially released in India. Within two weeks
of its release it gained significant momentum, mostly through word of mouth publicity,
securing more number of shows at the multiplex with each passing week. A story of a diasporic Indian
family in Rotterdam, The Hundred Foot
Journey appeals for its simplicity, if not anything else; for, the film
repeats some established stereotypes of diasporic narratives: the large Indian
family, its nostalgia for home, its persistent efforts at preserving Indianness
in a foreign land, cultural clashes, a deep sense of un-belonging, etc. While
tales of migration have always revolved around these issues, in both populist
and elitist diasporic cultural texts, The
Hundred Foot Journey does not overexert any of these issues, drawing a
careful margin before something tended to go over the top. Most importantly, as
it happens in many migration stories, there’s barely any penchant for
establishing the supremacy of India over other nations. In popular cinema, in
particular, it is often observed, that a sense of triumph is achieved by
successfully exhibiting a long-distance nationalism, with the intention of
trashing the culture of the host country. The
Hundred Foot Journey cautiously avoids such sentimental exaltation of the
nation-state (‘home’), and in that sense, emerges as a truly transnational film,
going beyond hyphenated identities and diasporic dilemmas. Although the sense
of not having a ‘home’ plagues the characters, Mr. Kadam (Papa, played by Om
Puri) consoles them saying, ‘Home is where the family is.’ But as the film
comes to a close, the protagonist, Hasan Kadam (Manish Dayal) takes that extra
hundred foot journey beyond the boundaries of ‘home’ to find a place in the
world; the narrowness of a constricted ‘home’ is overcome, and Hasan becomes the
citizen of the world, while preserving his memories and his roots.
A
simple love story among many other things, The
Hundred Foot Journey appeals to
both gustatory and olfactory sensations through rich visual images of mouth-watering
food. The film has every ingredient to appease the appetite of a foodie, every
second scene displaying the aesthetic pleasure of great food; however, as it
goes without saying, the sensation of taste buds needs to be transmitted to the
eyes. It’s one of those rare films the sensuous appeal of which is directed to
the tongue; it’s like watching food pornography. It’s that tempting, indeed! The
love stories and border crossings take place through and over food; food
divides as well as unites; food brings back memories, and food moves forward
relationships. The film’s scopophilic appeal, in other words, is the wide range
of food and their beauty.
The
performances are first rate, with a passionately desi and boisterous Om Puri and a snooty and fiercely composed Helen
Mirren matching up to each other’s panache. In fact, in that one scene where Om
Puri mocks at her queen-like demeanour and high-handedness, the film makes a
very subtle intertextual reference to Mirren’s Academy Award winning
performance in the 2006 blockbuster The Queen.
The recognition makes the scene funnier. Manish Dayal brings a delightful
innocence to Hasan’s character, while Charlotte Le Bon as Marguerite impresses
by her dignity and ethereal beauty.
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