Blog

I just saw Umrao Jaan last night, a Bollywood remake of an older Bollywood film about the life of a young girl who gets kidnapped and sold to a brothel. The music and lyrics were really pretty, but the dancing was ‘eh.’ With Aishwaria Rai, one would be hopeful that the dance scenes would knock you off your chair they’re so good, but they seemed to focus more on the lyrical content of the music, and the emotional expressions of that, than hardcore dance scenes, which was still really nice. But damn, talk about a movie where a woman gets crapped on for three hours, yet forgives everyone who does. Give me a break!

Ashwariya’s character, Umroa, lived in a brothel, but fell in love with the prince of a kingdom and throughout the movie stayed faithful to him. But there was another dude who lived at the brothel, (his relationship with the characters was never clear. ie, was he someone’s son, or just a real perv?) he was a good friend to Umroa, but every now and then he tried to be affectionate towards her, and her reaction was always a short, sharp rejection. ‘What are you doing?’ or ‘Why are you touching me like that? You better leave.’ Towards the end of the movie, she wakes up and he’s sitting in her room, pretty drunk, and he ends up raping her. What the eff? A few scenes later, the British are invading Lucknow, and that same dude comes to the brothel all bloodied up to tell everyone to leave, cause ‘the British are coming.’ as he leaves to go back and fight, Umroa stops him to tell him that she fogives him. Hold up, what? Without him ever even asking for forgiveness, or even trying to talk to her about what heppened. What?! does fighting the British suddenly redeem himself of that horribly dispicable act? You gotta be kidding me! What does that say to women who the same thing has happened to? That they should take the blame and forgive their perpetrators? Aunties have been pulling that card that since the dawn of time. Heeeeeell no.

That scene as an example, the movie was horribly over-dramatic. But the music was really pretty.