Loins of the world

MARQUEE

I try not to pre-judge a movie based on its title or plot summary, but I almost did this with Manish Acharya's Loins of Punjab Presents.

It's probably because of terrible experiences with a certain type of crossover/ experimental NRI film "" I still can't shake off the memory of an abysmal Naseeruddin Shah-Kirrron Kher starrer called It Could Be You, which screened at the Cinefan Film Festival last year.

An unbelievably bad movie about the rise and fall in fortunes of a UK-based Punjabi family, it took every imaginable cliche and stereotype, blew it up and smeared it all over the viewer's face. Kher used a pathetically contrived accent, saying "you" as "jew" and "wishes" as "bishes" (though occasionally forgetting and relapsing to the correct pronunciations), and declaiming each sentence as if she'd rehearsed it in her mind four or five times.

The film meandered from unfunny slapstick comedy to unintentionally funny morality tale; after just 20 minutes I was crying out for the restrained, tasteful sensibility of a David Dhawan movie.

So I was sceptical of Loins of Punjab which, like It Could Be You, was made by a first-time director on a low budget and had a plot "" a group of disparate desis participate in a talent contest for NRIs "" that seemed to lend itself to pat, amateurish movie-making. But what followed was a pleasant surprise.

The film has a couple of loud, tasteless moments all right "" mainly attributable to the overzealousness that results when a group of smart young writers throw ideas at each other over coffee "" and the script occasionally moves into high-school drama terrain, but on the whole it's sharp, good-natured and genuinely funny. Most notably, however, it's a movie that does some very interesting things with stereotypes.

As lazily made films like It Could Be You demonstrate, it's very easy to reinforce stereotypes. What's sometimes forgotten, however, is that it can be equally easy to invert stereotypes just to be contrary or hip. What Loins of Punjab does, and does so well, is to strike a balance between these two extremes without sacrificing its fun quotient.

For example, there's a family of Patels who travel everywhere together, carry vegetarian food around with them and ask a startled hotel receptionist about "snakes" (instead of "snacks").

But at the end of the film we also find that their demure daughter, the show's most promising contestant, is really a worldly-wise go-getter who doesn't think twice before sealing a deal that will help her become a model instead "" and that her conservative family is okay with her relinquishing her shot at the title.

Then there's the young lady who can sing Hindi songs but can't actually speak the language ("Aspiring Indian" her introductory title-card tells us smartly); she seems to be a manipulative vixen at first, but by the end we realise that she's sincere about what she's doing and that the contest really means a lot to her.

And so it goes. One of the achievements of Loins of Punjab Presents is that despite dealing with a very particular situation and a very particular group of people, it makes some astute universal points "" most notably that the world is now so globalised that it's almost pointless generalising about any group of people. This is what makes it such a warm, inclusive experience despite the occasional missteps.

jai.arjun@gmail.com