The Frame

You have to synopsize Bollywood films in two parts, because really, they’re all two movies mashed up into one. The first half of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam concerns Sameer (Salman Khan) coming to visit Nandini’s (Aishwarya Rai) family and the two of them falling in love; unfortunately, Nandini’s father has already arranged for her to marry Vanraj (Ajay Devgan), a man Nandini has hardly met. Unwilling to go against her family’s wishes, she marries Vanraj and Sameer returns to his home in Europe. In the second half, Vanraj realizes that Nandini isn’t going to be happy with him and takes her to Europe to try to find Sameer. I’m going to give away the ending, because it’s the part that conflicts me. After seeing how much Vanraj cares about her (enough to give her up to another man if necessary for her happiness), and how everything he does is for her, she ultimately decides to remain with him even after they locate Sameer. Now, I had made a similar move during the film, and by the end I was rooting for Vanraj, too. Add in my general belief that marriages should stay together, and I was initially very pleased by the outcome. However, when I thought about it more, I became a little bit concerned by the way Nandini phrased her refusal to reunite with Sameer as a duty she owed to Vanraj and her family rather than a true realignment of her love to Vanraj. Now, this is all tied up with Indian culture, too, and I think my discomfort stems from the sense that the film is portraying “if you’re a good Indian girl, you should end up obeying your male superiors because that’s your duty as a woman.” It’s much more complicated than that, because Vanraj really is a better man than Sameer, but I’m not convinced Nandini really recognized that when she made her decision. It’s also complicated by the fact that her marriage with Vanraj was never consummated, so I don’t have quite the moral/ethical commitment to the marriage that I otherwise might. In other words, I think she made the right decision given the individuals in question, but I think she made it for the wrong reason–a reason that reinforces India’s sense of patriarchy in a negative way. As a film experience, it’s not the best Indian film I’ve seen, but I did enjoy it quite a bit.
Above Average