Analysis Of Two Films Directed By Mira Nair

The highly acclaimed director from India, Mira Nair leapt into the world's spotlight with her film Salaam, Bombay! This film is considered by many to be her best work although she may be better known for the controversial subject matter of her latest film Kama Sutra: A tale of Love.

Mira Nair was born in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa to a civil servant in 1957. She went on to attend the University of New Delhi where she studied Sociology and Theater. Dissatisfied with the quality of the education, she applied elsewhere. As result she came to Harvard in 1976 on full scholarship to continue studying Sociology. While at Harvard her focus drifted to documentary film. She describes documentary as "a marriage of my interests in the visual arts, theatre, and life as it is lived".

She goes on to say that she wanted “a lot more control over gesture and drama and faces” in her work. As a result she tried her hand at fictional narrative. Her greatest recognition came with her first feature film Salaam Bombay! She was awarded the Best New Director at the Cannes Film Festival as well as a nomination for the best foreign film at the Academy Awards. She mainly directs art films with a social aspect

Syed plays its hero, a boy named Chaipau who works for a traveling circus. One day he is sent on an errand - to get some cigarettes from a neighboring village - and when he returns, the circus has packed up and disappeared. He goes to a nearby village and takes a train to Bombay, following some half-formed plan to return to his native village and his mother, who perhaps sold him to the circus. But Chaipau cannot read or write, and he is not quite sure where his village is, or perhaps even what it is named, and he disappears naturally into the ranks of thousands of children who live, and die, on the streets of Bombay.

Out of those workshops a cast gradually emerged, and it was clear almost from the start that the star was an 11-year-old street child named Shafiq Syed, whose history was unknown, but who proved to be such a natural filmmaker that he sometimes reminded the directors of errors in continuity. Using Syed and shooting on actual locations in Bombay, director Mira Nair has been able to make a film that has the everyday, unforced reality of documentary, and yet the emotional power of great drama. "Salaam Bombay!" is one of the best films of the year.

Some topics in this essay:
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