As America’s diverse filmmakers have come of age they’ve dished up tastes of the Italian-American experience, the Irish-American experience and the Mexican-American experience among others.
But to finally capture the flavor of the Indian-American experience, it took a filmmaker from abroad.
Veteran Indian actress Revathy’s directorial debut, “Mitr My Friend,” opened internationally last weekend and starts this Friday at the AMC South Barrington theater.
“Mitr” (a rare all-English Indian film) deals with an Indian-American family living in California’s Silicon Valley and struggling with issues of generational alienation and a wife’s loneliness as her spouse becomes absorbed in his career.
These struggles are not unique to the Indian-American experience, which is something that attracted the first-time director to this story that was originally set in Bombay.
“When I read the script, I fell for it immediately,” said Revathy during a recent visit in Chicago. “And when I read the story, I realized that it could take place anywhere and hold good. But at the time I was traveling between India and the U.S. a lot and visiting friends in the Silicon Valley. And so I asked myself, why is it that NRIs (non-resident Indians) are always portrayed in Indian films as spoiled brats. Indians here have their share of issues and problems but nobody ever thinks about that.”
So she decided to set her film in Northern California’s high-tech community, home to thousands of South Asian engineers. The film’s leading man, Nasir Abdullah, plays Divvya, a Silicon Valley executive who returns to India to find his bride Lakshmi (played by Shobana). As the two start a family in the States, Lakshmi builds a life around her husband’s and daughter’s needs. But as her daughter creates an American teen life of her own and Divvya takes on the long hours of a CEO, Lakshmi feels lonely and abandoned. But through a friend on the Internet she decides to pursue her interests in dance and carpentry.
Despite “Mitr’s” subtle themes of female self-actualization and the fact that it was produced by an all-female technical crew (a first for an Indian film), Revathy insists it is not a feminist film, but one that illuminates the fission that can develop between family members. Still, she hopes the film will encourage women, especially among NRIs, to search out their own dreams too.
“I hope they will see that there’s no use sitting around and nagging because children will become independent and husbands need their own space,” she said. “So you should make a small space of your own rather than clinging because it will make healthier relationships.”
Although Revathy has acted in Bollywood musicals for almost 20 years, her 97-minute feature clocks in at about half of that genre’s normal length and skips the song and dance numbers in favor of using music only as a mood enhancer. Still, in its short trailers, “Mitr” delivers the kind of unambiguous storytelling and lush cinematography that characterize Bollywood films.
As a non-musical independent with its niche market and narrow profit margins, “Mitr” will rely heavily on word of mouth and resistance to video piracy rampant in the Indian film industry.
“Films like this are not easy to make and piracy kills filmmakers like us,” she said. “But I don’t know how it will do in the American market. I am really trying out new ground I have never trampled on.”
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For show times, call 847-765-2262.
