When Family Must Be Broken

"These are my children, and I will protect them from myself even if I have to."


This is the movie that I've ever seen with the most beautiful people.


Aside from that, this is the second Indian film I've watched lately that deals with the struggle to protect Indian culture from globalization/Westernization. I wonder why it is that Americans don't worry that often about loosing their culture. Furthermore, I wonder, while other countries often define themselves against us, who do we have to define ourselves against?

This film wonderfully portrays family: both the difficulty and pain as well as the delights. Even the bonds of family, however, must submit to justice, and we see the agony of such a difficult decision. It works within tradition by showing the adaptation of arranged marriages to modern culture (by including the consent of those marrying). Additionally, the choice that the father makes of breaking up the family rather than keeping it together and allowing abuse to continue is a strong one and one that perhaps is made easier by modernity. We see love, in this film, happen both within and outside of arranged marriage. What does not work, though, is the illicit "love"--the love that happens outside of the approval of family and society and morality, with the man who will never divorce his wife.