The Namesake

We are introduced to Ashoke, a quiet, submissive-looking man who eventually meets Tabu, whom he marries through an arranged marriage.The first part essentially covers how both,especially Tabu,deal with their new surroundings.They move to New York where a child is conceived, and promptly named Gogol. The second part of the film follows Gogol’s growing up, at first with contempt for his Indian name (being often teased by schoolmates,and sister for this), as he slowly comes to terms and begins to understand the reason behind the name, as well the people around him. The Namesake,in short,conveys that our names are merely sets of letters; how our real identities encompass many other complex things including our families, cultures, origins and relationships.

For Tabu, her teenage children painfully remind her of the foreign American environment she feels unwillingly confined to-the teenage children with their eccentric clothes and loud English music,both part of the individual ways they express scorn towards tradition-the remaining connection left tying Tabu to India lies within her passive, calm but believably loving husband who, like her, despite years of having to forcefully adapt themselves to the new American lifestyle,strongly refuses to let go of their heritage-from their surviving thick accents, with their house walls lavishly adorned with all sorts of exotic Indian decorations,having stuck to old-age beliefs and silently kept ambitions that their children marry Bengali’s-(spoiler ahead) so when her husband finally dies, she not only loses the man she had learned to love deeply, but also a large part of her home and country-after being informed of her husband’s death,she hastily runs downstairs and tries to find something,unsure what it is she’s searching for,finally having run to the front yard where she falls to the floor and realizes, that her loneliness has finally become whole.

There are three sex scenes that take place-the latter two involve the now grown Gogol,who devours his female counterparts passionately in a way typical of a horny male teenager,while the first is between Tabu & Ashoke,when the newlyweds first arrive in America and finally take it to the bedroom-in the latter two the sex is performed with zero hesitation (with full-on groping and so on) but the first is very much different. Estranged from each other, they first touch each other shyly and reluctantly, almost afraid of each other-and it is in this perfect manner that the first is much more fascinating and meaningful than the latter two sex scenes that occur, which feel empty for having done nothing to compliment nor forward the relationship.

The movie is illuminatingly quiet in the way in uses few words to convey such elaborate messages-at first it seems the movie takes on a worryingly speedy pace, crossing through one event after another as if they were mere petrol stations along a highway-but after a while it made perfect sense and the pace felt just right-while the movie’s events do have important significance and provide life and motion to the ongoing story-there are precious, unspoken subtleties that are sometimes unnoticeably small and brief, yet do so much more for the film, and enriches it-the camerawork itself is a remarkable achievement. In one scene, for example: (spoiler repeat) after his father dies,Gogol recalls having received a collection of stories written by Nikolai Gogol (the explanation of this is a pivotal chapter,and is provided much later towards the end);In the original scene (when the father was still alive) the mood and environment of the scene felt and looked perfectly normal, in the flashback however, both the light and music had been extensively reduced, and the camera focuses solely on the father’s face-after handing Gogol the book,Ashoke walks away from the room and towards the shadows, until fading entirely into the darkness. The messages and ideas here are dwelled with the right amount of time and devotion.More importantly,Mira Nair avoids going over-the-top by hitting our heads repeatedly in the process of doing it, merely touching tips and letting the rest unravel independently.

There are many great things about The Namesake-the cast with their minimalist performances, the lyrical script that ceases to stray off-center, the brilliant use of contrasts, not just in colors and settings but in many other aspects of the film (i.e.: an adult’s harrowing grief,juxtaposed to a child’s innocent unknowing)-but the one thing that holds it all together is Mira Nair’s touch-undoubtedly in someone else’s hands this would have become somewhat a crappy sentimental piece,as there were plenty areas one could’ve exploited to forcefully evoke emotion,but Nair underplays the tone and keeps it at a level where the film manages to be thoroughly interesting,wonderfully compelling and enduringly purposeful at the same time.