Movie Review of 'Midnight's Children' by Deepa Mehta

Movie review: Deepa Mehta’s ‘Midnight’s Children’ (2012)

This blog is part of my classroom activity of Postcolonial Studies: Film Screening on 19^th September, 2017

Here is blog of given task: Click Here

                                                 

                                                    

Director- Deepa Mehta

Screenplay-Salman Rushdie

Writer- Salman Rushdie

Starring- Shabana Azami, Ronit Roy, Shriya Saran, Satya Bhabha, Anupam Kher, 

Seema Biswas

         ‘Midnight’s Children’ (1981) is book by Booker Prize Winner Salman Rushdie, this film is based on this book. This book has postcolonial perspective that we see in film that first there were Britishers who colonized people but after Independence there were Indians who are in powerful position rule India like politicians, parents, rich people. Film deals with the historical events of India like partition, Emergency of 1975, birth of  Bangladesh etc at the backdrop with story of two boys as History and Fiction goes parallel, the genre used by Rushdie ‘Historiographic Metafiction’ can be observed in film as well.

         The plot is complicated, we have to see with proper concentration otherwise it’s difficult to get exact idea. It is the story of two boys Saleem and Shiva. Both are born on the stroke of 12 midnight of 14^th August 1947 along with independence of India. Saleem is narrator and protagonist of the story, he tells story in flashback technique. We can read it symbolically as the birth of two nations Pakistan and India. The children born at midnight had superpower of Telepathy. Saleem and Shiva were swapped by a Christian nurse name Marry for his personal motive. The story moves with the journey of two boys and the journey of nations as a backdrop. Sometime, plot is very complicate to understand because it involves the story of three generations, Saleem , his grandfather and his son which makes film bit dull. Some things are unnecessarily portrayed in the film.  Magic realism used by Rushdie, where mother can entered into the dreams of her three daughters Alia, Mumtaz and Emerald and Parvati used magic spell ‘Abracadabra’. Picture Singh said, ‘Magic is real if you believe in it.’

We can find many postcolonial aspects in the film like

1)    The nurse Mary swapped two children for personal motive but it can deeply read as historical truth that Marry as superiority of Christianity and as British policy ‘Divide and Rule’. Historical event of partition of India shown in a fictitious way.

2)    Saleem’s father gave new name ‘Amina’ to his mother after marriage which is problematic when we read it that her identity snatch by her husband and new life is given which shows the colonial rule of patriarchy. Here we can apply the postcolonial theory of Gayatri Spivak ‘Can Subaltern Speak?’ in context of inferiority of women as Vanita(Shiva’s mother) also exploited by William Methwold.

3)    Identity crises of Saleem and Shiva presented in allegorical way. Both are not aware of their biological parents. Shiva’s birth remain mystery that he was the child on Wilkie or Methwold. At last Saleem accepts Marry as his mother which problematic. Dialogues shows his inner conflict regarding his identity:-

“I had many families and I had no family”

“I orphaned survived”

4)    ‘Let the Rich be Poor and poor be rich’, this is the Nehru’s idea to give money of rich to poor. Here ‘Rich’ can be seen as colonizers and poor as colonized. In beginning, Mary’s deed made Saleem ‘rich boy’ and Shiva ‘poor boy’. Shiva and his father used to came Saleem’s house to play music and get some money which the irony of poor people. Shiva hates Saleem for his richness and said, ‘Bloody rich boy?’ which shows the hatred of poor for rich people. There was a song sung by Mary for Saleem as a rich boy  “You want to be, you can be”. But at the end destiny has changed and Shiva gets power and became superior and Saleem is a victim. Richness reflects power and power make people arrogant, cruel and superior. Before independence Britishers colonized us and after that there is internal colonization by Indian people who are in power starts to colonized others who are inferior one or other way.  Whoever come in power behave in a same manner either outsiders or insiders. At the end, under the Emergency the slums of poor people were destroyed to erase the poverty.

                                                              

5)    At some level, we can say that though Salman Rushdie was Indian he has portrayed India through western eyes that India is shown as the country of snake charmers and savages. Parvati as magician used magic basket to help Saleem and his son. Which may be present the image of Indian people who are still believe in black magic and false practices.

            At the end, only four persons survived that Picture Singh as Hindu, Mary as Christian, Saleem as Muslim and his son as mixture of all or again as midnight’s children. Salman Rushdie has interwoven all the things which are going around the main event. As the literary adaptation, it can be watch once only, you can’t sit and enjoy it without reading in advance about book that what it try to say. Artistically and literally, it is excellent movie but for selected audience not for normal audience who want entertainment and delight.  

Thank you,