Anoop Rangi’s new film Arranged Marriage - Could Have Been Good ... If - AmNews Curtain Raiser

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Friday, November 4, 2022

Anoop Rangi’s new film Arranged Marriage - Could Have Been Good ... If

 


Anoop Rangi’s new film 'Arranged Marriage' - Could Have Been Good ... If ...


Here’s what the press notes told us about screenwriter and director Anoop Rangi’s new film Arranged Marriage. 

Twenty-three-year-old Kamali Matthu (Megha Sandhu) is loving life. She's finishing up school, works retail at 'Bikini World' and has a steady (white) boyfriend, Clive. Kamali's life is turned upside down when she returns home to find an engagement party for her. Her parents have made the arrangement with a well-to-do engineering family, with her new groom-to-be, Rotoo, a budding sanitation engineer. Kamali is horrified by this attack on her sovereignty and becomes physically ill at the thought of Rotoo, who she views as nothing more than a nerd.

Kamali runs away from home and into the comforting arms of her boyfriend and friends. Both her freedom and safety are short-lived. When she refuses to return home, Kamali's Father vows that he will stop at nothing to ensure the wedding goes ahead and vows vengeance on anyone who tries to stop
it.

But what we were gifted with was an opening scene that thrust us into a “thriller” without giving us any context of the situation and then he switches the tone to what I would describe as a black comedy. So the viewer has no idea of the genre of the film. So what do you think happens when you have a confused audience? You got it, you lose their interest, quickly.

The problem is in the writing (sorry,  Rangi) your film would have been a solid hit if you would keep it an over-the-top black comedy. Kamali is a modern woman stuck in an old tradition that, if she could remove herself from the oppression of growing up in the community, has some logic to the crazy.  


Instead, Kamali is a rebel and not an original one dating a white man with the full knowledge that not even a miracle will change her families mind. 

There are many solid points made in the movie but because the film failed to establish a genre we have an uneven movie that could have been a solid, funny, entertaining, and watchable film. 

But that being said, I would keep an eye on Anoop Rangi, there’s something there, and because I believe in supporting developing voices below is the director’s statement — unedited.

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

“Growing up in the west, there was very little South Asian representation in film, especially 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants. Worse, the few films that did exist were carefully curated to further a false narrative of the South Asian experience. Films were either 'feel good ethnic' or 'cautionary ethnic'. There was very little deviation from these ethnic tropes that felt designed to curry favor from a western audience rather than convey an authentic point of view.

My intention with 'Arranged Marriage' was to shatter these constructs with an aggressively unapologetic film that not only presents a 2nd and 3rd generation perspective but actively mocks competing points of view. Satirical in nature, the film uses elements of horror and comedy to savage both east and west. For once the minority has 'othered' the majority. For once, everyone else is the butt of the joke."

Jose Rosete. 

CREW

Director: Anoop Rangi.
Writer: Anoop Rangi.
Producers: Anoop Rangi | Krishen Rangi | Nadeem Soumah.
Composer: Kurt Oldman.
Cinematographer: Nadeem Soumah.
Production Designer: Preethi Sehrawat.

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