City Notice – Electric Moon Screening, India Habitat Center
Last chance to see a classic.
[By Mayank Austen Soofi]
A comi-tragedy, it’s a cult classic. Directed by Pradip Krishen, the author of Trees of Delhi, and scripted by Arundhati Roy, the author of The God of Small Things, the 1992 film Electric Moon will be screened on May 20 at India Habitat Center (IHC), Lodhi Estate.
A few years ago the movie was showed at the British Council, Connaught Place. In 2011, it had a screening at the India International Center. A year later it was again shown to a packed house in IHC.
“It is probably one of my last showings,” says Mr Krishen, “because the print is beginning to show signs of senility!”
The film’s DVD is not available on amazon.com. It’s not there on YouTube. This is a rare chance to see a film that, amongst other things, can also be described as a spoof on accents.
Irreverent and full of delicious Hindustani swearwords, Electric Moon pokes fun at foreign tourists who visit India in search of the stereotypical exotic ideas they have of this land.
After the film’s screening at the Bangalore Film festival in 1992, critic Madhu Kishwar wrote, “Director Pradip Krishen and script-writer Arundhati Roy were flooded with a barrage of hostile questions: “How dare you present Indians in such a bad light?”, “It will harm the national image,” and so on.”
But Electric Moon is more like a cheeky Indian rejoinder to A Passage to India.
Describing the film, The New York Times wrote, “In this story, the main business of a group of former aristocrats living in central India is leading tours into a national park and re-enacting the lifestyles of colonial India. However, this has only been possible because the park’s officials applied its rules with some sense of perspective. In this wry and leisurely comedy, the worst possible disaster has struck: a small-minded and very honest official has just gotten posted to the position of park director, and he is bent on following the letter of the law.”
The 103-minute-long English film stars Roshan Seth, Naseeruddin Shah, Leela Naidu, Gerson Da Cunha, and Raghuvir Yadav.
The movie has an extremely hilarious Delhi scene, which appears in the beginning. Place: Lodhi Road.
Come for the laughs.
Where India Habitat Center, Lodhi Estate Time 7 pm, Monday, 20 May, 2012 Ticket Entry free Nearby Metro Stations Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Jor Bagh
Electric Moon
A passage to India
Actor Roshan Seth plays a sophisticated scamster
Leela Naidu gave much trouble in the film sets because of her drinking problem
Filmmaker Pradip Krishen and scriptwriter Arundhati Roy
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