Reviews

Mammo might just be India's best family film. And if you want to take it a step further, Mammo might also be one of the best family movies for Muslims all across the world.

Mammo has some more serious undertones -- those of India and Pakistan's unfriendly relations and their impact on regular people, the often ignored violence against women across the Indian sub-continent, the Anglophiles and the class-conscious young children schools have produced, and above all, the lack of sincerity in our daily lives. Mammo represents everything that society has had to lose in its desperation for wealth and luxury, the spirited woman that does whatever her heart wishes (and God permits).

It's funny in some places, very tear-jerking in others. Definitely the best out of Benegal's Muslim trilogy.

Sure, the film uses wonderful natural imagery of the French Rivera. Yes, the setting is absolutely beautiful and every tiny detail of the historical setting is well accounted for. Definitely, the score adds well into the film's romantically artistic theme. And still there's the fantastic acting and directing to appreciate. Yet there's a but. The film is so boring that the average viewer will never be patient enough to watch the film till the credits roll, the ending is highly unsatisfying and almost abrupt, and the ultimate point of the film is really unclear and clouded over puzzling and not very meaningful phrases that appear to make the film have a message that it failed to deliver. Was the film discrediting ideals of patriotism over art and individualism or not? Was the film ridiculing so-called 'progressive' and 'open-minded' artists or not? And if one knows the true story behind it, this film really has a bleakness attached to it, and you feel a lot of pity for the lead female character.

Not one of the greatest Oscar submissions from France, but hey, the setting could make a lot of tourists go southwards from Paris.