Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

Reviews

Vanaja

Artful and satisfying, if overlong

By NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 24, 2007

3.0 Stars

VANAJA: Class conflict and coming of age in southern India.

Rajnesh Domalpalli’s artful and satisfying, if overlong, debut feature has a fairy-tale feel to it. Willowy 15-year-old Vanaja (a coy and charming Mamatha Bhukya) leaves school on the urgings of her loving, low-caste fisherman father and takes up residence with Rama Devi (a regal Urmila Dammannagari), a wealthy landlady. There, in exchange for chores, Rama Devi teaches Vanaja Kuchipudi dance. Unlike the typical Bollywood fare, the dance sequences here are more meditative than manic, featuring just Vanaja, not hundreds of leaping performers. The arrival of Rama Devi’s muscled older son, his violent treatment of Vanaja (“You look most beautiful when you wince in pain,” he says), and the subsequent class-crossing scandal hurtles the girl into adulthood. The colors — ocher and rose and royal blue — and the cast, unprofessional actors all, heighten the sensuality. It’s a rich portrait of class conflict and coming of age in southern India.

| More

See more deals

view all

[ 02/17 ] Festival Ballet Providence presents UP CLOSE ON HOPE @ Black Box Theater

[ 02/17 ] "Dana Levin: A Classical Realist In the 21st Century," an exhibit of paintings @ Bert Gallery

[ 02/17 ] Mary Poppins @ Providence Performing Arts Center

ARTICLES BY NINA MACLAUGHLIN

ON CARPENTRY AND COLLEGE | October 20, 2011
Age 30, I quit the Phoenix and ended up with a job as an apprentice to a carpenter. Sawing, chiseling, hammering, nail-gunning, tiling, sanding, slotting, framing, hauling, measuring, and sweeping are less obvious outcomes of an undergraduate career in the liberal arts. College, in strange and unexpected ways, prepared me for this sort of work. And in others, did not prepare me at all.

PHDISASTERS | April 27, 2011
I knew a man pursuing a PhD in literature. His dissertation had to do with humor as a form of dissent in 20th-century literature. And how enthused he was at first! How passionate and excited.

DAVID FOSTER WALLACE'S THE PALE KING | April 13, 2011
All I can do is tell you how I read the book.

THE HOUSE THAT HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG BUILT | February 25, 2011
Andre Dubus III collected me at the Newburyport train station last month when the snow piles were already high. We stopped first for a coffee for the road; he asked all the questions: siblings, hometown, are you married?

DON'T BE AN IDIOT | January 27, 2011
We're all idiots when we're 18. We're all idiots for the first half of our 20s, and longer, for some. By saying so, we're not trying to insult anyone.