The afterschool special is alive and well in immigration drama “Festival Of Lights,” an amateurish independent film tracking the evolution of one family in their path from Guyana to America, and the roots they leave behind. Forgive a generation of filmmakers, well-intentioned, but unaware that nuance and subtlety are missing from their arsenal, soldiering on with incidence. “Festival Of Lights” is nothing if not busy, hop-scotching around hot-button satellite issues to the main concern of immigration like Darren Aronofsky’s camera operator lost in the K-hole. “Festival Of Light” follows young Reshna (Melinda Shankar) from her childhood in Guyana to her teenage lifestyle in America. As a child, her father Vishnu (Jimi Mistry) would take her to the Diwali festival, as they enjoyed the street fair as a family despite a hostile atmosphere that threatens their livelihood. A frantic home invasion by guerillas occurs just next door: Reshna’s...
- 11/16/2012
- by Gabe Toro
- The Playlist
Lights Out: Prasad’s Feature Debut a Messy, Stagnant Immigration Drama
Previously working as a documentary filmmaker, director Shundell Prasad makes her fiction feature debut with Festival of Lights. Here she explores issues of identity and immigration with a family fleeing 1970s Guyana for a better life in the United States. However, despite the population she highlights, mostly unseen or unheard in mainstream Western cinema, the end product is a contrived soap opera of cliché and predictability. Top that off with an extremely grating, off-putting lead performance, a weak screenplay and a rather uninspired look, and you have what feels like a film school conversation piece inspired by innately better material, which something like Mira Nair’s similar 1991 film, Mississippi Masala (yes, different region and immigration experience explored) simply blows out of the water in comparison.
Beginning during a period of political turmoil, we are introduced to Vishnu (Jimi Mistry...
Previously working as a documentary filmmaker, director Shundell Prasad makes her fiction feature debut with Festival of Lights. Here she explores issues of identity and immigration with a family fleeing 1970s Guyana for a better life in the United States. However, despite the population she highlights, mostly unseen or unheard in mainstream Western cinema, the end product is a contrived soap opera of cliché and predictability. Top that off with an extremely grating, off-putting lead performance, a weak screenplay and a rather uninspired look, and you have what feels like a film school conversation piece inspired by innately better material, which something like Mira Nair’s similar 1991 film, Mississippi Masala (yes, different region and immigration experience explored) simply blows out of the water in comparison.
Beginning during a period of political turmoil, we are introduced to Vishnu (Jimi Mistry...
- 10/31/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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