Search - Masala on DVD

A wonderful surprize

Veersh | 10/08/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is so far out of left field it will knock you over before you realize what's happening. It starts with a jet liner exploding in mid-air, then cuts to the lives of several people who were or will be effected by the explosion some years later. Westerners have comparitively little exposure to Indian film and to see an Indian film set in Canada, with one of the leads sporting a leather jacket and a switchblade is all too crazy. This is a wonderful movie containing stories that swirl around one another. A grandma who talks to The Krishna as he appears to her on TV, a modern Indian houswife excercizing to workout videos, a stamp collecting postman all help make up a collage of unforgettable characters. The colors are great. The scenes are imaginative and a couple of the female leads are as beautiful as anyone ever seen on the silver screen. This is a real breath a fresh air."

Fabulous, sharp satire

Veersh | New York, NY | 07/16/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I totally disagree with most of the reviewers here. This movie rocked. It's the funniest, sharpest, most misanthropic take on Indian-American culture I've ever seen. It's magical realist, it's got art school pretensions, it's got cheesy effects, but it's a hell of an achievement for a director who did it at age 21. I was in tears of laughter for most of the film. This is a vastly underappreciated nugget in this genre."

Great film!

Veersh | 07/12/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"It's been ten years since I first saw this movie, and some of the imagery and humour has still stayed with me. Having grown up in Toronto and knowing the culture, this may have been one of the factors in understanding a lot of the humour--However, I do think this is a very accessible film, very funny and well worth the time. I think it captured the clash of cultural expectation very well, and it certainly blew apart a lot of stereotypes in both Indian and Canadian cultures. Great movie!"

Very zany, very serious

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 12/02/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This DVD showed up on the New Releases shelf of my local store, so I thought it was a new movie until I read the previous reviews. Well, I can testify that it certainly hasn't become dated. It's a very stylish spoof of Bollywood on one hand and an insightful tour through the generationally mixed culture of Indians in North America on the other, at least as funny as Bend It Like Beckham, and a good deal more honest. The funniest, and the most unsettling, moment comes when one of the secondary characters, a Sikh, orders the God Krishna to "scram" and the God, looking pitifully crestfallen, does exactly that. (PC Advisory: the movie contains something calculated to offend nearly everyone, as some of the other reviewera humorlessly noted.)"