Rent Swades: We, the People (2004)

Interesting attempt to point out the problems with old traditions on modern people - Swades: We, the People review by Fussypot

Went quite well, although I still do not know what SWADES means - an acronymn perhaps? The NASA stuff was laughable, real gobbldedgook science speak and obviously not real. Some actors like the American in charge at the initial conference were dreadful performers. I am sure a lot of the village cast - it seemed very populous for such a small place, were locals, and they did well, especially the children. Some good pointers were brought out, the unfair caste system, young men expecting their wives to give up their careers, children married off young and no point seen to be educating girls and so on. These are important of course, but some bits were not thought out, when Mohan returns to India there is no indication as to whether he got work with NASA there nor if he actually married, but the sentiments were good. I imagine if the locals made their own electricity the government would have something to say about that, and this was made before the advent of mobile phones and solar panels it would appear, yet for all the failings of electricity people seemed to be able to run laptops and have lights switched on. The oddest thing was the English subtitles - they do tend to be Americanised sadly, but strangely they were also in archaic English, whether this was due to some songs being traditional religious ones or not I don't know, but if so they were not correct, for example using 'dearth' instead of 'doth'. It was strange to see the text full of thees and thous.

Entertaining and thought provoking nevertheless.