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source: Cotton Mary

Cotton Mary

Ah the Malabar coast and India in the early 1950's. It seems it was a pretty boring place. And stereotypes abound both on the "English" and "Indian" sides. Ismail Merchant has created a visually beautiful film with an adequate cast....but where was the character development. The lead actress gets more and more annoying as she slips into the land of make-believe.

I am, or was, a diehard Merchant-Ivory fan. Then I saw "Cotton Mary". I thought it was a sad embarrassment of riches, with the exception of Ms. Jaffrey, whose title performance was badly worn flannel. Ms. Scacchi and Mr. Wilby were unable to ignite my interest, despite ample attempts by the cinematographer to try to hock their (charming) wares for that purpose. India itself came across as a dusty hot place with muddy water and bad paint jobs on the buildings. Ms. Jaffrey's direction was obviously a key element in producing such a Titanic bore. I wondered if she had fallen to the same hubris as her character. What were they thinking?

First of all, the worst and most misrepresentational cover art for any video, ever. The characters and fleshy situation depicted are incidental to the film. A movie with an utterly unlikable protagonist, and no one to identify with or get behind as an audience member. It all ends up feeling as self-important as its title character. The only reason I didn't turn it off was that nothing was on television until after the tape ran out.

I rented this film because a few of my colleagues suggested this as interesting viewing. This was not a rave but a...once you see this film, you will have a better understanding of a fellow co-worker's oddities. I can't say that I enjoyed this film. Cotton Mary was just darn annoying. She interferes with people's lives, climbing aboard when she sees opportunity. The manipulation and the passive-aggressive nature of her personality struck me. She was just so desperate to rise from her station and be someone to be reckoned with. Her impending madness was predictable and sad nevertheless. An odd film but one that only Merchant-Ivory fanatics should see for the sake of completeness.

In India, in the 50s, an English housewife gives birth to a premature baby. An Anglo-Indian nurse looks after it from then on, using it to secure her position in the family sphere. This somewhat overlong portrait illustrates rather simply the quest for identity of an English - Indian community.

A sensitive look at the difficulties faced by a woman in colonial India, during the period when nationalism was starting to set in. The story opens with an India-born Englishwoman who goes into labour, is taken to the hospital, and gives birth to a sickly child. When it turns out that her milk doesn't come in, a nurse with mixed British/Indian heritage takes pity on her, finds a wet nurse, moves into her house, and begins to manipulate the situation to her own advantage. As the story progresses, the husband's infidelity and disassociation is presented, as is the blindness of the wife, and the racist superiority of the expatriate British community. The Englishwoman's preteen daughter turns out to be the voice of reason who opens the woman's eyes to the situation as it is. This is a slow-paced visually interesting story that focuses a great deal of attention on nurturing and nursing, and the complexity of a materially richer culture clashing and feeding on a materially poorer one.