Sramati...

LXG

I recently watched a movie called "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen". This blog is an alternative review of this movie. The concept behind this movie is rather straightforward. These are heroes (and a heroine) that step off the pages of English (language, not nationality) fiction, come together and combat a formidable enemy, and (no surprises here) ultimately prevail.

1. Allan Quatermain, from the H.Rider Haggard book
2. Captain Nemo, from Jules Verne's "20000 leagues under the sea"
3. Vampiress Mina Harker, from Bram Stoker's "Dracula"
4. Dorian Gray, from Oscar Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
5. Tom Sawyer, from the Mark Twain book
6. Rodney Skinner, the gentleman thief, and invisible man from the H.G. Wells book
7. Dr. Jekyll/Mr . Hyde, from the Robert Louis Stevenson book

I am a hardcore literary buff, and naturally thought any movie with Dorian Gray, Tom Sawyer and Mr. Jekyll etc. all together must be worth a look. So I actually went to the movies and bought the popcorn and the Coke and did the whole nine yards. Now, the movie itself turned out to be a rather different experience, however.

The story is set in 1899. Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery) is the reluctant leader of this gang of heroes, called upon by the Queen from his retirement in Africa. He is clearly the ringmaster of this group. Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Shah, yes our own man) is the technological facilitator of the group. He provides the group with Nautilus (among other things), a submarine for fast transportation. Each of the other heroes (and the heroine) bring their unique skills to the job: invisibility [Skinner], blood-sucking [Harker] , eternal youth [Gray], enterprising youth [Sawyer], useful evil in good [Hyde/Jekyll]. Critics have nitpicked about this movie: the submarine was shown cruising the canals of Venice in an apparently unlikely way (a real submarine could not navigate those narrow canals, they say). Many such critiques have been levelled.

My reading is slightly different: The whole enterprise is led by Quatermain, and Nemo very much plays second fiddle (recall that in 1899 India is a subject of the Crown). Captain Nemo is a bearded warrior who carries a sword, and looks like a Sikh to the Indian eye. He dresses colourfully, worships Kali (the "Goddess of Death", it is explained to us helpfully), and is in general inscrutable. The Nautilus is inexplicably adorned on the outside with many stautuettes of Indian Gods and Godesses, and on the inside we see a lot of persian/mughal/muslim style doorways and arches. The deck of this then futuristic machine is itself designed to look like a sivalingam. In the other important dynamic of this movie, Quatermain sees in Tom Sawyer a shadow of his own adventurous youth, and his lost son. He trains Sawyer in shooting and other helpful arts. In a defining moment of the movie, towards the end, as Quatermain lies dying, he utters a fateful benediction to Sawyer "May the next century be yours".

These observations are very important to the subtext of the movie. Pax Brittanica transfers power and responsibility to Pax Americana at the turn of the 20th century. The oriental Nemo is an object of curious fetishism, and his image is further steeped in mystery by his seemingly bizarre worshipping habits and his complete lack of emotion (indeed, an effort is made to show that "they" have no ability of emotion the same way as "we" do. ) Nemo is good at providing technology, and he is a visionary with gadgets, but it ultimately falls to the wise West to optimally make use of this technology.

As I see it, this movie is yet another textbook case of "Orientalism", a concept originally proposed by Edward W. Said, which revolutionized the whole study of comparative and post-colonial literature. My own reading of this film is neither accidental nor unique. Said provides in "Orientalism" and "Culture and Imperialism", a number of such examples, old an new. ("Indiana Jones and the Tenple of Doom" is another such movie example.)

After reading Said, I cannot not think through that lens. The reason is that his arguments are so brilliant, the content so profound. Sometimes, as in the case with this movie, I kick myself for no longer being able to simply enjoy a movie for what it could be: an entertaining performance. The moral of the story, I guess, is: the more we know, the more we shed of our innocence.

Posted by sramati at August 11, 2003 02:12 AM