Movie Analysis Essay on The Namesake by Mira Nair

Introduction

The Namesake is a film by Mira Nair that shows how people have a problem in the search for their sense of belonging and identity. The film examines how an Indian family is caught between two conflicting cultures that have high differences in religion, social ideologies, and cultural activities. The main characters move from India to America and they face many issues with many problems and transformations that an Indian couple face when they move to a new land that does not understand their cultures. The director of the film successfully addressed immigrant identity among the Indians when they move to live to new countries where memory and nostalgia are the main focus due to the people being brought up in a different world from where they move to live.

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Ashoke and Ashima moving from India to Cambridge show the struggles that immigrants who move to the United States face in adapting to the new environment and the different cultures they meet in that place. According to the cultures of the Bengali people in India, it is improper for a woman to call out the name of her husband when giving birth but in the American culture, it is not prohibited for them to do so (Richards 70). Ashima faces nostalgia after she moves from India with her husband due to the Bengali culture that she grew up in. She does not have any sense of belonging while in a country away from her own and as a normal immigrant, it is not easy for her to adapt to the American cultures. Her migrating from India to America is a major disturbance to her as she struggles to adjust and adapt but as time moves, she slowly adapts and accepts the inevitable change.

Nostalgia

Ashima is able to adapt fast to the changes and she learns to accept and love two homes at the same time without conflicting with the people there. The feeling of being at home and missing how they performed their activities back in India makes her preserve her customs and cultures in the new land she currently lives in (Bhelkar 72). Nair shows the way that Ashima sees the idea of migration to another country and how her children try to adapt to the new land where they are born. She often misses her homeland and the cultures she practiced and this is a true way to show nostalgia in her. She feels a sense of belonging to the country she comes from and her heart is in India. After the death of her husband, she moves back to India and she adopts back her traditions and cultures because she had not forgotten them at all. Ashoke is also nostalgic to his home country where he has a dream of getting back home to his own country after retiring. He plays a major role in teaching their children the norms that govern them both in their home country and their new country. The strength of Ashoke is that he is a character who considers the nostalgia that he has as a positive force that drives him to explore the whole world. This is the force that drives him to a new country where he lives with his family.

Gogol who is the protagonist in the film and is portrayed as a good example of the second generation immigration who does not have any real roots. He is given a Russian name and this makes him question why he was not given either an Indian or an American name which shows that he is nostalgic of not being given a name that follows the cultures of India that state that his name must be a pet name that is used by his family only (Sinha 20). Ashima has memories of her past where she lived in India with her family and even though the American culture tries to influence her lifestyle, she stands strong by her culture and even teaches Gogol and Sonia both her children the teachings and upbringings of the Bengali culture. She takes care of her children in a great way without any expectations from them or the culture that she took part in. For Ashima, being a mother in a foreign land is stressful to her because it is hard for her to forget her motherland and her relatives back in India and continuously wishes to see them again. Ashima and Ashoke make peace with the pasts they had and learn to adopt new styles that they use to live their life afresh. Gogol, on the other hand, finds it hard to shake off his memories and this is evident in the relationships that he has with women throughout the film.

Memories

Nostalgia for both Ashoke and Ashima is evident for their homeland and this is often a problem to the identity of the immigrants. The tug of war between the memories of the past and the present that is isolated makes their life isolated and lonely due to the absence of their families and societies (Mani 75). Society is a necessary requirement in the raising of children especially in the Indian culture as it helps the individuals to be raised in a happy and secure life that makes them have knowledge about their roots. Ashoke displays loneliness in living in America and his sense of exile is evident due to how fond he is with his son Gogol. Ashoke is silent in most of the film and this one sentence where he speaks of his son shows the loneliness and the nostalgic nature evident in him. When Gogol returns to India with his mother, the memories of his past come back to him of all the time he had been trying to know of the origin of his name. He realizes the origin of the name he was given and this makes him have a new stand and view of his life and the cultures of where he comes from. The memories of Ashoka in India are less peaceful with the memories of the night that made him leave India haunting him all the time he is in America. This memory is so effective that it makes him choose a name that is not common for his son.

Conclusion

Mira Nair successfully addressed immigrant identity among the Indians when they move to live to new countries where memory and nostalgia are the main focus due to the people being brought up in a different world from the places they move to. The film the 'Namesake' shows the struggle that Gogol goes through to get a meaning of his real pet name that is unusual in many aspects of the cultures which are not a common name in either Russia or the United States. The ending of the film shows Gogol a changed man and he incorporates his family into his personal affairs as he regrets the past he has had since he was a child. The past memories make him perceive his past as insufficient and he learns from his mistakes which makes him accept his Indian culture and live by those customs.

Works Cited

Bhelkar, Ratnakar D. "Identity Crisis in the Diasporic Space in Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake." Literary Voice 1.4 (2015): 71-79.

Mani, Bakirathi. "Intertextual Readings of the Namesake." Naming Jhumpa Lahiri: Canons and Controversies (2011): 75.

Richards, Rashna Wadia. "Love, Desi Style: Arranged Marriage and Transnational Mobility in Mira Nair's The Namesake." Canadian Journal of Film Studies 26.1 (2017): 64-80.

Sinha, Amresh. Memory, History, and Trauma in Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, Alexander Kluge, and Mira Nair's Films. Diss. New York University, 2015.