so i finished my second round of watching 80’s mini-series that my parents loved (my first being brideshead revisited) that i’m doing on accident because i like to explore the deep annals of netflix. also: history & costumes & stuff.
brideshead revisited is the far better of the two, so if you’re going to watch something, watch that one. though far pavilions was the very first hbo miniseries AND the most expensive miniseries of it’s time (twelve million $).
um the first two episodes were good because ash’s story is pretty interesting and he had a surprisingly evolved view on colonialism. the rest of it was meh. anjuli and ash’s love story was a total snooze because: a.) amy irving is OBVIOUSLY NOT INDIAN* and is wearing like eight pounds of foundation and i was like, wow, this is even worse than i thought it would be. remember when you were little (and maybe this still happens, i hope not) and you’d go into a big toy store and they had *all* the barbies? and you’d see like the barbies-of-the-world, and there would be a swedish one in braids and a mexican one in a fucking sombrero or something? amy irving reminded me of India Barbie. barbie, but slightly more earth toned and wearing a saree! b.) anjuli had no personality. she was like some low ranking disney princess. i did not understand why she was so devoted to her sister who was a total b, except for the reason that good girls are all supposed to be self sacrificing piles of celery mush and that’s the most amazing, love worthy characteristic of all time. yawnsville. c.) i usually forgive low romantic build up in victorian era stuff because in those days anything could mean everything when it came to the opposite sex, but this was like, wait? what? really? why?…ash, you didn’t even remember anjuli in a scene that happened like five minutes ago. and then there was no chemistry between the leads that could make their instant, undying love seem remotely plausible. there’s a lot of awkward lip-mashing and i kept wondering if ben cross came up from their love scenes with like a face full of bobbi brown ‘dusk’ or whatever.
there’s some cool costumes, though. and i wondered if when i went to india, if this movie was what my mother pictured when she imagined me there.
*i included a picture of aishwarya rai next to a picture of amy irving incase anyone wants to see what a light eyed indian woman looks like and a jewish girl from california looks like.
