Bollywood: Veer-Zaara

This movie addressed some very heated political issues between Pakistan and India in a theatrical way. India and Pakistan have been involved in several wars, and skirmishes over the years. They mainly stem from dispute over the mountainous region of Kashmir and in the manner in which its political alignment was decided by the two countries following partition in 1947. There is still much bad blood between the two nations. Pakistan has a ban on Bollywood movies, but some have recently been made exceptions and shown in theatres, while others appear on Pakistani cable television. India and Pakistan now have nuclear weapons, which concerns many countries around the world, but recently, both have remained cautious with there nuclear power. This made the movie interesting as an Indian and Pakistani fall in love, which is very taboo.

Much of the movie was in Hindi, but the parts that contained English seemed to be parts of the dialogue that were very important to the storyline. This shows the role of the British and how the English language was used to be understood in times of importance. Most of the movies from Bollywood today contain some English words or sentences in them.

The film depicts the parts of India and Pakistan around the boarders that are less populated areas. It showed the lush country side and small towns which contain fields and small homes. In a few scenes they ride on tractors through these fields from one place to another. In India the homes are much larger and remind me of the Taj Mahal. The only parts of the film with mountains during the time on the Indian side of the border. You could get a sense of the area when they were traveling on buses or trains that were over crowded with people, who were then forced to ride on the roof tops.

The movie was filmed in a very dramatic style. The intimate scenes were similar to a soup opera, but without much physical interaction, just looking deep into the eyes of the other. The dance scenes were wild, and you could tell that much of this movies production would have been taken up by the choreography of the dance sequences. The voices of the singers were also dubbed over the shots of the movie. The Bollywood movies would be considered less graphic than a children’s movie in America.

Dancing is a very important part of Indian culture. Most older Bollywood movies contained some sort of classic northern Indian folk dances. More recent films have elements of modern, western style of dancing. The dancing and singing scenes in the movie showed to be the most important shots of the film. From what I found online, most of the Bollywood actors are good dancers, but they do not sing. The singing is done in a studio and the actors lip sync the words during the movie.

Bejing Bicycle

The class structure in the communist state of China is more evident in this movie than I could have imagined. In a government set on the ideals of communism, remaining classes, and common ownership; this country seems to have a wider separation gap then that of democratic countries. The wealthy in China are treated with almost celebrity status, while the poor are hardly acknowledged as citizens in this movie. It's shown in the film by how Guei is treated by the people he comes across on his delivery routes, because everyone he delivers to are in the higher class of society.

The differences shown in this movie between rural and urban people was striking. Guei was adamant about owning his bike and the urban secretary talked down to him and could not believe that he actually new the date that it would be his. Also the maid who dressed up in the woman's clothes and then got fired when she was caught, was trying to act like the urban people, but could never have been accepted by them. It's as if they could do nothing to be treated like everyone else in the city.

The movie shows how cities like Beijing rely on many different modes of transporting goods and services than other countries. The shot in the film that shows this idea best, is the one with the two gentlemen loading a refrigerator on the back of a bicycle, and it almost falls on them. Bicycles, scooters, and small cars are used more in China because they are more affordable than anything else. The government makes opportunities for jobs by using bike messengers to deliver goods, rather than one large delivery company.

The landscape shown of China in this film is something I haven't seen before. Most of the time when I think of China, I imagine rice patties and large cities crowded with people making textiles. This film shows the contemporary side of Beijing with its back allies, and close knit culture shocked neighborhoods. It is hard to think of living in a space occupied by so many people like the home of Jian and his family. They share facilities while the people living in the high rises are treated like kings with lavish apartments and expensive clubs.

Guei is the main character in this movie who shows the true meaning of determination. This is how he survives in an exhausting city while trying to etch out a living. Others like Jian are caught in a consumer society that must also deal with the perpetual cost of city life. This is where they are tied together with the use of the bicycle. Guei must have this bike to survive financially and Jian needs it to compete socially with girls and classmates. The beating of the two men sharing the bike and even the bike itself shows the tragedy that they suffer in the end of the movie. The movie follows this bicycle and how its relationship in Chinese society affects the characters way of life.

Once Were Warriors

This film depicts the Maori and Pakeha cultures in modern day New Zealand. It shows how the values have changed or adapted to the current society in which they are living. Maori are known as the early eastern Polynesian settlers who were the first to inhabit the islands of New Zealand. Pakeha are European settlers living among the Maori and adapting to their ways. Jake Heke, the father of the Heke family in the film, represents the Pakeha as crude, cultureless, and violent people who have little family values. He feels that he was never good enough for his wife’s Maori family and would never be accepted. This drives him to alcoholism and physical abuse of his family and others. Maori did oppress the Pakeha’s living within their culture as a social group. This is based off their strong sense of nationalism for Maori history and is built by antagonism toward the Pakehas.

There is also a very strong representation of domestic violence in this film. This is based on physical, verbal, and sexual abuse that is shown in the Heke family. Due to Jakes insecurities he attempts to physically and psychologically dominate the other family members. You can see the anger and craze in Jakes eyes when he wildly attacks his own wife after she talks back to him during a late night party. His use of alcohol plays a key role in his mood and judgment in the dominant role of his family. He disregards his families well being when he brings home the party from his local bar. This is a very unsafe environment for children to be brought up in.

The Maori culture shown in the movie to gives the male a more authoritative position where as the women appear to be more care givers and handle issues at home. This is represented in the movie by Beth Heke, who doesn’t have a job, but rather takes care of the children and does the cooking and chores around the house. The Maori men are shown as respected and important figures that can be very dominant. This is displayed when their son Boogie is taken away to a boys home after getting in trouble and the leader of the home is a Maori man who teaches him the old ways of their culture. Beth also shows that her culture can give her the strength to resist Jake and leave him at the end of the movie.

The Maori culture is depicted as the salvation of the family in this movie. The Heke’s sons Boogie and Nig learn the ways of Maori and grow into men of their own. The culture takes them from the path of criminal behavior and teaches them how to get respect and deal with the death of their sister.

The contrast between the urban landscapes and the beautiful country side of New Zealand also represent the difference between Maori and Pakeha cultures. The city in which the Heke family lives is very poor looking. The children seem to have no education or interest in going to school. They also run into trouble with the law and are witness to the use of alcohol on a daily bases. Some of their friends are homeless and living in cars under bridges. This shows the gritty reality of Pakeha and what they represent. The countryside shows the Maori way of life. It has lush green hillsides, blue skies, and clear water. This is the natural beauty of New Zealand and where Maori people come from. They still have old buildings in the country, where Grace is taken when she dies, to hold ceremonies for her funeral and lay her to rest. This is where she felt most at home before and where she belongs, because she represnts the modern day Maori who see beauty in the world and good in people.

Rabbit Proof Fence

This is a journey of young girls through the outback of Australia on a mission to reach their mother, who they were savagely taken from by the English appointed ruler of the Aborigine people. This film was based on a book that was adapted from real events of three girls who escaped the Moore River Native Settlement, just north of Perth, and traveled nine weeks to reach their Aboriginal families. Molly, Daisy, and Gracie traveled over 1500miles along the Australian rabbit proof fence while being tracked by a white lawman and a black tracker. They escaped and returned to Jigalong while traveling through some harsh environments with nothing but the clothes on their backs. This is truly a tale of the innocent overcoming the state who were separating aboriginal children from their families.


The Rabbit Proof Fence is actually a real fence built by the Australian government from 1901 to 1907 as a pest exclusion fence. there are three fences, the no.1 which crosses the state from north to south, the no.2 which is west of the first fence and runs parallel, and no.3 which runs east to west and is the smallest of the three. Australia also has a Dingo fence, or dog fence, running east to west in the southeastern part of the country. These fences were built to keep pests out of the western Australia pastoral areas. The country had become over run with rabbits that were originally introduced by a Victorian grazer Thomas Austin in 1859. There were no animals that could eat rabbits, so they flourished and overpopulated the outback. The fence did not stop the rabbits from moving west word and the plaque of rabbits had to be dealt with in other ways. However, this was a major attempt of man trying to control nature.

The effect of the rabbits on the ecology of Australia was devastating. 1/8Th of all mammalian species in the country are now extinct, and the largest contributor has been the rabbits. They are also responsible for the land eroding. They eat the plants which leaves topsoil exposed to sheet, gully, and wind erosion. It takes hundreds of years to regenerate this topsoil.



Well, the fence plays a big part in the movie, and without it the girls would not be able to find their way home through the ruff terrain. Western Australia is Australia's largest state in area, covering almost one third of the mainland. The capitol city is Perth, and it is very isolated from the rest of the large cities in Australia, as it is over 1300miles away from Adelaide. It is the second largest administrative territory in the world. Western Australia contains some of the oldest minerals in the world and are found in the Yilgarn Craton and the Great Western Plateau. The Great Western Plateau occupies most of the state, and the Continent, at roughly four times the size of Texas. Rain rarely falls in this region at about 4-14inches annually. surface water is pretty much non existent aside from a few permanent waterholes. Most of the territory is flat sandy or stony desert with little scrub or tussock grasses. This would be very difficult to live on and most inhabitants need to introduce strong fertilizers for anything to grow in the state.

The main issue depicted in this movie was what is now called the Stolen Generation. The Moore River Native Settlement was a place where Aboriginal orphans who were taken, mostly against their will, to live, go to school, and learn the ways of the English. There is a controversy of this Stolen Generation in Australia still today, as to what degree this really happened, and how many children were taken. The government claimed that it removed these children from their families to protect their interests and provide a better way of life for them. The Aborigines claim that they were taken from happy homes and from all over the country to live in these camps. The movie depicts them as inferior to the white English, and they are being held against their will.