A Peck on the Cheek (Kannathil Muthamittal) Director: Mani Ratnam Country: India Year: 2002

CAST:
Madhavan, Simran, Prakash Raj, Nandita Das, P.S. Keerthana

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A longtime Festival favourite, Mani Ratnam is one of the few Indian filmmakers who is recognized both artistically and commercially in his own country. His films acknowledge the codes of Bollywood cinema, yet combine these with more wide-ranging concerns. In many ways, his oeuvre has been a harbinger of the current, somewhat uneasy coalition between Bollywood and alternative or art-house cinema (evident in films like Lagaan, a Festival presentation in 2001). The principal difference is that Ratnam, who was the subject of a Festival spotlight in 1994, has been refining and re-defining this formula for many years.

Like many of Ratnam's films, A Peck on the Cheek uses contemporary politics as a backdrop. It begins with an extraordinary reverie focusing on the marriage of two Sri Lankan youths: Madhavan, a shy but determined young girl from the country (played by the phenomenal Nandita Das, the star of Deepa Mehta's Fire), and Dileep, a committed activist opposed to the invasion and military dictatorship. Their post-marital bliss is painfully shattered by the arrival of the military, which leaves Madhavan alone and pregnant in a refugee camp.

At this point, the film abruptly shifts focus to concentrate on a happy, middle-class family. Their pride and joy is their effervescent, infuriating daughter Amudha, who is perceptive enough to know just how far she can push one parent before seeking refuge with the other. Ratnam pays tribute to the girl's innate intelligence and the chameleonic nature of her generation with a stunning musical number rivalling anything to come out of Bollywood in recent years. Yet, a shadow hangs over the family: Amudha was adopted. Her quintessentially liberal father wants to tell her; her mother isn't so sure. Their eventual decision will change the family forever, instigating an odyssey that is terrifying, quixotic and troubling.

A Peck on the Cheek twists conventional Western fairy-tale logic. Instead of placing its heroine on psychologically dangerous ground, it posits her in the midst of the political and ethnic strife that has become the keynote of our times. In some ways, it also represents the apotheosis of Ratnam's work: a powerful, vibrant mix of pop, politics and tragic circumstance.

— Steve Gravestock