Delhi 6 gets good reviews

Western reviewers effusive with praise after film's New York premiere

Delhi 6 gets good reviews

Western reviewers effusive with praise after film's New York premiere

Rakeysh Mehra's Delhi-6 opens today, but the world premiere happened in New York a few days back. Here are the first few reviews from the foreign press applauding the film.

Jurgen Fauth for About.com

Whimsy and a generally warm mood inform most of the character sketches and handsomely shot vignettes of local life during Delhi-6's first half: reverse-culture-shock jokes, a lavish production of the story of Ram and Sita, a visit to the Taj Mahal, and a cow giving birth in the street.

In the film's final hour, more serious themes unwelcome traditions and smouldering religious hatred come bubbling to the surface and erupt into a do-the-right-thing climax that took me by surprise.
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Maybe the runaway success of Slumdog Millionaire will inspire western audiences to sample more authentic Bollywood fare; with its first-rate music, world-class stars, and postcard-ready views of India (not to mention the relatively reasonable running time), Delhi 6 presents an especially welcoming option.
Rating: ****

Michelle Orange for The Village Voice

Could a true-blue Bollywood film ever represent something other than the highly referent, tightly clockworked chaos of Bollywood cinema?

While Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's Delhi-6 the story of an American-born Indian who accompanies his ailing grandmother (Waheeda Rehman) to Delhi and, duly appalled and enchanted by what he sees, undergoes a cultural conversion and rather brutal baptism attempts to address the generational, economic, and religious problems dividing modern India.

It does so in an unapologetically broad, whacked-out way, with each of Bollywood's four food groups (corn, cheese, treacle, and nuts) present and accounted for.
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Which is to say, of course, that it's pretty much irresistible and, in that sense, represents todays's enigmatic India as well as anything ever could.

Verdict: Must watch