One of the issues that is treated critically, though not harshly, in Shakespeare Wallah is the complex relationship between colonizer and colonized.  I think that the whole notion is treated thoughtfully, though not in a way that feels heavy and belabored. 

Several instances set the colonial period firmly in the mind of the viewer, including the romance between the young (innocent) English woman and the dark, somewhat unscrupulous “native,”  the focus on the sporting life, language issues, and a rather naive idealism on the part of the colonizers.

The questions of language and the sporting life are treated in a superficial manner, and yet both serve to set up for us an unmistakable picture of the stereotypical colonial lifestyle.  A short shot of Mrs. Buckingham teaching English to several young Indian men highlights, very briefly, the idea of “Received Pronunciation.”   (There is, after all, surely only one right way to speak the English language, right?)  Similarly, the idea that the English obsession with a sporting life has been passed on to the colonized nations is highlighted when Sanju speaks to Lizzie of his hunting hobby.  The images that the two discuss poke fun at many of the conventional tales from the colonial period of great feats of the fearless white hunter in the untamed jungles of colonized (and uncivilized) lands.  Along the same lines, when Mr. Buckingham arrives at a school to find that his performances of Shakespeare’s plays are not particularly of interest to the headmaster, he objects that such an important part of the English curriculum is being neglected.  The headmaster’s quick reply is, “Cricket is taking up too much time.”

A more prolonged discussion of the colonial endeavor occurs when we get a short peek into the mind of the elder Buckinghams.  Lizzie’s father complains that there have been so many changes after the heyday of the Empire, and that the family should have returned to England after 1947.  This leads to a moment of self doubt in which Mr. Buckingham questions aloud his own motives for going to India — was it merely because he was not good enough to make it on the English stage?  This question is quickly dismissed, but the raising of it leads to a short but pointed discussion between the couple about the role of the colonizers in the colony.  It is a very idealized role, mainly focused on the notion of a sort of “civilizing the natives” type of work.  This has been done, apparently, by staging Shakespeare’s plays for the supposedly uncivilized colonized land to see and learn from.  The Buckinghams’ disappointment is only that the “natives” seem to remain too brutish, perhaps too stupid, to appreciate the great gift that’s been given.

This discussion between the Buckinghams is raised, in the film, because they realize that they have lost the adoration of the audiences for whom they are now performing in the days of the decline of British power in India.  They are no longer idolized, and this causes much grief for the elderly couple.  The point seems to be further pushed home when Manjula asks Sanju, “Do you think I want to be like them?” Indeed, she is quite disdainful of the way the Buckinghams live.  And why not?  Her own Bollywood career allows her to live in a much more comfortable, luxurious life.  Indeed, it seems that all of the adoration and idolization of the masses, lost by the Buckinghams, are now firmly owned by her.

All of this leads to some sense of the displacement that the English family must feel in the place they have made their home, now that the land is going through such a great change in its feelings toward their former masters.  We see this clearly in the character of Lizzie.  She tells Sanju that she’s never been to England at all, though he thinks she looks just like any other English girl.  The idea of how alien her “home land” must be to the girl is hammered home when we see Mrs. Buckingham describing the rain in England to Lizzie, telling her, “It’s not like monsoon rains.”

That sense of displacement is, I think, rather poignantly explored in the film, particularly the final moments.  As Lizzie boards the ship, sporting her English “stiff upper lip,” we get a little insight into what is really on her mind, a moment spent with Sanju.  It is a surprisingly simple image, I think, the simplicity of which seems to add to the poignancy of the moment.

Postcolonial thought and theory has come a long way over the years.  Shakespeare Wallah strikes me as an important work in the development of this area of cultural criticism.

© 2007 Shelly Bryant

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