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puneetkohli
Reviews
Ocean of Pearls (2008)
A moving experience
I saw this movie tonight at the Reel World Film Festival in Toronto, expecting another one of those immigrant culture clash cultural pieces in line with the Bollywood-Hollywood/Bhaji on the Beach types that contain poorly developed characters, bad acting, loud political messages and contrived and simplistic plot lines. The fact that it was helmed by a first time director with no previous film experience did not help me in formulating my preconception. Boy was I wrong! Ocean of Pearls is a moving and ultimately redeeming spiritual voyage that intelligently touched upon such topics as faith, assimilation, materialism, family and HMOs in modern secular America, while telling the story of a young Sikh-Canadian doctor who loses his faith in his religion and profession when taking on new job at a private Detroit hospital. Its not as profound (or heady) as an Ingmar Bergman film (and is not intended to be), but for a family drama it carries great weight and is a refreshingly honest portrayal of South Asians in North America.