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Morning Raga
IMDB 8.0/10 (73 votes)
Directed by	Mahesh Dattani
Written by	Mahesh Dattani
Starring	Shabana Azmi Perizaad Zorabian Prakash Rao
Running time	110 min (US Edition)
Language	Hindi English Telugu
IMDb profile

Morning Raga is an Indian film with most of the dialogue in English, released in 2005. Directed by Mahesh Dattani and starring Bollywood stars Shabana Azmi and Perizad Zorabian. The film is unusual for its "sensible" storyline (as opposed to modern Bollywood drama) and extensive use of English, albeit with a generous smattering of Godavari Telugu. The film revolves around three main characters - all Telugu in the story - whose lives have each been shattered by tragic events of the past and how they are united by circumstance. Slowly they begin to work together and blend their passions to bring back the happiness they once had. These three are all connected by a love of music, and through this the film explores elements of classical Indian music, the raga, and combines it with contemporary rhythms to create the most distinctive and mesmerizing beats and echoing vocals.

The story is set deep in the Andhra Pradesh countryside, which is beautifully depicted in the movie. Shabana Azmi is a Carnatic singer, Swarnalata, who lost her son and best friend in an accident. Azmi's character is obviously a cultured and well off woman (the house used for her home is a beautiful zamindar country mansion and estate in Kulla) and the surrounding countryside is beautiful. Azmi's character is still haunted by her loss, and after twenty years the dead woman's son Abhinay (Prakash Rao) returns to the village to open up hardly healed wounds.

The film is a subtle enactment of what may be termed as a clash between the de-centered centre and the 'ex-centric'. Swarnalata comprises the 'ex-centric' and marginalized voice who is stunted both by trauma and a harsh suspension of ambition. The City group represented by the young talents are a metaphor for what is essentially western and progressive. The key idea is not how the Western music is influenced and enriched by the East, or how the Western music 'modernizes' the traditional Carnatic musical heritage. The film reaches towards a hybridization through the crossing over of the bridge metaphor, that transports this two genres into a new realm of cross-over art and harmonic polyrhythm. What is native and shown as sterile is released from its xenophobia and endless nightmare of losing its identity. It is then added to the suffering post-colonial 'new' western music which finds its own identity and voice for a new generation, beyond its obvious Western-ness. Both the East and the West climb out of their respective comfort zones and intermingle into an immediate present that can only reflect this very generation and its cultural idiosyncrasy. The best is only the product of a joint effort to jazz up a new musical genre. The end is thus about ushering a postcolonial musical product that is a new culture in itself.

At first the English language mixed occasionally with Telugu tends to be at loggerheads with the music that runs through this moving tale of the power of music to heal and unify splintered souls.

A film critic writes that "Morning Raga is one of the most innovative and fresh films to come out of India in recent years" .

• Morning Raga at the Internet Movie Database