Coming to WORLD Channel’s Global Voices series this Sunday, June 16: WHEN HARI GOT MARRIED
Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam’s portrait of an arranged marriage made its debut at last year’s Films From the South festival in Oslo. It went on to screen at DOK Leipzig, the International Festival of India in Goa, IDFA, the NY Indian Film Festival, Jeonju, and Prague’s One World. After its broadcast, the doc will be available for a limited time on WORLD’s website.
Hari drives a taxi in Dharamsala, catering to tourists from around the world who are drawn to northern India because of the Dalai Lama. With time on his hands while driving, he spends his days calling his fianceé, Suman, who he only met briefly a couple of years ago when their families made arrangements for their engagement. For the bulk of this light and often humorous film, the focus is expressly only on the groom, Suman’s timid voice only heard intermittently through Hari’s endearing calls, offering insight about Hari’s pragmatism when dealing with tradition, but also his desire to cultivate love from his spouse. As the wedding draws near, Sarin and Sonam demonstrate the ways in which Hari’s family is intimately tied to all of the planning, so much so that there are serious concerns about the debt that they will have to take on to finance it. Hari’s bride enters the picture during the elaborate and emotional ceremony, only offering some brief, but revealing, words in an interview following, speaking to the limits placed on her by her family, and even a lack of preparedness for taking on this new role.
what (not) to doc 