This past Monday, April 24, my class and I traveled to the Funasia Theatre, for our last field trip, to watch the movie For here or to go?. This type of movie was new to me as it was a English Bollywood film. The movie showed the culture of India and the struggles of the process immigrating over and receiving your green card. People dream of living in a country like America and achieving what so many people call the “American Dream.” The main character, Vivek Pandit, takes us on his journey towards success, working in the Silicon Valley. Or so we think. When Vivek’s hopeful employer takes back there job offer from Vivek, due to the absence of his work visa, Vivek is placed in a time sensitive situation that could in the end send him back to India, Shattering his American dream.
Though this movie was very different from what we are used to seeing, they do a good job of getting there point across. By portraying the struggles and sacrifices an immigrant must go through in order to achieve a status and work towards their dreams. Not ever being put in a situation like this, coming into this movie I can honestly say I was a little blind to the hardship people must face when coming into this country. The qualifications and guidelines are extensive and it is a long and grueling process. The U.S. is not very time efficient either. These visas can takes months and months to receive, leaving these immigrants sitting by their mail just waiting to receive an envelope that declares their citizenship and grants them the ability to work, legally, in the United States. In the eyes of the American people they do not see these immigrants as equal, it is the harsh reality of our time. As you can see from the movie, Swetha’s father was working toward getting the Indian people to, in fact, stay in India where they can be valued for what they are worth. They are no longer “immigrants” and are not trying to prove anybody wrong. Long story short, they are seen as equal. Equality is the first step in the right direction and through the eyes of some of the people in this movie, this is not achievable.
The overall quality of the movie was, average, to say the least. From the sub par Bollywood acting to the poorly filmed camera angles you can really see a difference in the advancement of American movies vs. Indian movies. Reason being the lack of money India has to put into it’s filmography. Being such a big business in America movies are heavily funded from start to finish, in India this might not be the case. Using what they were given the producers of this movie really did do a good job showing the struggles of trying to come into this country. It also put into perspective the desire, inside so many of these people, to come over to America where they feel they would truly be able to be successful.
