Louis Malle Represents India In His Documentary As A Parallel

Louis Malle represents India in his documentary as a parallel world, but what aspects of it make it look so different, and so special? Why is it so distant from the Western World? Phantom India shows that beneath the obvious differences between Malle’s culture and India’s, the same values and principles are at work in both. The film demonstrates, through the analysis of many everyday life situations, that even the most rural areas of India are affected by capitalism and globalization. French backpackers interviewed in the film claim that â€Å"India has so many beautiful things it doesn’t make you want to leave†. Western society has in fact many defects that incentivize people to escape it, including the fact that it gives money too much†¦show more content†¦As a matter of fact, even marriages relate to the economic situation of the individuals. Proposals and contracts for marriages can even be found on the newspapers, since they are all about castes and not love at first sight. The narrator reads an example of one, â€Å"Seeking an accomplished young woman, light-skinned, non-kuska, for single man, masanad prakaranam, 34 years old, government employee. Send horoscope†. As we can notice, this contract states specific terms, and it’s not an announcement from a lonely single heart that could not meet any women to satisfy him. From Malle’s representation, women in India are treated as trophies, since they need to be of a sp ecific type to satisfy men, depending on preferences and personal taste. Therefore, to have a better future than the one they were born in, they need to marry a man in a caste above them. Malle describes them in one scene as â€Å"very beautiful, especially in the southern villages†. He states that â€Å"they wear their fortune on them†, indeed â€Å"their noses, ears, necks, wrists and ankles are all covered with solid silver jewelry†, and the wealth they wear is â€Å"incomprehensible in such a poor country†. How these women obtain all this wealth is still a mystery, the reason why they do it is the most relevant aspect though, which is to obtain these richer men attention. Malle, by talking to Westerners, demonstrates us that although no one can actually really escape civilization and all its negative perks, such as