It's no secret that I saw Superman Returns six times last year (and that's not including DVD viewings). I own both Spider-man films, eagerly await the next, and have all but the Joel Schumacher Batman outings.
It's not that I particularly like men in tights, though some may suspect otherwise; or that I have a hero complex, any more than most men.
I suppose I identify with these stories that are, essentially, the stories of immigrants.
Sent from far away places, living with alter-egos, battling with the duality of identity - on the one hand plain and inconspicuous, on the other colourful and foreign - superheroes (powers aside) are your regular, run of the mill, second generation immigrants.
Meera Syal went as far as claiming that Superman himself was Indian in her comedy sketch show, Goodness Gracious Me. NHS glasses, kipper tie..? Where else, she asked, could a man run faster than a train?
It's another Mira (though spelt slightly differently - Mira Nair) that reminds us of this fact. And it's on a train that her new film, The Namesake, begins. It ends the same way and in-between fills its two and a bit hours with, what critic Mark Kermode calls, "issuetastic family drama."
This, from the film's synopsis:
When the the Ganguli family moves from Calcutta to New York, they embark upon a lifelong balancing act to meld into a new world without forgetting the old. Though parents Ashoke and Ashima long for the family and culture that enveloped them in India, they take great pride in the opportunities their sacrifices have afforded their children. Paradoxically, their son Gogol is torn between finding his own unique identity without losing his heritage. Even Gogol's name represents the family's journey into the unknown.
Though I might rather relate to the Super side of Superman, his alter-ego, and that of the unfortunately named Gogol Ganguli, strike a more notable resemblance.
In The Namesake, Gogol's experiences were very much like mine. I cringed watching him bring home a white girl to meet his parents, flinched as she put her hand on his during dinner and squirmed as she planted an awkward kiss on his father's cheek. We just don't do that, my mum says.
I wondered what it must have been like for her, being born in India, coming over to England as a child and raising children of her own - 'neither here nor there'.
I wondered how she must have felt when I, like Gogol, disappeared into the surrogate family of my girlfriend, my work and my country.
Like all second-generation immigrants, I suppose, Superman himself is torn between two cultures - taught to respect his Kryptonian heritage, whilst embracing his undeniable Americanism.
The actor who plays Gogol Ganguli (Kal Pen) was, incidentally, in Superman Returns. It was a non-speaking role... You notice these things when you watch a film several times!
The Namesake was brilliant. I urge you to see it at least once.
