The greatest challenge facing Criterion's Blu-ray of Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding was mastering it for HD when it was originally shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm. I recall Universal's original DVD edition suffering from a small amount of red shift, and color fidelity was my greatest concern about an HD master. As with Chungking Express and El Norte, they've ended up with rich color depth and stunning image quality, with better contrast and clarity than one might expect from a movie shot on 16mm. The DVD edition from Criterion is from the same new HD master. [Pal Jason Whyte points out that the original DVD was non-anamorphic letterbox, so this marks the first proper 16x9 widescreen release for Monsoon Wedding.]
Criterion has achieved a coup de home video here thanks to including 7 Mira Nair short films that total over three hours of material varied in content. India Cabaret [59:22] (pictured above right) is set in a strip club and confronts gender roles and sexuality. So Far From Home [49:22] is about a married couple separated by an ocean. Laughing Club of India [35:03] is one of her better known shorts, dealing with...well, laughing clubs that get together and...laugh. I don't know why I'm at a loss in explaining it, but it's worth watching (as all the shorts are). Migration [19:00] features the brilliant Irfaan Khan (A Mighty Heart, Slumdog Millionaire) in a supporting role and focuses on the AIDS epidemic in India.
"India" from 11'09'01 [11:50] was Nair's contribution to the short film anthology project about 9/11 and the wake it caused. After the tragedy of the day itself, many young men of a certain complexion were rounded up and accused of things the exact opposite of who they were and how they acted. The Day the Mercedes Became a Hat [11:21] takes place in the final days of Apartheid, as some white families started instinctively fleeing in misplaced fear. How Can It Be [9:07] is the shortest film of the bunch and, as a result, it's got the most to say in a compressed, potent manner. The topic here is the concept of marriage and what it entails: fidelity, conflict, and divorce. The power of the furies is in full effect here.
The included Feature Commentary track is the same one that was available on the 2002 DVD edition, which I fondly remember listening to nearly a decade ago. Nair's enthusiasm and free-flowing anecdotes make it one of the better investments I've made in commentary listening to this day. New to the Criterion edition are a 20-minute Interview with Naseeruddin Shah (the father in the film) conducted by director Mira Nair and a 10-minute chat between cinematographer Declan Quinn and production designer Stephanie Carroll. The Shah/Nair piece is chock full of meaningful and moving anecdotes from both participants, and the Quinn/Carroll piece squeezes a lot into a small space of time, interspersing behind-the-scenes footage as well. The Theatrical Trailer is a great point of reference for how good the Criterion transfer of the feature is on this disc, trust me.
Pico Iyer's very thorough A Marigold Tapestry essay comprises the majority of the content of the included booklet, and is supplemented by synopses of the short films and notes on the transfer and production.
Amazon currently has the Blu-ray listed at $27.99 and the DVD at $34.99 (both editions are $31.96 on Criterion's site).