ljmerrell-65946

"She who succeeds in gaining the mastery of the bicycle will gain the mastery of life." So said Susan B. Anthony, one of America's best-known feminists of the 19th century. Twenty-year-old Beena is a product of America and not just any America but the one in San Francisco, California, a traditional spot for self-reinvention. Beena is now twenty and her Indian immigrant mother Billo has decided that she's ripe to be a bride, as Shakespeare might put it. Like many a first-generation American, Beena has other ideas, one of which is to master the unstable and highly metaphoric contraption known as a bicycle while another is to attend college and yet another is to become better acquainted with James Dean, a dishy student from Sweden who probably endures the inevitable jokes about his name with Nordic stoicism. It's a traditional immigrant's tale with a comic and lighthearted touch, not to mention some exceptional costumes and a wedding dance scene both joyful and mildly erotic, a celebration of human life and its presumed continuance.

Like most SF residents, I love seeing my city in feature films. What made this one different from the others is that it was made by an immigrant from Pakistan, Hassan Zee, whose goal was to capture the City's soul for the benefit of non-American viewers who would want to start with a bigger picture like the one "Cabaret" offers of Munich in the 1930s. The plot point of a young man from Nevada seeking the mother who abandoned him at birth in the City by the Bay means the view is mostly limited to the city's dark and squalid side but somehow the menace doesn't feel quite real; even a trio of axe-wielding maniacs have the air of fraternity pranksters. The themes of forgiveness and redemption are overriding, especially in a surreal scene of Jesus consoling a repentant sinner. The earnest and determined male lead is upstaged by his own hat while the supporting male actor is a bipolar bundle of firecrackers and the female lead is by turns shifty, loving, and foolish. It makes for a very colorful array of lead characters, including San Francisco itself.