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When I approach foreign films, I always try my best to shelve cultural criticisms and accept it on its own terms. To some extent this is impossible, though it's much easier with European films than Asian ones. I have enough of an American need for emotionalism to feel like Russian characters are more like walking, talking existential crises than actual human beings. Indian films, on the other hand, indulge so deeply in sentimentality that I find it next to impossible to attach any real value to their emotion. Does this mean I can’t appreciate Russian or Indian films? No (for instance, I quite liked Kin-Dza-Dza!) but makes it harder. A Peck on the Cheek is difficult to review, just because it's so far outside my preferences and familiarity, but though my standards of measure may be Western, I have no others, and they are what I use.
Amudha is a precocious, petite, Sri Lankan version of Ferris Bueller, from hating her teacher, to delivering an introductory, breaking-the-fourth-wall monologue and being the center of a huge musical number. Everything is about Amudha; she's the heroine and she knows it.But the film isn't really about Amudha (or it shouldn't be); it's much bigger than her blissful childhood. After an opening, introducing a pair of star-crossed lovers (her real parents) in a war-zone, we slip entirely into Amudha's world, which has all the cheesiness and extravagance of a Disney cartoon. Still, the introduction remains as a solemn reminder that there are things happening outside this children's story, and unlike Ferris Bueller, Amudha will eventually have to engage with this.
