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Film by FFWD Staff Cotton mary Starring Greta Scacchi, Madhur Jaffrey and James Wilby Directed by Ismail Merchant Opens Friday, July 28 The Globe Colonialism leaves a lot in its wake when it leaves a people and place behind after years of trying to make things more like home – a new language, religions, borders, but none so odd as the folks who actually liked having those "imperialistic dogs" around. While India could be accused of colonizing itself these days, it was the British who fooled themselves into believing they could run the giant multicultural sub-continent forever Those who missed that Protestant work ethic were called Anglo-Indians, and for a while they were the ones to watch. In a bizarre nature/nurture experiment, The East India Company even went so far as to give an Indian mother a gold coin for every child born with a European father (though the father was hardly in the picture by then). They wanted to have a work force that could negotiate local customs while having western values. It turned out to be a great thing for all involved – for a while. The new Anglo-Indians were fiercely loyal to their British heritage and were able to make the ruling class a lot of dough. Things went sour when the new hybrid people grew in number and started getting a little uppity. The British, alarmed at the number of uprisings in their other colonies, felt they had grown too close to the Anglo-Indians. So they took away from the Anglo-Indians all the privileges they had grown to love and left them high and dry amongst people the Anglo-Indians now considered beneath them. It wasn’t until there was a real uprising against the British in India that the Anglo-Indians were brought back into favour. Of course, they had to lay their lives on the line for their white brothers and sisters, but it was all worthwhile, as they were allowed back into the English schools and given low-ranking bureaucratic jobs. When the British were finally sent packing, they didn’t take their faithful civil servants with them – instead they left behind culturally mixed-up snobs. Which brings us to Mary Cotton, the latest Merchant Ivory Production. It’s a lush film set in 1954, just a few years after the Brits have been given the punt and only a few diehards remain. Mary, played by Madhur Jaffrey, is an Anglo-Indian who misses the good old days before the "dirty Indians" took their country back. She is brought back into the buxom of a British household when a housewife (Greta Scacchi) from Surrey, who is married to a BBC reporter, can’t breast-feed her prematurely born daughter. Mary, a nurse, takes the baby to her wet-nurse sister without telling anyone, and looks like a hero when the baby stops crying. She is invited to live with the British family and be the nanny. From here the movie looks at how Mary is torn between two cultures. Her heart is filled with a love for all things British, but when left on her own she digs into a plate of curry and eats deftly with her hands. But Mary isn’t a sympathetic character. She is a power-monger who tells a series of lies that get good people fired, moving her closer to the top of the family. You’d think all of this would make for an interesting script – unfortunately, no. Mary’s story is like a stone skipping across time. Aside from announcing her heritage and draping herself in the Union Jack, there is no history or background on how this Anglo-Indian woman came to be what she is. All we see is the result of hundreds of years of messing with the locals, which is a mad woman struggling to find her way after she’s been left behind.

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