Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Watched 'Sense and Sensibility' on Netflix.

A beautiful movie and a valuable one.
Beautiful because of the English landscapes, the charming people and their fanciful ways of the old times. Men riding horses, people traveling in horse drawn carriages, women in their gowns and hats, their parties and dances, true gentlemen and ladies observing propriety of the highest order, people curtsying when meeting and when parting... Sprawling Estates and cottages surrounded by acres of grasslands... Moorlands exposed to the elements. Ample private space for every family that at times bordered on desolation...

Valuable because it shows just how conservative the western society once was, for all its modernity today, for all its claim that it is distinguished from the east, in that respect, for all it's curious interest in the orthodoxy of India as if it were completely unfamiliar with it.

"There is nothing left for the girls' dowries..."
Yes, the essay on dowry system that has Indian society only as it's subject, is doing a disservice to the people of the west.

"Houses go from father to son, not father to daughter, it is the law"

"I am honoured you risk your honour by seeing me to the gate unaccompanied... "
Unmarried women were not left alone in the company of men without a chaperone, even if they were sixty years old!

"Lady Allen disapproves of his regard for Marianne..." (regard was the word used for love)
Most careful use of language, that had delicacy and honour at its core, with no semblance at all to the casual profanity of today.

"Beth has chosen to return to the country for her confinement"
Women in the west, just like those in India, were subject to confinement after childbirth.

All of these should be taken to the half educated, west admiring Indians who talk highly of modernizing, with exasperation and contempt for our old conservative ways, and while doing so, often speak of how progressive the western society is and how ridiculous all our ways must seem to them.

British English and accent were a pleasure to the ears.

Kate Winslet is making a drawing of a man she fancies - Willoughby ... The scene reminds you of Titanic where she is the subject of Leo's drawing...

There were other lines that I thought noteworthy, for various reasons.

"People always live forever whenever there is an annuity to be paid to them"

"If you cannot think of anything appropriate to say, you will please restrict your remarks to the weather"

"Since you cannot venture out to nature, nature must be brought to you... "
A dashing young Willoughby saying this as he hands out a bouquet of wild flowers to Marianne, made me miss a heart beat, just like it must have done to Marianne.

"We have nothing to tell, because I conceal nothing and you communicate nothing... "

"She had an impulsive sweetness of temper..." such a unique expression...