Well, it's been a Merry Christmas for me professionally! Mercy in Her Eyes: The Films of Mira Nair is continuing to draw strong attention (and good reviews) across the Indian Press. In a December 24th, 2006 piece called "A search for identity," in The Tribune, journalist and critic Rachna Singh writes the following:"John Kenneth Muir in his eminently readable book Mercy In Her Eyes traces Mira Nair’s journey as a filmmaker who intends to "change the world through art". Muir forges a true-to-life image of Nair as an intensely visual auteur, a "truth-seeking" Amazon and a filmmaker who feels a sense of "genuine joy" in her creation.
Varied perceptions of people associated with Nair’s cinematic genius give this well-researched book a life and vivacity of its own. Sooni Taraporewala (screenplay for Salaam Bombay), Roshan Seth (Jay in Mississippi Masala), Uma Thurman (Deb in Hysterical Blindness) et al show us a Nair "who wants to make serious passionate cinema that will get an ordinary audience, not an arty intelligentsia crowd".
We also see an "irreverent and playful" Nair using her consummate skills to "reveal our tiny local worlds in all their glorious peculiarity". The eccentricities of the marigold-eating Dubey of Monsoon Wedding or the graveyard sojourn of Krishna and Chillum of Salaam Bombay leave an indelible stamp.
...For Muir, this depiction of a human truth makes Nair unique and her cinema global.
Kenneth Muir also infuses his book with an honesty which is characteristic of Mira Nair and her work. So Muir, forever the judicious critic, hands out "kudos" to Nair’s genius but also openly debunks Kama Sutra for its sensual and languorous haze, which overpowers a story of true love. The Perez Family also becomes just an "attractive spectacle". But in the end, what endears the book to the reader is its pulsating rhythm and energy, which encapsulate the true Mira Nair. A must read for film aficionados and all Mira Nair fans."
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