Tandoori Love (Oliver Paulus, 2008): Switzerland

Reviewed by Anna Bewe. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Tandoori Love is directed by Oliver Paulus and is a warm, fun film that takes place in the Swiss mountains, where we meet a Bollywood production and follow an Indian chef, Raja’s search for love. This film has great, uplifting music and some fun dance numbers which makes you in a good mood. The film won an award for the best artistic contribution at the Cairo International Film Festival 2008.

The Indian cook Raja (Vijay Raaz) meets Sonja (Lavinia Wilson) in the grocery store and at first sight he falls down on his knees and starts his hilarious singing and dancing for Sonja. From there, Raja knows in his heart that this is the woman he wants, and he leaves the Bollywood production where he is the cook and is looking for Sonja. He finds her working as a waitress at a Swiss restaurant, and after Sofia’s fiancé Markus, who is the owner of the restaurant have tried one of Raja’s dishes, he hire Raja as the chef cook. From here there is a lot of singing and dancing, and we follow Sofia’s estranged/split feelings, about her self-centred fiancé Markus and the warm, romantic Indian cook.

This film has everything an entertaining film should include; love, happy songs and a lot of funny dance numbers. Even if the plot isn’t new, I still think that the idea was original – with all the hilarious lyrics and dance numbers. The music and the songs are entertaining and Vijay Raaz (Raja) makes a great contribution to this film as the not so much handsome guy, but as a guy who makes it up by his natural charm. This film is not only about love, but also a meeting between two different cultures and how they slowly get to know each other – and how Raja slowly gets more comfortable in the foreign environment. It’s an uplifting film and made me want to jump into the film and dance to the Bollywood/Indian music.