Word: backdrop
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Against the backdrop of Vietnam's struggle to win independence from the French, Regis Wargnier's 1993 film Indochine presents a personal drama wrought with all the elements of a true epic: a mother's love, a daughter's betrayal, and the war that tears them apart. The symbolism in Wargnier's film is almost too obvious. Isabelle, a French plantation owner played by Catherine Deneuve is thwarted by her adopted Vietnamese daughter, who leaves her to find true love (incidentally, Isabelle's former lover) and join the Communist resistance movement...
...convincing invocation of Tom Waits circa his "Rain Dogs" album, albeit with a Welsh twang in tow. Yet overall the album causes a disconcerting flush and distress at its inconsistency. Matthews' voice is too good for mere pop. Catatonia's instrumentation is too catchy to act solely as backdrop. Theirs is a hard line to walk. B -Teri Wang...
Nuclear weapons and the danger of renewed hostilities with Pakistan may have been the most pressing of President Clinton's concerns on his India trip, but they were never going to be the issues on which he made substantial progress. Against the backdrop of a massacre of some 40 civilians in Kashmir by suspected Pakistan-backed Islamic militants, India's Prime Minster Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Clinton held talks in New Delhi and pretty much agreed to disagree on matters nuclear, even as they vowed to strengthen their relationship and hold regular summits. Vajpayee reiterated India's policy...
...equipment and began filming Baby Einstein in their basement. "It took forever," she recalls. "It was all done at night, after my husband came home from work and Aspen went to bed." The award-winning video features images and toys favored by her 1 1/2-year-old daughter, with an audio backdrop of songs and nursery rhymes spoken by mothers in seven different languages. Aigner-Clark hired the women from a nearby language school and instructed them to speak in "motherese," the universal, high-pitched tone that many mothers use when talking to their children...
...about rich young professionals in nuclear-age Pakistan. The year is 1998, and Pakistan is testing its nuclear arsenal and beating its chest in India's general direction. India reciprocates with bomb test-runs of its own and with diplomatic sneers. The bomb is the menacing and distracting backdrop for all the personal problems the twentysomething characters of Moth Smoke have to face. ("Nothing like nuclear escalation," says one character, "to help you forget your problems.") The children of soldiers and entrepreneurs, they struggle with politics, as well as with the usual generational issues: finding a place in their fathers...