[This is another retrospective of a film which had limited theatrical release and is just now becoming available on videocassette. Also, the director, Stephen Frears, has just released another film, PRICK UP YOUR EARS. -ecl]
MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1986 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: A serious plot rife with unexpected twists combines with some nice comic touches to make this film about a Pakistani family a memorable one. This film portrays some Pakistanis as having faults, hence it is the center of controversy, but it probably gives a realistic picture of what one extended family in London's Pakistani community might be like.
One of the most controversial films of 1986 is an apparently minor film that in this country is playing almost exclusively in art houses. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE was made for England's Channel 4. Pakistanis are picketing the theaters that show the film, claiming that it portrays an unfair portrait of their countrymen. What is it they do not like about the film?
Well, MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE is a comedy/drama about a young Pakistani who is caring for his ailing father and who goes to work for his uncle, Saeed Jaffrey. The uncle, the family patriarch, has the boy washing cars, but then asks him to manage a run-down launderette. The boy instead offers to rent the launderette and run it for his own profit. From there the plot gets pretty complicated. If it doesn't sound like an AIRPLANE!-style comedy, you are right. This is actually a fairly serious film with a wide variety of comic touches salted in. The film at once entertains and gives some insight into the structure and politics of Pakistani families and into the problems they face.
I cannot say for sure if it was done intentionally, but the photography seems often to use three planes of action. Something will be happening in the foreground, midground, and background of a scene. The director orchestrates the three planes so your attention will be on one plane of action and you will realize a piece of humor or a plot complication is simultaneously being introduced on one of the other two planes.
There are few familiar faces in the film. Saeed Jaffrey is best known for the role of Billy Fish in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING. Another actor is familiar for having played Nehru in GANDHI. Beyond those two the cast is unfamiliar but good.
So why the controversy over this film? I think it is not because it misrepresents Pakistanis but because they are not represented as angelic. After a long time of mainstream American cinema using blacks only as buffoons, there was a period in which they could only appear in films as being nearly perfect. These were films like A PATCH OF BLUE and LILLIES OF THE FIELD. Even now it is unusual for filmmakers to show a realistic spectrum of blacks: some good, some bad. MY BEAUTIFUL LAUNDERETTE is the first major film to show much of the Pakistani community. Some Pakistanis appear in a favorable light, some in a much less favorable light. I think as long as the viewer realizes that the people in this film do not represent traits of a whole nationality of people any more than the characters in RUTHLESS PEOPLE or PSYCHO III do, the film will promote rather than destroy understanding of Pakistani immigrants. Rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper
mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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