EAST IS EAST
Reviewed by Harvey Karten Miramax Pictures Director: Damien O'Donnell Writer: Ayub Khan-Din (play as well) Cast: Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jordan Routledge, Archie Panjabi, Emil Marwa, Chris Bisson, Jimi Mistry, Raji James Ian Aspinall, Lesley Nicol, Gary Damer, John Bardon, Emma Rydal, Ruth Jones
When Bob Dylan sang "The Times They are a-Changing'" some thirty years ago, not even he may have envisioned just how much the world would transform itself by the turn of the century. The Iron Curtain is long gone, Vietnam and China are edging toward prosperity, and even North Korea has opened up serious negotiations with Japan, Australia and the United States. We're living in what NY Times journalist Thomas P. Friedman calls the Global Society, a momentous event that has impacted cultures in virtually every corner of the planet. As though to preface this great transfiguration, small rebellions have been taking place in the families of traditional cultures--the sons and daughters reacting against the hidebound customs and cultures of their parents when these practices have limited their freedom. In Irish director Damien O'Donnell's first feature, "East is East," adapted from a staged play by Ayub Khan-Din, an Anglo-Pakistani family living during the 1970s in the Manchester suburb of Salford is a hotbed of insurrection. The seven lively children of Pakistani expatriate George Khan (Om Puri) and his English wife Ella (Linda Bassett) are for the most part rejecting every aspect of the culture to which their father clings while embracing everything English from fish-and-chips to hot dogs and ham to the local bimbos (who reject their own parents' narrow-mindedness and embrace the young Khans).
"East is East," which garnered awards in Britain such as "Best British Film of the Yea"r from the London Film Critics and from the Evening Standard and was nominated for six BAFTA Awards including Best Picture, is alternately riotous and dramatic in the best tradition of the genre and features one of India's great performers, Om Puri, in the role of the stressed-out father. The subject of rebellion against the culture of parents is hardly a new one in the movies. Who can forget poor Tevye in Norman Jewison's 1971 adaptation of Joseph Stein's musical "Fiddler on the Roof" as a man trying preserve his family's Jewish heritage against growing odds? Just recently, Soori Taraporevala adapted Rohinton Mistry's book "Such a Long Journey" about a quiet, decent man, Gustad Noble, who is angered that his son is disobeying orders to go to engineering school. What stands out in all three stories is the depth of characterization: the keeper of the legacy is not portrayed as an entirely unsympathetic character, though the audience is coaxed to root for the new. Each in his own way has good reason to opt for the antique ways in view of the seemingly anarchic changes that the modern world is creating. The urge to preserve ancient cultures that have withstood the test of time is understandable.
George Khan, for example, is under a strain. In his Manchester suburb of 1971, war is being pursued by his native Pakistan against India over possession of Kashmir. The crypto-fascist politician, Enoch Powell, is gaining some support among the British people for his ideas of racial purity and his suggested policy of repatriating all immigrants. And all but one or two of his seven children have assimilated into English society, making friends with English neighbors--most of whom display no anti-immigrant feeling. While Maneer (Emil Marwa) is the only obviously religious member of the Khan children and Abdul (Raji James), is the typical good-boy who always wears a suit, Saleem (Chris Bisson) attends art school while feigning residence at an engineering academy; Meenah (Archie Panjabi), who is the only girl in the family, eagerly plays soccer with the fellows on the street; Tariq is the classic rebel disgusted with his father's backward-looking presumptions; and Sajid (Jordan Routledge) is the source of much of the picture's comedy as a 12-year-old boy who forever wears a parka despite the October heat and who is belatedly dragged to a doctor to be circumcised.
When George's eldest son (Ian Aspinall) bolts from an arranged wedding minutes before he is to take vows with the woman he has just seen for the first time, George cracks down on the others, determined to impose Pakistani culture on his Anglo-Pakistani children. George's English wife for the past twenty-five years, Ella (Linda Bassett), is of two minds: she wants her children to go their own way while determined to have them respect George properly despite their differences. The various small incidents involving the playing off of the father against each of his children and ultimately committing an act of violence against this wife is climaxed in a wonderful payoff scene involving a meeting between the Khans and the family with whom George has arranged a marriage for two of his children. As uncomfortable and insincere smiles give way to outright animosity, George Khan is slowly led to an understanding that his children's world is not the same as his own.
Director O'Donnell crams in a great deal of comedy by displaying the outdoor scenes involving the seductive machinations of two local English girls toward the Khan children and by ironically showing a small, bespectacled red- haired kid distributing literature for Enoch Powell while happily shouting "Salaam Aleikem" to George Khan and playing happily with the Khans' youngest kid.
The only aspect difficult to understand is that George would ever marry a local woman, his children making the obvious point that their embrace of the English culture is in no way more daring that of their own dad. The ensemble acting is splendidly natural with Om Puri's charisma capturing the attention of the audience, while Brian Tufano's camera effectively illustrates the dismal banality of working-class Manchester streets.
Rated R. Running Time: 96 minutes. (C) 2000 Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
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