Brick Lane - the movie. A short review.
09/09/07 21:08 Filed in: Miscellaneous
My wife and I had tickets for the world premiere of
Brick Lane yesterday. The
premiere was part part of the Toronto Film
Festival and as I had liked
the book very much I was keen to see what the
movie had to offer. During my time in London I had
lived very close to Brick Lane. I know my way around
the area and I am reasonably familiar with the lives
of the Bangladeshi community who lives there.
I left the cinema somewhat disappointed. The thing I liked most about Monica Ali's book was that it managed to paint such a vivid picture of Brick Lane. The smells, the music, the hustle and bustle of Banglatown, as that area of London is also known as, jump off the page. Nazeen, the heroine, is alive in Ali's book. Her being married off at age 17 to a man she has never met, a man who lives in London - a city half way across the world from her native Bangladesh - is one of the most heartbreaking stories you can ever read. The movie skims these issues. There are too many scenes of wistful window gazing, too many flashbacks of Nazeem and her sister playing catch as children and not enough reality, not enough grit, not enough down and not nearly enough dirty. The comedian Eddie Izzard has a wonderful sketch parodying the difficulty UK films have with portraying emotions and Brick Lane too suffers from that very British disease.
Nazeem's initial suffering and her consequent growth into independence and freedom are pleasantly, at times beautifully, shot but ultimately a wonderful story is blandly told. Nazeem's sister, who is of such importance to Nazeem's development in the book, is reduced to writer of letters from faraway Bangladesh. Had I not read the book I would have had serious problems to understand what her significance was. Her failure to live an independent life in a society that treats a woman as the possession of her husband and her consequent slipping into prostitution is barely touched upon and when it finally becomes clear what is happening it comes as a total surprise for the audience.
So was it worth it? If you haven't read the book before seeing the movie then be prepared for a whole new depth of storytelling when you do read it. If you've read the book already, like I had, I suspect that you'll leave the cinema feeling slightly empty.
I left the cinema somewhat disappointed. The thing I liked most about Monica Ali's book was that it managed to paint such a vivid picture of Brick Lane. The smells, the music, the hustle and bustle of Banglatown, as that area of London is also known as, jump off the page. Nazeen, the heroine, is alive in Ali's book. Her being married off at age 17 to a man she has never met, a man who lives in London - a city half way across the world from her native Bangladesh - is one of the most heartbreaking stories you can ever read. The movie skims these issues. There are too many scenes of wistful window gazing, too many flashbacks of Nazeem and her sister playing catch as children and not enough reality, not enough grit, not enough down and not nearly enough dirty. The comedian Eddie Izzard has a wonderful sketch parodying the difficulty UK films have with portraying emotions and Brick Lane too suffers from that very British disease.
Nazeem's initial suffering and her consequent growth into independence and freedom are pleasantly, at times beautifully, shot but ultimately a wonderful story is blandly told. Nazeem's sister, who is of such importance to Nazeem's development in the book, is reduced to writer of letters from faraway Bangladesh. Had I not read the book I would have had serious problems to understand what her significance was. Her failure to live an independent life in a society that treats a woman as the possession of her husband and her consequent slipping into prostitution is barely touched upon and when it finally becomes clear what is happening it comes as a total surprise for the audience.
So was it worth it? If you haven't read the book before seeing the movie then be prepared for a whole new depth of storytelling when you do read it. If you've read the book already, like I had, I suspect that you'll leave the cinema feeling slightly empty.
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