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EAST
IS EAST
When two worlds collide...
“East
is East, and West is West, and the never the twain shall meet” -
thus goes the proverb. But not always does this hold true. Like in the
case of producer Leslee Udwin’s East Is East. The film marks the
coming together of some of the best creative talents from the East and
West. Om Puri plays the lead role in this sensitively directed tragi-comedy
by Damien O’ Donnell, based on writer Ayub Khan-Din’s play by
the same name...
After its debut as a Director’s Fortnight selection at the 1999
Cannes Film Festival, East Is East went on to become a phenomenal smash
hit in the UK, and in other countries around the world. It was nominated
for six BAFTA Awards, including Best Picture, competing against American
Beauty, End Of The Affair, The Sixth Sense, and The Talented Mr. Ripley,
and won the award for the Most Outstanding film. It also won the Best
British Film award given by the Evening Standard and the London Film Critics
Circle. The film wowed all with its ensemble of fresh, colourful characters,
its visual verve, and its rollicking, edgy, no-holds-barred sense of humour.
Hailed as a refreshing film with universal appeal, you get to see the
story of the Khans here, a mixed-race family of seven young, swinging-70s
Brits, whose lifestyles clash with their Pakistani father’s plans
for them. Caught between disco-nights and arranged marriages, between
bell-bottoms and saris, the young Khans just want to be citizens of the
modern world. Tariq (Jimi Mistry) and his younger brother Abdul (Raji
James) are teenagers at an impressionable age. They live in Salford, Manchester,
in a family with seven children headed by father George Khan (Om Puri).
George had migrated to England from Pakistan only with his luggage, married
an Englishwoman, Ella (Linda Bassett), and now owns a fish-n-chips shop.
He is determined to give his children a traditional Muslim upbringing,
but their quest for the good life becomes one big game of dodge-ball,
cleverly and humorously avoiding their father’s restrictions at every
turn.
While Tariq and Abdul enjoy their life as rebels, they find that their
father has decided on their life-partners without their consent. The boys
launch a full-scale rebellion. When George tries to put his foot down,
his wife Ella gets caught in the middle of a the battle of two generations,
torn between loyalty towards her husband and empathy towards her kid’s
desires to run their own life.
A slice of Khan-Din’s life
According to screenwriter Ayub Khan-Din East Is East is semi-autobiographical.
He describes it as a story about the bedlam of large families, and the
spirit of rebellion that infects all young men and women coming of age
in the modern world. “The parents in the film are drawn directly
from my parents, and what you see in the film is more or less my family,”
admits Khan-Din who created the Khans as a way of coming to terms with
his own past.
Continues Khan-Din, “My father’s generation was an immigrant
one. They had to fit into an alien environment. So he kept holding up
this thing in front of us and saying ‘This is what you should be’,
but of course, we weren’t that at all. He thought he was doing it
for our own good, and he could, at times, be very endearing.”
The big irony being that the spark of rebelliousness came from the father.
Notes the writer, “He’d done basically the same thing we wanted
to do. He abandoned his culture by coming to settle in England.”
Khan-Din points out that the story was very much intended to capture the
memories of the fun he had in 70s Britain. When producer Leslee Udwin
saw Ayub Khan-Din’s hit play, she fell head-over-heels in love with
it and was keen to bring it to the screen. She felt that the story had
a generosity of spirit that would speak to audiences, not just in England,
but around the world. “If I had to sum up where the heart of East
Is East resides, I’d say it is a plea to parents that the most unique
gift you can give to a child is the freedom to be different,” comments
Udwin.
Jumping into unknown territory
Both Udwin and Khan-Din decided upon first-time feature director Damien
O’Donnell (neither a Pakistani nor an Englishman, but an Irishman)
to tackle this high-energy comedy. Khan-Din had seen O’Donnell’s
short film 35 Aside,and was impressed by the director’s quirky vision
and unusual sense of humour. On his part, O’Donnell was intrigued
by the chance to enter a world entirely outside his own experience, yet
one that seemed rife with comic potential and tender family moments. “Although
I loved the script, I had my doubts initially about whether I was the
right person to direct it, having no links with Pakistani culture,”
O’Donnell admits, “Then I realised it was a film dealing with
an immigrant’s experience, about moving across the world and coming
up against different ways. I was struck by how widespread an experience
this was, how pertinent today, when so many people are forced to move
to find a better life. It was then that I understood that it wasn’t
a film about Pakistanis in England, it was a film about family tradition
versus progress, about the values of the old versus those of the young
— themes everyone can relate to — so I said I’d give it
a go!”
O’Donnell wanted to get his facts right so he consulted a Muslim
adviser. “It was important to me to be authentic, and I didn’t
want to take liberties with another culture,” he explains, “Where
my real input came was in offering a fresh eye and creative ideas about
bringing out the humour.”
The director had particularly strong ideas about the how the film should
look and feel using broad comic strokes, visual humour and a furious pace.
He also knew that he wanted a kind of a fresh, naturalistic style that
feels very contemporary. “The 70s setting allows you to have more
fun,” says O’Donnell, “but the issues at hand are very
much of the moment, and I wanted it to feel very immediate.”
Casting the comic Khans
O’Donnell knew that the success of the film would depend majorly
on his cast, and so he sought out a group of funny and compelling new
faces from England’s burgeoning Asian community. To cast the young
Khans, the filmmakers searched for a group of young actors who not only
could handle the film’s “on-the-edge comedy”, but who actually
resembled a single family. Notes Udwin, “Jimi, Chris, Ian, Emil,
Raji, Jordan and Archie (playing the seven Khan children) were not only
extraordinary comedians, but they also could believably have come from
the same womb. On the set, they seemed as if they had known each other
all their lives.” The young actors even found themselves addressing
Om Puri and Linda Bassett, the actors playing their parents, as Mum and
Dad.
OM PURI was the filmmakers’ first choice for the funny and fearsome
role of patriarch George Khan. “Without question, Om Puri is one
of the most respected and talented screen actors around,” producer
Udwin explains, “He had all the many conflicting qualities of George.
Most importantly, he brings a vulnerability and charm to George that just
won’t allow you to hate him, and the audience reaction to the character
becomes much more complex because of Om’s performance.”
Puri, on his part, found it interesting to play a character he calls “at
once monstrously authoritarian and gently comic.” Says he, “George
is not a man who can accept ideas and concepts that are alien to his upbringing.
When his children grow up and start to disobey him, he feels humiliated
and bewildered and lashes out. Yet George is also a bit of an innocent.
When he buys the barber’s chair, he is really, truly proud of this
thing of beauty, and when he flirts with Ella you can see that there is
another, lovely side to him.” Most of all, Puri was excited by the
distinctly original script. “What I love about it is that there are
dramatic moments as well as many extremely funny ones, and that they mix
perfectly,” notes the actor.
British actress LINDA BASSETT was chosen to play the family’s matriarch,
an Englishwoman Ella. She presides over her family with maternal pride
and a sharp tongue, a mixture brought to the fore by Bassett. Says the
actress of her character, “She loves her husband but she has an iron
belief in freedom, fairness and family. Ella is fiercely protective of
her kids and, like any woman trying to circumvent her husband, she has
developed a real cunning.”
For the actors who play the rest of the young Khan family members, the
filmmakers zeroed in on those who hail from mixed-race British families,
not unlike the Khans. JIMI MISTRY plays Tariq, who prefers to be known
as the cosmopolitan ‘Tony’ when he’s out night-clubbing.
He’s a rebel in search of an identity like all mixed-race kids.
Besides Tariq, the other out-and-out rebel of the Khan family is Saleem,
played by CHRIS BISSON, star of the longest running British series, Coronation
Street. Referred to in the British press as the “John Lennon of the
East Is East group,” Bisson says of Saleem, “He’s a bit
different from the others in his family. He has a more relaxed attitude
about his Dad because he knows that school is going to allow him to escape.
He’s the one who can get away with anything!”
ARCHIE PANJABI plays the Khan family’s only daughter, the tomboy
Meenah, who is every bit as rebellious, tough and funny as her brothers.
Panjabi loved Meenah’s go-for-it-with-gusto attitude. Says the actress,
“She just really likes making trouble and because her father is more
focussed on the older sons, she can get away with being loud and playing
soccer!”
As opposed to Tariq and Saleem is the shy but curious Abdul, played by
RAJI JAMES, who makes his feature debut with the film.
EMIL MARWA plays Maneer, the only son interested in his dad’s ideals
and traditions. He submerged himself in Islamic culture to understand
why Maneer chooses the path that he does. “I did a lot of research
and even went to mosque a number of times,” he states, “I felt
that Maneer must have found a certain clarity and certainty in following
a more traditional path. He makes his role being the Daddy’s boy
in the family - but when it comes to sticking up for his disco-dancing
brothers, he’s absolutely there.”
For the filmmakers, one of the most difficult roles to cast was that of
the youngest Khan, parka-clad, perpetually put-upon Sajid, who has to
sacrifice something a bit more personal than his freedom to please his
dad. The filmmakers auditioned more than 400 Pakistani-British boys looking
for the right face, and finally found it in 12 year-old JORDAN ROUTLEDGE,
who demonstrated both a touching empathy and natural flair for offbeat
comedy. Producer Udwin was astounded by his “mature personality and
sensitivity.” Jordan, on his part, found Sajid “a bit weird.”
Says he, “I think Sajid is just a bit confused by everything and
that’s why he always wears his parka. It hides him pretty well.”
The Khan’s eldest son, Nazir, who runs away from home, is played
by IAN ASPINALL, another actor making his debut in the film. Aspinall
enjoyed working in the film which he says “is not afraid to cross
all the barriers - it goes to the edge in humour, drama and subject matter.”
That’s the apt summing up for the landmark film East Is East which
has been unanimously praised by critics worldwide.
Salma Khatib
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