Brick Lane

Sarah Gavron's Brick Lane overtly and covertly deconstructs the age old tradition/progression dialectic in a multidimensional manner. The story begins in a small Bangladeshi village where Nazneen (Tannishtha Chatterjee) prepares to travel to London's Brick Lane (also known as "Banglatown") and marry her arranged husband, Chanu Ahmed (Satish Kaushik). Nazneen's incomparable beauty is matched by her bucolic charm and her traditional devotion is eventually challenged by fiery young delivery boy Kirim (Christopher Simpson), who, after 9/11, becomes tired of the resultant bigotry, and believes the solution to Bangladeshi segregation is militaristic. The older and wiser Chanu understands the folly of his ways, or the inevitable beastly consequences of militant communal activism, having lived in Pakistan during a revolution where 3 million Muslims died, Muslims killing Muslims in order to valorize Islam (Catholics killing Protestants in order to valorize Ireland, . . .). Chanu's life is difficult: he devoutly upholds the principles of his faith and acts according to its tenants. He firmly believes that an educated man should find work, will be able to find work, and thereafter, support his family. However, after quitting his job due to the fact that another was promoted when he felt that he deserved the esteem, he cannot find another.

On the surface, it appears as if Brick Lane is predominantly concerned with chronicling Nazneen's staggering transition, however, her adjustments are matched by those of Chanu as he tries to coordinate his lifestyle into an alien frame. In the beginning, it seems as if Chanu is being set up as the same old 'traditional male' who brutalizes the female members of his family as they seek freedom from servitude. But this isn't the case. Certainly, he enjoys all the privileges of having a docile, supple wife who takes care of his home, children, and has his meals ready upon his return home. This is how he was brought up to believe things should naturally be. But as his search for work becomes desperate, and his oldest daughter's petulant cheek more derisive, he doesn't take to drink or brutality; when he discovers his wife is having an affair, he doesn't react violently; when presented with an opportunity to join an organization which seeks 'justice' against the racist components of the system within which he can't find work, he criticizes them and will not sign-up; when his wife decides to remain in Brick Lane rather than move to Bangladesh with him, he breaks down, shedding tears that his code no doubt forbids him to expel; and he leaves without his family, a firm, solid Man, because, even though he has lost everything, his faith has remained in tact, and continues to provide his constitution with tranquil resolutions, through which he radiates peace (whose example provides a stoic representation of a strong religious individual who finds solace through faith). As the currents of Nazneen's affair flow more recklessly, he wisely tells her that "the thing about getting older, is you don't need everything to be possible anymore, you just need some things to be certain." This statement firmly establishes the ways in which his imaginary world has been destabilized by his culture's symbolism, in order to force him to accept its reality. Concurrently, when his daughter (Naeema Begum) ridicules their poverty, he poignantly reminds her, that outside their brick walls, her spoilt attitude will find no quarter.

Nazneen's life is difficult as well, torn between youthful passion and wizened old age, forced to mitigate her appetites. After she arrives in London, her banal existence is balanced by childhood memories of the village where she grew up (and wishes she had never left). Hence, even though part of her desires to stay with her husband, she remains in London, thereby ensuring that her daughters will not suffer as they mature from an equivalent sense of loss.

Brick Lane is a powerful film with a poignant message that liberally revitalizes the vibrant strength maintained by right of centre progressive conservatives. Moving to another country in order to cultivate a life certainly isn't easy, and Gavron's film gracefully portrays the perennial hardships associated with youth and age, the feminine and the masculine, the domestic and the foreign, the present and the future.