Fish and Chips

A bitter-sweet comedy with some moments of truly stark drama, this is a high-class movie. Yes, there are randy dogs and fat, ugly girls - but the piece is a class act because it mixes those "laugh-out-loud funny" comic set pieces with great drama so cleverly.

Very much a period piece, the movie is set in Salford in 1971 - a telling time for a part-Pakistani family with Enoch Powell's shadow never too far away and the break-away of East Pakistan (Bangladesh-to-be)unravelling as the film goes on. The poverty of 1971 Salford with the outside toilet, bedpans and tin bath is excellently portrayed. And at a more mundane level, the constant sight of a bright orange space-hopper and its comedic demise is truly nostalgic, especially to this reviewer whose own space-hopper suffered a similar fate around 1971.

Superb acting performances all round - Linda Bassett used to be one of the better-kept secrets on the UK stage, but now I suppose the secret is out. Highly recommended movie.

„East is East" is a refreshing inventive family story. Directly the first scene where two different religions and also two opposing views of life (namely the children's and the view of their conservative father) clash together. With the funny way of telling which is typical for the whole film, nevertheless the problems are shown in their graveness. The cast represents every member of this Pakistani family as an individual but the good relations between the siblings and their mother is shown as realistic as the problematic relation between them and their incorrigible father. The viewer gets the impression of a different culture but he will recognize a lot of aspects of his own family life, too, what was aimed by the makers who brought in the personal experiences. All in all, this movie is an evening-filling enrichment for the viewer.

This film depicts ultimate realism for people who have grown up in multi racial environments. The graphic nature of the language only goes to reinforce the raw acceptance of the cultural influence of the times and area in which the film is set (70's Manchester, England). The director has captured the emotional elements the script intended perfectly. It was obviously deeply researched. The character portrayal of the dominant father is by no means stereotypical of the part, but is truly based on the difficulties encountered by the respected head of any multicultural family. His six sons and one daughter are experiencing the natural mix of eastern and western influence and putting their own spin on their existence, much to their father's dismay. The character of the mother portrays the natural ethnic blindness that should be much admired and is yet so common throughout the world. The humor is very real. Every family, if they look back on their own historical events would come to recognise the similarity of the situations encountered. The work surely ranks among the very best in regional exposure along side the likes of "Kes" etc. Well worth watching more than once

`East is East,' something of a modern day version of `Fiddler on the Roof,' explores the culture clash that occurs in the context of a half Pakistani/half British family living in early 1970's England. George Khan is a Muslim who, upon immigrating to Great Britain in 1937, married a British woman despite the fact that his first wife still lives in Pakistan. Now, twenty five years later, the still happily married couple lives in a small apartment with their daughter and six sons all of whom have been raised to honor their father's religion and traditions. Yet, like Tevye, George is suddenly confronted with the fact that, as times change and the world moves on, the younger generation will no longer abide by the archaic rituals of an ancient age. In many ways, this is the flip side of `Fiddler' in that here the reluctant marriage partners are sons and not daughters. For indeed, George's ultimate goal in life is to arrange marriages for his teenaged sons within the accepted tradition of the Muslim faith. But culture is often a force that parents try in vain to withstand and these children, raised in the far more open and liberated society of `mod' England, are not about to take such dictatorial parental control lying down.

In the script based on his play, Ayub Khan-Din provides an evenhanded and comprehensive view of the situation. George is not presented to us as an inflexible or unreasonable ogre, yet at the same time, he will, in his frustration, strike out even physically at the children and the wife who seem to oppose him. We sense the fear that runs through him that, if his sons are allowed to exercise their freedom in this one crucial area, the family will sever that connection with the past which brings stability to their lives. Thus, without any traditions to anchor them, George dreads that he and the family will be cut adrift in a seemingly rudderless world that suddenly seems in the 1970's to be in such great and terrifying moral flux. Moreover, we are left to ponder the strange contradiction between George's own words and the choices he himself has made. After all, his opting to marry a British woman who does not share the tenets of his faith obviously went beyond the bounds of the very traditions he is now so dogmatically insisting his sons uphold. This type of ambiguity within the characters enhances their credibility, for indeed life and the people we meet therein come replete with such maddening inconsistencies.

Khan-Din and director Damien O'Donnell establish an effective balance between low-key humor and occasionally searing drama. The relationship between the husband and wife who comprise this interracial marriage is complexly realized and fully drawn; the obvious difficulties the two have experienced as a result of the nonconformity of their union has obviously strengthened their devotion to one another and they appear to greatly enjoy each other's company. She has undoubtedly made any number of concessions and compromises to her husband's belief system, yet she has retained her British feistiness and knows how far to let George go before she draws the line, especially when it comes to protecting the rights and happiness of her own progeny. In a similar way, we see, in thorough detail, the complexities that make up the two very different sets of relationships between the respective parents and their children. Din and O'Donnell have, wisely, chosen to limit the scope of their film by downplaying the broader theme of how a suspicious and prejudiced society deals with so unconventional a marriage and family. We see only bits and pieces of this in the form of bigoted comments uttered by a disapproving neighbor and a mere mention of a political rally intended to rouse the populace on the issue of `repatriation.' Instead, the authors concentrate almost exclusively on the internecine struggles taking place within this one family. This helps to keep the scale of the film life-sized, thus enhancing our identification with the characters and their universal parent/child conflicts. For, in a way, the Khan family is really not undergoing any crisis not already familiar to countless families the world over, as parents cope with children eager to cut the filial chords and establish life on their own terms and as children, likewise, deal with parents who want to determine the course those lives will take. The Khans just happen to provide a more heightened and intensified view of this subject.

`East is East' is a small movie but an absorbing one. Thanks to uniformly excellent performances from a gifted cast and a careful modulation between humor and drama, the film emerges as a compelling and insightful glimpse into a life that is, as for all of us, so full of both terrifying and wonderful complexity.

East is East is a good example of British comedy drama. Set in the north of England in the 1970's it is the story of an mixed race Asian family living in a mainly white community. However the film doesn't really tackle the conflict between the races but rather the conflict within the family itself - both the clash of the cultures between the white mother and Asian father, and the children resisting the traditional culture of their father.

The film rises easily above TV sitcom/drama to be of film standard in every sense. The director captures the size of the house and the community well. The acting is good - especially Om Puri as the father. The film builds the picture of an eastern family mixing with the western culture well - with comedy scenes used as well as more dramatic scenes used to show this.

If you enjoy this style of domestic humour, you'll love this (especially the scenes where the family are all together - check out the youngest who is a very British indeed and reminds me of Kenny from South Park!). But don't be fooled into thinking that this is a crude toilet-humour style comedy (like the marketing suggests) it is much more than that. Also if you have a father who wanted his children to be raised a specific way (not necessarily Asian) then you'll get much of the drama between father and children.

My only problem with this is that the characters sometimes seem to be caricatures, and the plotting is sometimes a bit ropey with so many things to fit in.

Is it realistic of the experience of british Muslims at the time? Probably not but it's funny, moving and thought-provoking in equal measure.